Aspies && Age - Do You Agree?

Post Reply New Topic

Yep that pretty much sums me up!

I think other people find it either extreamly annoying or quite refreshing lol

While I like nearly everyone, even on the first meeting, I tend to be careful not to trust them. If something is "too good to be true", then I am very suspicious. Also, over the years it has become clear that "what everyone knows to be true" is often false. So if someone tells me something, I generally give them the shadow of the doubt in the sense that "they believe it", but I usually require some outside source of verification.

Not really. I used to be this way since I was home schooled. Then I found the internet... learned all sorts of stuff. + I've always related to adults better than kids or peers.

I don't see myself as childlike, even when a child. I do have a sense of humor, and a straightforward simplicity of expression that might come across as immature.

Yep, I know wha'cha mean----I think it's AMAZING that I continue to trust!! I've learned alot, and even though it is also my "natural spontaneous nature", as YOU say, I usually catch-on by, say, the next day, or so. Even when I got screwed-over (see my previous post), all the warning bells and whistles were going-off (in my head), but I just kept plowing forward, because I'm always thinking that, at any minute, I'm going to "turn cynical", and that those warning bells were just me, being that, at last.

Yes, too trusting of people too fast and when I get hurt I promise to learn from it but I end up going back for more like a little puppy.

I was quite mature for a child (logical, sensible) but still very naive and developmentally way behind everyone else my age. As I've always put it, I don't think I grew up properly. But I'm happy and comfortable with who I am.

Thinking back I find this a bit interesting.

As a child I was a bit more adult than my age, and as an adult I'm more child-like for my age.

Overall it's a general lack of conformity, or failure to "take on" hierarchal characteristics of the group.

It has been said that we ASD folks make terrible copying machines.

I think in some ways. People say that the way I see problems is like a child, quite simply they say. Also I have an attitude that I can overcome anything and I don't ever give up, if I make a mistake i'll try again. I have had some rough things happen too but it doesn't get me down for long; as long as I'm alive there's hope.

The Aspergian levels of Emotional Maturity and Executive Function seem to peak somewhere around age 17 and remain there for life.

The propensity for naivete tends to cause us to be taken advantage of repeatedly, and that may develop a deep cynicism, but cynicism is not wisdom. I can be skeptical and suspicious to the point of paranoia, but it hasn't rendered my decision making abilities any more acute. If anything, I often over worry and make myself sick about things that turn out not to be nearly as bad as I feared they would be, or make financial decisions based on "What Ifs" that never come to pass.

But my interests and sense of humor tend to be whimsical and childlike, or at least those of an intellectually mature adolescent. I get lost in solitary obsession, arranging things into complex patterns, and I love toys, even if all I do is line them up in precise dioramas and glue them to my desktop. Essentially the same things I did when I was a kid.

Grown-up stuff bores me, I just can't focus on it. In fact, a lot of adult stuff stresses me out, 'cause I'm just not up to dealing with it.

I think that is a sure sign of a "systems thinker".





I can believe that.

I tend not to believe that. After turning 50, I noticed that my thinking changed, expanded, became more compassionate, and some of this was no doubt due to being a grandparent, which is a shift of perspective in itself, and can have far-reaching effects. Some of the change was simply due to the fact that I had accumulated more knowledge by then at more depth, and had the time to contemplate it more deeply as the years went by. You know better, you do better - generally speaking.

I would say Aspies are variability creation machines rather than copying machines.

In terms of age appropriate behaviour, I have the suspicion that Aspie mental development proceeds down a path that is significantly different from the neurotypical path of mental development and maturation. My thoughts on this topic are summarised in this thread. As a result, a whole lot of advice aimed at typical individuals does not apply at all to Aspies.

I certainly can't relate at all to the socialisation stage of development, which typical adolescents and young adults seem to go through. Instead, on the one hand, I have kept the same level of "childish" curiosity about how the world works, and on the other hand my external perspective on human invented ideologies and social systems seems to correspond to stages of mental maturity that are typically only reached after many decades of life experience, if at all.

I have found that I relate well to a very small faction of neurotypical individuals once they have 4 or more decades of life experience.

Maybe we're more like very knowledgeable children from an alien planet.

Aspie and typical priorities are reversed:

Aspies live to learn about how the world works, and engage in social interaction to share and validate knowledge.

Typical individuals live to gain social acceptance and status, and mainly learn about how the world works only to the extent that it furthers the goal of gaining social status.

Not having typical life goals is perceived as childish and immature. The label knowledgable child sums it up quite nicely.

Feeling alien on this planet is a natural reaction to being confronted with typical priorities and life goals on a daily basis.

That comparison rings true for me. The pursuit of knowledge (and hopefully some wisdom accruing as well, eventually) has been a central motivation in my life from childhood. None of the NTs I grew up with or know now would consider that valid as a central motivation apart from a handful of academics (who may or may not be NTs). They regard my endless pursuit of knowledge variously - as a joke, as a waste of time, as freakish, as a poor substitute for their way of having fun (getting drunk and gossiping) and their way of life (pursuit of ever more material things as the most important thing in life).

I like being, and exercising the faculties of being, ie intellect, inquiry, imagination etc as a central theme in my life and living. They like having, and exercising power to get and have more (and more and more). They greatly treasure power and status that comes from jobs and higher disposable income. Those things are not wholly unimportant, though they were never, ever, a force in motivation for me. The pursuit of knowledge was a far greater force.

This is an extremely interesting observation. Though it seems a bit general. As an example, my wife is an NT. But she doesn’t seem to care that much about social status. She married me, after all.