There is a phrase that has followed me quietly for years.

“You’re like another child to look after.”

It was never said kindly.
Sometimes it came with frustration, sometimes with resentment, sometimes disguised as concern. But every time it landed the same way; as a judgement of who I was, not an understanding of what I needed.

For a long time, I believed it.

I believed there must be something fundamentally wrong with me if adulthood felt so hard. If I needed quiet. If I needed routine. If I retreated inward when overwhelmed. If, at times, I wanted to colour, collect things, play, or cocoon myself away from the world.

It was framed as immaturity.
As refusal to grow up.
As dependence.

But that was never the truth.

What people mistook for “childishness”

What people saw was someone who:

• shut down when overstimulated

• struggled with constant demands

• needed safety more than stimulation

• regulated through familiarity and comfort

• withdrew instead of pushing through

What they called that was being childlike.

What it actually was, was an autistic nervous system trying not to collapse.

I wasn’t asking to be carried.
I wasn’t asking someone else to take over my life.
I wasn’t incapable.

I was overwhelmed.

And instead of that being met with understanding, it was met with labels.

Regulation is not regression

There is a deep misunderstanding in how we view adulthood.

We treat adulthood as a performance:

• always productive

• emotionally contained

•endlessly available

• unaffected by sensory input

• able to “just cope”

Anything outside of that script gets punished.

Rest becomes laziness.
Sensitivity becomes weakness.
Play becomes immaturity.
Boundaries become selfishness.

But regulation, especially for autistic people, does not look like constant forward motion.

Sometimes regulation looks like:

• being quiet

• repeating safe routines

• engaging with “childlike” comforts

• speaking softly

• retreating inward

• slowing everything down

That isn’t regression.

That is survival.

The harm of being mislabelled

Being told you are “another child to look after” does something subtle and lasting.

It teaches you:

• to hide your needs

• to feel shame for resting

• to force yourself past your limits

• to apologise for existing

• to believe love is conditional on performance

You start to perform adulthood instead of living it.

You push until your body collapses.
You ignore signals.
You burn out.

And then you’re told you’re “too much” when you finally can’t anymore.

It’s a cruel cycle — and one you know intimately.

What I actually needed

I didn’t need someone to look after me.

I needed:

• fewer demands

• clearer communication

• permission to rest

• space to regulate without judgement

• safety instead of pressure

I needed someone to stop trying to fix me and start listening to me.

I wasn’t broken.
I was dysregulated.

There is a difference, and it matters.

Seeing this clearly now

With the language I have now, I can finally say this without shrinking:

I am an adult with a nervous system that needs gentleness.

That does not make me a child.
That makes me human.

Autistic adults don’t stop being autistic when they age.
Our needs don’t disappear because society decides we should have outgrown them.
We don’t suddenly become less sensitive, less impacted, less affected.

We just get better at hiding it — until we can’t anymore.

Why this matters

Because there are people reading this who have been told the same thing.

Who have been made to feel like a burden.
Who have learned to silence themselves.
Who have mistaken self-preservation for failure.

You were never “too much.”
You were never an extra responsibility.
You were responding exactly as your system needed to.

And you deserved understanding, not judgement.

A final truth

I didn’t need someone to look after me.
I needed someone to stop demanding I be someone else.
—Frost ❄️

Author’s Note

This piece comes from lived experience — mine, and what I now recognise in my autistic children too.

For a long time, I didn’t have the language to explain why adulthood felt heavier for me than it seemed to for others. So the only words available were the wrong ones. Words that framed difference as failure, and regulation as regression.

I’m not writing this to accuse or blame. I’m writing it to reframe.
To offer gentler language for experiences that are often misunderstood.
And to remind anyone reading who has been made to feel like a burden, you never were.

Sometimes what looks like “going backwards” is actually the body keeping itself safe.

— Frost