Is AS really in part a slower maturing process?

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Your contribution really helps it along. Why bother posting in a thread which you consider to be 'lame'?

Hey, don't blame KoiInAFrozenPond - we were just given an example of immaturity

I don't have anything to advance the discussion either, but I share your observations. I'm physically 39, mentally ancient (I already passed the readiness to die) and socially perhaps under 20 - I have worked and been otherwise "productive" (no energy for the rat race anymore), but my relationships have failed and mostly not begun at all...

It could well be that a slower maturing process (certainly in terms of social
relationships) is the central issue of AS and all the various other AS traits are side-effects.
I'm 48 but in social terms I sometimes feel like I'm 14. On the other hand when
in relationships that are non-social,such as acquaintances at work etc I feel
like I'm capable of being more mature than others. I'm more maturer than them
so Naaa-Na na Naaa-Na....

I always felt the opposite. That those with AS matured at a much faster rate then others, to be more exact we skip the adolecent stage. Think about it, when you were really young you were open and friendly, always attempting relationships. Later you found that you connect better with adults then your peers. Once you reach teenage years you have trouble fitting in with... well lets face it they are sheep and just go with everyone else. Not to mention our natural social problems and the fact teenagers aren't exactly forgiving to social quirks. Our early adulthood is the result of a decade of your peers smashing your ego in with a hammer. Constant social rejection will seriously mess with your personality.

Now I dont personally know many with aspergers, and offline I know of none. But this is my conclusion based on what I've read and my own personal experiences

So I'm not the only one...Thank God.

my physical age is 25, and I feel that I stop growing emotionally when I was 12. That thing called "puberty" I don't think it ever happened to me (or it's just because the process is so damn slow, I can barely feel it the way normal people do).

But if the meaning of maturity is about being responsible, I think I'm mature enough

I think I am mentally and emotionally inmature for my age, I am like a big kid actually, but not in the good way

I've been thinking about this the last few months, and I think it got triggered by something an older (sixty yo) poster wrote about memories coming up unbidden (I think s/he was possibly referring to PTSD, but I applied it differently), and finding out I have a more serious illness than I was originally diagnosed with.

AS may be a whole host of symptoms, and some may be slow maturation, and some related to more physical symptoms, like insomnia, sensory issues, etc. I think the mental health issues are mostly social.

Bazza wrote on the other thread that he felt he had found ways to compensate, but I think along with that, our emotional selves catch up as well, and we are able to be functional.

It makes me wonder how many of these "therapies" prescribed to Aspie youngsters help or hamper, or just frustrate them. I don't know, and I hope some do help. I just wish there were more useful studies being done.

Metta, Rjaye.

I've always felt as if I've always been more mature than all of my peers - and at 18, only some of them are starting to become as mature as me, so finally I'm becoming more associated with them.

Does anyone ever feel like older Aspies "suffer" because of the current viewpoint held by so called experts about what Aspergers is? I don't know if I can explain this well. But an example is with my VR counselor she first remarked with surprise when I told her I was diagnosed with Aspergers because as she said I "can hold a conversation with her" and "but you work".

These experts have the idea that because children with AS can't do this or that -that the adults are not suppose to either. I wished I could think on my feet faster because I should have remarked why do you not think in 38 yrs that a person couldn't figure out a few social interactions on their own? All it takes is someone being a good parrot! That doesn't mean we understand social behaviors; we just learn to minic them in order to survive. Just like Bazza explained with observing others. That's what I have always done. Its a survival mechanism. That doesn't mean we aren't Aspies and that we don't struggle just like the youngsters do.

Come to think of it it was dumb my counselor didn't notice my problems with shifting to a new counselor. I mean I had worked with another women there and I was forced to transfer to this new woman and it took me several meetings before I could even interact with her properly. How come she doesn't notice that?

I got that response, too, Ticker.

But you do communicate! You don't hog the conversation! You don't have the weird interests that take up all of your time!

Uh, now I can communicate via the tricks I've learned (looking at the bridge of their nose to feign looking in their eyes or not quite focusing/listening carefully and keeping track, and now trying to keep in touch with how I feel about what they're saying-a new trick I'm trying to master), and I hide my perseverations and only permit myself to do them when I have done what I need to have done, like homework, laundry, bills...

Yet I feel I need help to get to the next level. Since I had such a whack childhood, I guess I didn't get a healthy idea of a mature relationship to fall back on when I was ready for it. I also have a lousy self image to go with it, and I'm working on that, too.

Now I'm just not trying to feel like I've missed out and that I'll never have the relationships I want. I'm trying to be appreciative of those relationships I do have, but sometimes...it's not enough. I'm working on it though...I'm working on it.

I think one of the biggest things I had to get over was the idea I was smarter and more together than every one else because I didn't have their problems or issues, though the reason was because I wasn't able to have the relationships they did to have the problems they did. It gave me a false sense of security that made things worse when the confusion hit and I didn't know what my problem was. I couldn't name my feelings.

Toddler age I was, I think.

Sometimes it's hard to take in, and not pathologize everything I do.

Rjaye.

Shamans in ancient societies were considered to straddle the dimentions, my councilor agrees; like not being too grounded in time, or the body, but conscious of all planes simultaneous and existing and having developed on those planes in which most people are not conscious.

Merle

This is something I've been wondering about for a few months.

It may be that the parts of the brain that handle social interactions aren't functioning properly. Since we have to learn via a different set of neurons, it takes longer. Possibly the different routing is through an area of the brain that matures later in life. Most of the cognitive parts seem to be fine.

May I suggest that the parts of the brain that handles the social interactions are not functioning IN THE SAME WAY as those others that call ours 'improper?" Only those in charge can say what 'proper' social interactions are, if we are not in charge, and since there are more of them than us, we have to toe their line.

Our neurons only learns slowly what is second nature to them. Our neurons learn much more quickly on other subjects that they can only wonder why we would ever want to know all the square roots anyway.

I am living proof that we mature much more slowly, and knowing that my mother lived for longer than my grandmother, I know I will probably live much longer than my mother. Perhaps this is how one lives in longevity.

just some thoughts on your thoughts. I don't see 'authority' as 'right' necessarily, just that they call the shots, and it is good to learn their ways to work with in their system. all politics are local.

Merle

On AS brain functioning, I think ZanneMarie's posts here are very interesting - http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt52980.html

I was always emotionally immature, but preferred the company of those much older than myself. I suspect it has something to do with growing up undiagnosed, and therefore seeing myself as unacceptable because I never "fit in" with other kids my age.
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Of crucial consequence is what un-, under-, and misdiagnosis in women mean in the lives of women who are AS and don't know it. One meaning is that they have no way of explaining themselves to themselves, thus no access to the support and positive sense of self they need. And, perhaps more important, more difficult, and more destructive than that, they accept the default explanations for the string of problems, setbacks, and oddities in their experiences and behavior: character weakness, resulting in a vague yet profoundly affecting belief in their own worthlessness."
-- Jean Kearns Miller, "Under-diagnosis in Women", Women From Another Planet?