immature brain

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I know I should probably just forget it and it probably doesn't mean anything at all. Or maybe it does. Or maybe I'm just over thinking things again.

A long long time ago, I went to see a counsellor about my attention issues... or rather lack of it. She wasn't a very good counsellor. But at one of the sessions she said I have an immature brain. This has always bugged me, as I really don't know what she was getting at.

But I'm sort of getting it. When I've told people before that I'm really struggling to adult, they laugh at me, tell me everyone is the same. But I can assure they're not. I just don't get it. I don't get how people are able to succeed at life. They go to college, university, learn how to drive, get a career where they know what they're doing, own a home, understand taxes, politics, able to prioritise household chores and communicate with other human beings in an average satisfactory manner.

And there's me, getting uber excited about Christmas because I still have the mentality that i'll be getting toys. And then I get sorely disappointed when I don't. I wish I still believed in father christmas. But it's more than that, it's more than just wanting to cling to a long lost childhood. I can only deal with things if they are simple... like uber simple. People speak and sometimes it can take an awful lot for me to understand them. I've got into a habit now of just nodding and smiling because the amount of times I have to ask people to repeat themselves is just frustrating. I never read any documents sent by my bank, i just don't understand them. People use wording that is totally unfamiliar to me, yet seems to be the language any average adult is fluent in.

When I was a kid, I was the first to be reading really well. I loved it, i loved books. As soon as i reached 12 I lost interest completely and for so long now, I have way more interested in pictures in books/magazines than I do the words. I just struggle to take it all in. When I do read, I'm very slow. Sometimes I can't even read at all because the words just make no sense. Even the most simplest of sentences can feel like a whole new language to me sometimes. And it stresses me out. Especially if there are distractions and I just can't get a grip on any kind of focus at all.

I can't have proper conversations with anyone because any immediate response I have comes through as images in my head, never actual words, and I struggle to turn those images into an actual sentence. Sometimes my brain will actually give me and actual speak-able sentence for it hours later... sometimes even days! And when I need to be the first to speak, I have to spend a considerable amount of time replaying the sentence over and over again in my head until I am confident it sounds right. And even then there's no guarantee the words that come out of my mouth will

People always say that labels don't matter, a diagnosis of anything is just a piece of paper. But to me it would be a sense of stability, if that makes any kind of sense. I want my life to make sense. I want to find strategies that work. I'm tired of seeing other people succeed where I fail.

Ugh, anyways. Yeah. Is it bedtime yet?

The counselor sounds like a bit of a b***h for saying that. Have you thought of asking her what she meant by that, or are you going to let it go?

I think of typical maturing brain functionality as like an expanding circle, but my own is more like a splat shape, so in some areas I've always been mature beyond my years but in other areas I'm massively deficient and child-like.

Teachers would always say that I was very mature behaviour-wise but my writing and imagination was infantile. Going into adolescence the only books I was still interested in was collecting Mr Men and things like that where you'd have all of the different characters on the back cover. I got into computer programming because it was such a basic way of describing how things work and relate to one another, in many ways coding is less complicated than a book written for a 6 year old, but the majority of people won't see it that way.
What is an immature brain in adulthood, really? Perceiving things as they really are as opposed to complicating everything with unnecessary rituals and symbolic gestures I guess.

Saying someone just has an immature brain means they are normal and don't have a disorder, they are just immature. But that is still very dismissive.

I'm just so tired of being misunderstood, not being able to make people understand how I'm feeling. Not knowing why I'm like this.

My headaches are just constant.

People see a fully functioning adult... But then wonder why when I don't perform like I'm meant to, like everyone else does. They can't see my internal chaos.

I hide my issues far too well. So much so that even I can't see them.

Your therapist could have been referring to your mental age. Or something along the lines of neurodevelopment which has been found to reach maturity at the age of 25.

My first impressions on your title made me think you were talking about the inherent lack of emotional development in people on the spectrum. In this regard, I think I am probably about 12 years old. I have meltdowns, stim, and sometimes my anger leads to a sort of tantrum state. I'm ashamed to call myself a grown man at times.