Emotionally immature? "Late bloomer"?
I have always been emotionally immature. I was always behind my peers. I am not sure where my emotional maturity is but my husband said it's somewhere in my teens because of my attitude and how I express my emotions. I can either show them or not. I also can't handle stress well. I also think my anxiety takes its toll in this so it also attributes and it makes me express myself differently. My mom has also told me how I feel and my husband and I sometimes do feel something but am not sure why I feel this way or identify what it is. As a kid I had to do occupational therapy and it was to help me identify my own emotions before they get bad. Now I can give myself a time out or tell people I am irritable so they won't bother me. But yet when I was 16 I wanted to move out and have my own place and by age 20 I was living on my own and had a job and was paying my bills so it was like I was very mature at that age than others at that age. I was very serious about my money and life. I felt very mature then. But even in my teens I was mature in some ways than my peers but I acted immature emotionally and how I coped in stressful situations and when I get upset or frustrated.
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Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed and ASD lv 1.
Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.
I talked to my psychologist about this whole thing yesterday and she pretty much confirmed the quoted thing above. She said that in my case, at least, it's probably about the fact that I haven't had the ability (due to ASD) and the opportunity to actually learn the "life lessons" and things I'm currently going through (questioning sexuality etc.). She also said I might feel this way because I simply focused on other things when my peers focused on the things I'm going through now. I had to focus on difficult things I was going through and also simply didn't think it was interesting/relevant earlier in life. My psychologist said that for most people things like questioning sexuality etc. comes "automatically" (and then they have to think really hard about it of course) but for people on the spectrum there often needs to be a trigger of some kind for that to happen.