Would like to hear from Asperger adults 40+ Special Insights

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Welcome and check out wrong planet's "In-Depth Adult Life Discussion" section. It is geared towered mature adults there.

OnPorpoise wrote "I'm immature for my age, but not in the same ways younger Aspies are immature. It's hard to articulate."
I feel the exact same way.

"Wow! I haven't expressed these feelings to any strangers before".
It is great feeling to do that isn't it?
Strangers? I have discussed things here I have not told anybody, even myself to be honest. I have discussed things that on other boards would bring days and days of mocking and being laughed at. It's only the beginning for you and it is hugely helpful.

Have you seen a physiotherapist? Could you think of any way of getting access to a physiotherapy program at a hospital?
Lots of people have pains without any visible signs of anything being wrong, but a good physiotherapist should be able to detect any difficulty or limitation regarding movements and positions.

When in my 20s I read a story by Clifford Simak; it was part of a sci-fi series. Humans were leaving earth for Jupiter (doesn't make scientific sense, but that's sci-fi!). Explorers had discovered a native creature they called "the Loper" because it appeared to be ugly and stupid, but to live on Jupiter, humans would have to be transformed into Lopers. Several people had volunteered, then were sent out into the Jupiter environment. None returned. The scientists assumed it was because being a Loper was horrible! Finally, the head explorer decided that before he could send out another person, he had to become a Loper to see for himself what was going on.
What he discovered was that being a Loper was wonderful! That to be a Loper in its own proper environment was a beautiful experience: so beautiful that he had to force himself to go back to being human.

I didn't know at the time why this story moved me and fascinated me, but later I began to see myself as being like the Loper! Social humans look down on us as missing out on being "normal." They claim to be so caring and yet become angry and punitive when our behavior varies from their ridged and narrow expectations. What they need to understand is that from the "inside" our experiences are meaningful and beautiful - IF we are allowed to be ourselves, like the Loper. Their reaction to us as children CREATES many of the problems of anxiety, fear and depression! Then they "blame" us for being anxious and depressed - and resisting being caged in an environment that does not suit us!

Me too!

Puzzles me why someone would say there aren't any upsides to late diagnosis. I was diagnosed at 41 and I can honestly say I'm happier now than I remember ever been in my adult life. To finally understand yourself and your difficulties is an amazing feeling. Like someone suddenly turned the light on in a dark room.

As a high functioning Aspie, I sometimes think not knowing I had Aspergers was a blessing in a way too. I probably would not have gone to university had I known it, thinking it was going to be too stressful/ too much work. I probably would not have challenged myself as much as I have in other ways too, traveling alone etc.

Someone mentioned her father having Aspergers too. Mine has too, plus I have a brother with a lot of Aspie qualities. So when you grow up in a Aspie family you consider your quirks and behavior normal! That's probably one reason it took a long time to figure out that was not the case.

What to do about it? I used to do voluntary work in a sports club and after the diagnosis I decided it was just too much hassle. Haven't missed a day that dealing with all the typical NT egos and bickering

As they say when you have met one aspie you have met one aspie. Something I forget from time to time. While most people diagnosed later in life seem to have a euphoric reaction others get depressed. When you re depressed you can't see anything positive. When we grew up having "something wrong in the head" was a stigma. Some still feel bad about having "somehting wrong in the head"

I am very glad that I found out that I had AS 9 months ago. Since then, I have read about 10 books on AS. They gave me so much insights about myself, my strength and weakness that I would not have known if I didn't find this out. I really appreciate that my friend who is a physicist who tutored a lot of autistic children had identified that we have a lot of traits in common. Watching the video from female aspies such as theAnMish also give me a lot of rapport and know that I'm not alone. With the new insights and suggestions from books and various sources, helps me to problem solve lots of social deficits e.g. fail to read subtle social cues. Currently, going with the psychologist and social worker for the intervention program, I am so delighted that within 3 months, I already pick up a lot of effective ways to handle my social situations e.g. I have strong emotion for myself but weak emotions for others, which caused inconsiderate verbal attack toward my friend. So they practice role play by reversing the role, so I can feel the impact of my saying to others feeling. Another effective way is that I was not considering other people's feeling on making decision, so I need to make an effort to put myself as other people in that situation and breakdown all their emotions step by step. e.g. I would be very excited when I see Tsunami because I omit the emotions of the victims. The psychologist asked me assume I am the victim and thought of their emotions. This way helps me a lot because understanding other people's feeling as the priority is a preference not a disability. We just naturally delay and weak in detecting other people's emotions. By reprioritize the way we see things, we can be much better in handle relationships.

I used to be very low self-esteem, and feel that there is no way for me to be better in social maturity. But with the professional help, I am glad I have found an effective way to keep improving. One day I'll get there.

What a nice surprise to hear from a member in Hong Kong. Happy to hear you are progressing socially in a way that helps you. We always hear that Asian cultures stress formal social behavior and conformity to the group over the individual. If true, this must have made being AS very difficult. You know that in the U.S. we are very casual socially, and yet, AS people are bullied, rejected and called mentally ill, especially as children. Until recently, AS females were mostly ignored. I guess being different just isn't acceptable wherever one lives!
As a westerner, my view of the individual / group relationship is probably different than yours. Fitting into the social majority is not my priority! My goal is peaceful coexistence.

I'm a geologist, so yes, I saw the earthquake and Tsunami as exciting also. How often as scientists do we see the phenomena we study happen in real life? But I also saw and felt the human tragedy. Emotion isn't only about people; I am very emotionally attached to Nature. I don't like the Neurotypical view of relationships, in which emotion is used to control other people and to gain power. My emotions are more complex and hooked up with reason. I hate lies and injustice. How can that be bad?

I also quite delighted to join this community from over the world. So I don't feel alone anymore. In fact, to my surprise, most people are very kind, thoughtful, educated and mature in what they wrote. I originally thought there will be less of a sohisticated community.

Yes, you're right, the Hong Kong community is less acceptance of diversity including racial and social deficits especially towards their own people. I got rejected because of my differences and failed to comply to the team rules in a subtle way. I work both in Canada and Hong Kong before. In fact, the Canadian work environment is much more friendly to Aspies than Chinese culture. My career in Hong Kong struggles a lot. There is a high emphasize on relationship in terms of group compliance rather than celebrate differences. The plus side for me working in Hong Kong is my english ability being above average. If working in Canada, the opposite will be true. My career goes from software developer, project coordinator, IT business analyst. I think going on this site helps because I can't afford expensive psychotherapy especially for those expertise there is a long line up in Hong Kong. I mean there are lots of psychotherapist but those who have experience treating Aspies are very rare because the Chinese community are at least 10 years behind in AS study and similar social services. I'm lucky that I'm in a big city. In China, these services will not even exist. For those of you who went through psychotherapy for AS syndrome. Can you share the details? So as to save us some money in the service. Thanks.

My discussions with my psychologist tend to focus on overcoming black and white thinking and discussion of various individual incidents where I feel confused about what happened.

Apparently, lots of people on the autism spectrum tend to overlook the subtleties of a situation and categorize people and events into rigid, mutually exclusive categories. Learning to reconsider one situation did not lead to an end to this tendency, but over time I improved a lot in this regard, and I hope to avoid it altogether in the future.

Regarding individual incidents, I think that this site has helped a lot. I frequently read threads to which I relate, and then notice that a lot of other people here have had similar experiences. Even so, some caution seems advisable regarding the extent to which I accept the explanations offered. It relates to one of the other regular topics of my counseling sessions: the fundamental attribution error. You can get more information by searching the term, but it's the tendency people have to overestimate the extent to which other people's actions are motivated by internal factors, rather than by situational or external factors. I see that here a lot, especially when people generalize about NTs. This also relates to out-group homogeneity, the tendency of people to assert that "they're all alike."

Perhaps you can elaborate on internal vs. external motivation, based on your experiences with a psychiatrist. If social people are highly subject to the social environment, then it seems that external pressure is what's important to them and it overrides their internal desires. My internal motivations do drive my behavior - and the desire to please people seems quite absent. Two personality types that are quite different in their orientation....

My mother was dependent on social approval and I was not, and my indifference made her very angry. I was supposed to please her; be a model daughter so that her status would rise, no matter the cost to my well-being. It didn't take a psychiatrist to figure that out - however I did seek out a psychiatrist in order to improve the situation; my mother refused to go, and became even more hostile. She was so keyed in to what people would think of her ("I'm not crazy; it's not my fault") that she threw away a chance to salvage a relationship with me. My reading of the situation was that her social needs (external) were more important than knowing and accepting her child; ie she made a choice (internal) - she could have chosen differently. At some point each of us, social or Aspie, needs to take responsibility for his or her actions regardless of motivation, or am I misunderstanding the internal - external dynamic?

old people have Aspergers?

The fundamental attribution error relates to the causes that people attribute to the actions of other people. For example, if someone comes in late to work, do you assume that they had a flat tire or some other problem beyond their control (external), or do you assume that they didn't care enough to make it on time (internal)? People make these attributions based on a variety of factors, such as whether the behavior is normal for that person. In general, however, people make more external attributions for their own failures and other's successes, and more internal attributions for their own successes and other people's failures.

The desire to please yourself and the desire to please others both seem like internal factors to me. Doing what someone else wants if they threaten you would count as an external factor in my evaluation. Even if someone can't control her desire to please others, I'd still consider that internal because I believe that they could master that desire if they wished strongly to do so.

It is disturbing that the justice-court system is vulnerable to the challenge of deciding external / internal intent. I've always wondered who decided that a violent "crime of passion" is less awful than a crime that is planned. Often it appears that someone is convicted not on evidence, but on a negative reaction to how they look or speak - to say nothing of race, culture and gender misunderstandings. A kid who steals $50. worth of retail items may get more punishment than the CEO of a bank who causes massive financial damage to thousands of investors. And someone who merely says they are remorseful may get a reduced sentence. As an Aspie, it makes no sense to me.

Human beings are not good witnesses; don't have good visual recall, mistake one face for another, may not be the least logical or reasonable, carry negative prejudices - and yet we rely on testimony, sometimes by only one witness. I wonder what a jury of Aspies would be like?

Psychotherapy. What a can of worms. I was diagnosed as bipolar at age 36. Everything that that happened up to that point was pretty much lumped together under that diagnosis. Lithium was amazingly effective. However, understanding how the disorder affected my life for 36 years required a great deal of counseling. I have found over the years that the quality of psychotherapists varies greatly - some are about as helpful as talking to a tree stump, although, for me, just the practice of verbalizing my thoughts and feelings was a big help. And I found the subject of human behavior fascinating, which led to an interest in anthropology and evolution. It has been only recently that the umbrella of Aspergers was suggested as a comprehensive explanation - after getting to know me, my current counselor began to doubt that bipolar could explain my history of symptoms and social difficulties.

Psychotherapy is outrageously expensive now, and doesn't exist where I live anyway, so I've utilized public clinics with sliding payment scales. Honestly - I can't say that from my experience that the expensive docs are any better.

I also suffers a lot from the black and white thinking. The government clinic covers 1 session of psychotherapy and a few session of social worker counselling. I used to think psychotherapy cost too much to be worth the money. After that 1 session and the few sessions of counselling from the social worker has changed my mind completely. The benefits I gained (described in my previous posts) outweighted the cost. Let me elaborate why. I was a church goer since 6, because I always feel there is something wrong with me. But so far my experience is still feeling quite alienated within the church community. The pastors are nice to give me some guidance and counselling occasionally. The advice helps in some practical ways but not to my core problems. I found that the psychotherapy sessions targeted my core problems right in the head and already offerred the effective ways that I can keep working on. e.g. I practice with social worker observing people's facial expression in the workshops. We'll discuss what we see and identify the emotions that I missed. e.g. One time I observe a lady with a smiling face and wonder why she needs to come to the depression/anxiety handling workshop. The social worker point out the her facial expression has some glimpse of tears in her eyes. That means it is a combination of a smiling face and slight wet eyes. If she didn't point this out, I probably cannot notice the small facial cues that would make a big difference in determining people's true emotions.

So how is the black and white thinking affects me. I always had gaps of unemployment because I'm not willing to take on any side jobs that deviates from my expectation. Social worker said that increases my anxiety during those periods and suggest that I should gradually build up my flow of income in a small way first, otherwise always "all or nothing" is not good for me.

I am brand new to this site and am reading some really excellent posts that resonate with me.
I think I have AS, though this has yet to be diagnosed. One of the previous posts had mentioned something about the types of physical problems that many aspies have experienced including digestive and nervous disorders/diseases. I am wondering how many of you out there have experienced inflammatory bowel disease and sleeping disorders (specifically sleeping too much and vivid dreaming) and how it relates to AS. Personally my life has been peppered with surgeries and I had 5 serious ones in the last year alone related to IBD. Could it be caused by the unusual amount of stress put upon us from society as we try to fit in? I am in my late 30s.