Does anyone else feel like they’re stuck in the past?

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I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and I’m wondering if anyone else can relate. I sometimes feel like my mindset never really moved on from when I was around 18. I know I’m probably smarter and more mature now, but a part of me still feels like I’m mentally stunted. I’m in my 30’s now so this isn’t great.

I think my autism might have something to do with it. I get really attached to routines, places, and media from back then, and I guess it just kind of anchors me.

I’ve tried talking to therapists about it, but it’s hard for them to understand where I’m coming from. It’s more than nostalgia, it’s like being mentally stuck there.

Does anyone else feel like this? How do you deal with it?

I have a strong autobiographical memory, which can have really good things about it, for example being able to put memories together and write a non-fiction story about it. It feels like a savant skill, even though I'm not bright.

BUT it has its downsides too. Not only does my brain remember all the good stuff in my past, it also remembers all the bad stuff too. So it's a bit harder to "just get over" traumatic things from my past when I remember so much and most of my memory is taken up with thousands of images from my past, good and bad.

When I was a kid and teenager I always lived in the present, but now I kinda live in the past while fretting about the future, and not enjoying the present. I think because when you get to our age the past and the future often shape the present, so it's responsible to think about the future and it's quite normal to have gathered a lot of memories from the past that you hang on to. But it's just so difficult to let go of some of the stuff that happened in the past, and sometimes I dwell on it so much that it makes me depressed.

"Stop getting angry about the past, it won't change it" is like saying "stop crying for your dead loved one, it won't bring them back".

Yes, unfortunately. I am and always was very, veeeery attached to the status quo - in other words, when for example I was used to some situation I was in for a long time (especially if said status quo was the first one I had to do with in my life), even after many, many years I imagine the same situation still concerns me although it isn't this case.

For example, as a child, I was very, veeery sickly and even now, though I don't have this sort of health problems any more (the last time when I got a cold was 9 years ago), I still do tend to think about myself as about a person who should be very careful in winter because I often get a cold - which isn't true about me at all as of now. I also used to suffer from the irritable bowel syndrome for many years ever since I was 27, but now, as I take meds for it, I don't deal with this health problem any more. Nevertheless, I still do tend to think about myself as about a person with gastrointestinal issues though I don't have those any more for years.

I also still like things from the time of my early youth, when I was in the late grades of my elementary school (one graduates from it at 15 in Poland) - like the books I loved reading back then and so on. I still naively imagine things that were fashionable back then are still fashionable now after one quarter of the century that has passed since that time and I still imagine that famous people who were young back then, are practically at the same age now - or at least, I should say, I still see them as quite young people even though they are mature aged now. Like Britney Spears, the Backstreet Boys band's members etc. And I still imagine they are famous now even after all those years that have passed, although in all honesty, their names probably don't say much to the members of the youngest generation.

When my cousins slowly started to reach their teenagehood, I still saw the as children whom they used to be merely a couple of years earlier - I just couldn't imagine them as young people who were like 14-15 then (so closer to adulthood than to childhood) and not 8-9 like before - it was because I saw then as kids for many years so it was difficult to me to suddenly start to see the as teenagers. Anyway, when it comes to myself in this respect, it wasn't earlier than when I was 17 when I started to see myself as a young girl, an adolescent girl and not a kid - that's because I was so used to see myself as a child because I started my life as a child and not an adolescent so I was stuck with the mental image of myself as a child for all those years.

I live in the dark

I struggle to see the past (although there are flashes) and I hate to plan for the future so that's what I mean by "the dark"

It's trauma related

I don't know how to answer this question. Sorry

I live in the past because I see no future for me.

I think a lot of us feel that “stuck in time” feeling in different ways, neurodivergent or not. For me I tend to be super anchored to certain routines or media from my late teens/early 20s — it’s like my brain bookmarked that period and never fully updated.

I don’t think it means you’re stunted, though. It might just be how your brain finds comfort and stability. The world changes so fast, and sometimes clinging to a familiar time gives us a sense of grounding. It also seems like it's easy to not realize how much we've changed over the years until we really examine the small details of our lives/personalities.

A lot, I have flashbacks a lot to stupid stuff from the past and can't seem to stop thinking about it

A lot of people are stuck in the past. It's called "nostalgia", but it's really because everyone is terrified of the present and future.

Of course, the past wasn't always good either, but ever since the 21st Century the world has gotten worse and worse, humans have become morons, and what we have left that makes us choose to go on living could be taken away from us at any second now because humans can't live in peaceful coexistence. I'm in my 50s now so I have more complicated things to be terrified of, like my older family members dying, menopause symptoms, and losing my independence.

If I am reborn, I hope I will be in a better world. But I doubt it.

I'm very much into nostalgia as an interest, so it's even harder for me to forget the past and move on, like so many people tell me to do. It's just not that easy. The past is what makes us who we are today.

I do a thing where I make consciously make check points when I'm having a rough time. So in the future I can look back at my previous rough times, remember my cognitive state from then, and empathize. Maybe even send little messages from young me to current me that way. It all ends up in my long term memory..

Sometimes when I have the room all to myself and it is quiet, I reminisce about certain memories of my past to the point that I escape into them. One such memory was after a little league baseball game (I stunk at baseball, but may father had been a professional baseball player in the Pirates organization, so I felt like I was supposed to play), and as my dad drove us home, the song "Afternoon Delight" played on the radio. Rather than go straight home, he took me to our local dairy bar and I got a wonder chocolate milk shake.

Oh my, now I'm getting nostalgic and a little teary eyed just thinking about how magical it was.

I remember waking up on summer mornings and hearing my mother's radio playing on the patio in the backyard as she suntanned in her lounger. I would go out and she would have my little plastic pool filled with water for me to play in. My dog would be out back to greet me. I would get in my swim trunks and splash in the water, and then when I got out, Mom would have a a big quilt thrown over a card table on the patio for me to go cozy up inside. I recall the warm sunlight filtering through the quilt and warming my wet skin. It was paradise.

Before I turned 30 I felt stuck at 14-15.
If not 14-15, then 8-10.

Yes, it's more than just nostalgia.
It can be trauma and stuck emotions, it could be flashback and subconscious loops, it could be developmental lag and outdated beliefs dependence, it could very much be attachment and familiar nostalgic comfort indeed.


When I turned 30; there's already a lot of inner work done, and a systematic overhaul.

Made me feel ageless inside.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

Oh yes. I don't have the energy of a teenager but I still live like one. Still at the house with my books and my music. I still have my youthful idealistic view of the world and of current affairs. I am still obsessed with Kurt Cobain and Richey Edwards.

My neighbourhood friends left for university aged 18 and when they returned they'd forgotten about me. Now they are grown adults with families of their own.

My city centre friends forgot about me when I fell off the radar and needed to become reclusive ten years ago. They were artists, activists and addicts. In some cases they were all three.

Now I have returned to WrongPlanet. I used to post here many years ago under another name

I feel like I'm living in the past. I feel as though I'm living in the Pre-Trump days. There are days when I think about what a great year 1997 was. Austin Powers, Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill. I've been thinking of the fall of 1995 when some family friends were moving up to Canada. I have to remind myself that the best years of my life are now.

Yes, I often feel this way myself. It's a tough habit to break.

After talking to a psychologist specializing in Autism, she explained that Autistic people have a particularly bad vulnerability to what they call "rumination" - going over the past again and again. Stuck in the past. Given to ruminating.

When Autistic people are treated unfairly - which happens a lot - they tend to ruminate over it a lot. They're trying to figure out how this could possibly be fair: "There was some rhyme and reason behind the unfairness, right?" "How could that have happened?" "Why?" etc, etc, etc.

This stems from their heightened sense of justice - it bothers Autistic people much more than NTs that things are supposed to be fair, dammit. But of course, the world is not really a fair place. There might be this idealistic, high-minded veneer of rule of law, and human rights, but, alas, we still live in a chimpanzee-like world where "might makes right" in many, many occasions in our lives. That "might" may be physical, psychological, economic, competitive, conspiratorial, etc.

To make matters even worse, for those unfortunate Autistic people who have been abused by Narcissists, guess what the number one expected negative outcome is, for both Autitistic and NTs alike (according to Dr. Ramani, in her book "It's Not You")? Yes, it's that same rumination! So these unfortunate victims of said abuse will likely get a double-dose of this rumination habit (as it were), should they be Autistic.