Question

I just have a question to ask, it is regarding someone I knew. This person as an adult preferred to not wear any clothes outside of work. I believe this went on for 15 or so years. The person had children but there didn't appear to be any abuse or anything.I guess it didn't appear to be a sexual thing. I was wondering if there was a psychological reason for being this way. I have read that it could be a desire to not grow up at all. This person had a difficult childhood. I was just looking for some possible opinions or thoughts, thanks.

this is actually a lifestyle many choose, not a mental disorder. here in america there are many nudist colonies/ communities, and nudest resorts / nudist beaches. programs for people that prefer to go ala nude, that cater specifically to this life style...

some people even raise their children with the mindset that theres nothing wrong with the naked body and to be free and comfortable how ever that may be and to be able to know all the parts of the bosy, whats good touch and whats bad touch ....

if you google the words nudest colony, nudest beaches, nudest communities you may be surprised that there may very well be these things in your location and surrounding areas.

I guess the reason I asked this was because one of the children is kindof exhibiting behavior like he is still a child. He is 40 and he prefers childrens movies, avoids responeabilities , and eats mostly childrens foods.He never showers , rarely cleans. I guess my theory is that they are related somehow. It's just something I think about sometimes.

as far as I know there are no mental disorders where someone suddenly reverts to childhood. even the mental disorder DID does not include someone ...suddenly... at age 40 reverting to childhood mentality...DID is a mental disorder where a person has child like alters that have been coming out all their lives. if this person had this type of alters they would have been switching into child like alters all their life not suddenly at age 40.

that said I do know of a sexual fetish that includes things like acting out child activities/acting like a child/ enjoys childrens toys, movies, ...

I also know of people who have had children do enjoy childrens movies, childrens foods and such simply because it brings happy memories of when their children were children.

my point is there are many different reasons why a 40 year old person would suddenly live the lifestyle of childhood/revert to liking child movies and the plain foods of children. who knows maybe this person just wants to do their own thing and live a less complicated life...

in the end the only person that can tell you why this 40 yr old is doing the things they are doing is this 40 year old person....my suggestion if this continues to bother you then ask them.

Just to be clear, the parent (who is now deceased) was the one with the nudist behavior. The child, who is now 40 has some child like behavioiurs It wasn't a sudden change, I believe he was always like this , sort of arrested development. My question I guess was is this possibly a result of the parents nudist activities.

I comnpletely understand about nudist colonies and people enjoying the nudist lifestyle. In fact there are a couple nudist camps near here.
You are correct in that I could ask him about it, but we are not really close. Also, I don't feel I have a problem with it, just sort of interested in why. I really respect him in most ways, its just this behavour I don't understand. He did express interest in moving in with us and possibly having me be a father figure, That was a little disturbing to me for some reason.

there is a physical health problem called down syndrome where some people are born with the birth defect of having too many chromosones but here in america this is diagnosed at birth (in which case you wouldnt be asknig about it now after this person is 40 years old.) but it does not cause a person to remain childlike all their life. they just learn at a slower rate and their physical aspects are a bit different then normal people (course whats normal in this day and age of diversity )

anyway my suggestion is unless you are this persons court appointed guardian you might want to leave the diagnosing of this person up to them and their own treatment providers. here in america those are the only ones that can figure out this problem. trying to diagnose someone through non professional means (online in mental health forum boards where most if not all the members are mentally disordered, physically challened and learning disordered can be a very dangerious thing even deadly at times if the wrong conclusion is made. no one here on psych central can tell you definitively whats going on with this 40 year old because we are not their treatment providers and this site does not allow us to make a diagnosis of other members, other members friends/family and acquaintenses.

if you are this 40 year old's guardian you can take them to a treatment provider and get professional diagnostics done.

Yes, it is probably none of my business He functions well, has a decent job otherwise. He doesn't need us to care for him . For me its just a curiousity thing to know if there is a simple reason to explain how he is and why he is that way

There are many reasons for being a nudist...I guess some sort of dissociative behavior could be one.

There were several reasons for me becoming a nudist...chronic depression being one of them. I did seek therapy and talked about it at long length with my wife...and with their support and approval I decided to continue on my nudist journey.

It actually turned out quite nicely. After a while my wife decided to join me and started going nude at home as well. We decided to start going to the nudist resort and taking our young daughter with us. We all spent much of our spare time naked around each other. And when my daughter reached puberty and started covering up, we all decided it was time to let it go.

So it's not some weird "horror story" all the time. Sometimes it works out just fine for everyone.