A question for older Aspies

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I am 29 and a half, and I got diagnosed only when I was 25. I had always thought there was something different about me, but when I got the positive diagnosis, it certainly explained a lot. The Asperger diagnosis was not really mainstream psychology yet when I was a small child (in the 1980s). Nowadays it seems kids get early intervention, and help with fitting into society at a young age. I do envy them for that.

I always felt I slipped through the cracks. I was academically successful, but no one really showed me how to LIVE. I still don't have a lot of social skills, and don't have that many friends. I am still completely hopeless with women. I missed all the expected rites of passage. I haven't had my first kiss, haven't held hands with a girl, never had a girlfriend.

So, for older Aspies amongst you. Did you find that, despite only being diagnosed later in life, you were able to learn and acquire social skills to the same level as NTs? I think there's just too much catching up for me to do. I can't compete with guys my age who have had several relationships already. I think if I was raised post millennium, and got my diagnosis earlier on in life, my life path would have taken a very different course.

hi,

i'm 55. i just learned small talk a few years ago. don't give up on learning stuff. married for the first time and happily at the age of 52.

I can't answer this personally, but my dad was diagnosed a few years ago and he's 45 or so.

His story is similar. Very academically successful, very few friends. Mainly he got by through learning how to act, and he is exceptional at acting, but it absolutely exhausts him and he had to plan it beforehand. He gets so stressed and anxious with social interaction that it has contributed to the deterioration of his health over the years. Dating was not going very well for him at all for a long time, but he met my (neurotypical) mother through work and they got together.

He ended up getting diagnosed when he realised that my younger brother likely had it and started doing the research, and after a certain point he realised that he was reading about himself. It was a huge relief — and very emotional for him, because he could see all the hell of his younger years that he could have been spared had the resources and diagnosis been more mainstream earlier on. Now he has reasons for why he couldn't cope, and license to excuse himself from social gatherings and take time to be by himself to recuperate and recover. It's been fantastic, and probably one of the best things that has happened to him, but by the same token he regrets lacking the awareness earlier.

We realised I had it too after he and my brother went through the diagnosis process, and all I can say is I'm glad neither me or Little Brother had to go through what my dad did.

I was born in 96 and I got almost no help socially through my entire elementary school career. By the time I got help, I had become too withdrawn and behind socially for me to really catch up in any sense. So I don't think younger Aspies have it as well as you think.

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I also have two younger cousins with AS (they're aged 7 and 9). i don't want them to go through what I did in school. So I am glad that people seem to get a bit more help with interacting socially these days. I'm sorry to hear about your situation, UnLoser

I think Aspies need some kind of social education from an early age. Like 'life skills 101'. No one teaches you common sense, or how to engage people in small talk, or how to know when someone is romantically interested in you, or when they are not. These things are intuitive for most NTs but Aspies struggle with these more social aspects of life. I can't read body language or facial expression well, so I've probably missed interest signals before, and I have previously read friendliness as interest, where there was none.

I'm not an "older" Aspie, as I'm only 26, but I strongly relate with this paragraph, it describes how I've felt in many ways. I've pretty much been able to write my ticket academically/professionally, but socially I've always struggled. I was actually diagnosed when I was around 13 but I didn't find out until recently (my parents never told me initially). However, I don't let it get to me, because even if I haven't experienced a lot of those things, it just means I have that many new experiences to hopefully look forward to later on in life . It is a struggle for sure to develop all of those skills, particularly when you're at an age where you're expected to have already acquired them long ago. But it's certainly not impossible. And don't compare yourself by milestones other people may set in their life, just accept that your path in life may be different and unique, and just as worthwhile as any other.

I have personally managed to develop my social skills pretty well, but only in certain settings or situations. For example, in one setting I may seem to be as much a social butterfly as anyone, while in others I stand out like a sore thumb.

Hope!


Sounds a lot like me, only that I found out after I decided to read more about autism because you can't base your knowledge on Hollywood stereotypes, and I haven't been oficially diagnosed... and haven't had any luck meeting a woman that wants to share her life with me, either.


Me too, though I guess I qualify as older (approaching 44 later this year).

I don't know if I am AS or not, but I was a bit of a late bloomer, and I want to move you away from a couple of the concepts you've mentioned in this paragraph:

social skills to the same level as NT's
can't compete with guys my age who have had

Focus, instead, on this: finding the right person for you is not a competition, as much as it seems that way at your age. You don't need to have the same skills as everyone else, or be like them, what you do need to have is the opportunity to connect with someone who is uniquely right for you.

Yes, you need some social skills to meet someone, simply because you can't connect if you aren't out in the world, or if you hide in a corner when you are. But all you need is enough to get by, and you CAN still learn that. You don't have to have everything that other guy has because any women interested in that particular package isn't meant for you anyway, most likely.

I have seen the most awkward men that I couldn't imagine with anyone I knew get happily married. One recently found me on Facebbok; surprised the heck out of me that he had built such a great life. Which goes to show what a snot I am capable of being, or used to be, I guess, but the real point is that if it is meant to be, it will be, and there are plenty of women out there capable of falling in love with awkward guys, seeing past that into all the good things they can offer, so never rule out that it could happen for you.

You don't have to be like the other guys. You do have to get lucky enough to stumble into the right person and not be too scared to make something happen from it.

My husband and I were 37 and 36 on our wedding day. Some things just happen when they happen, and no one knows why. Don't ever assume it can't happen for you.

I think there is no use in crying about the spilt milk. You were diagnosed late. Well, at least you got a diagnose! Learn all you can about AS and try to reprogram yourself, or, if you have the means, get an skilled therapist to help you. I do not think you will ever acquire social skills to the same level as NTs. An that is because you are not NT. You are different. You have your own strenghts. Embrace them and embrace our difficulties, too. I do not think you should compete or compare yourself with NT guys your age. We are all different. I was always "different" and I decided as I could not help it I would feel special about it. I only had one relationships, with the person I married. And we are very happy together. You do not need to bed a lot of people to recognize the one when you find her. And by the way, my husband found out he had AS at 38, way later than you.

I missed some potentially helpful therapy but I also escaped a lot of abusive "treatment plans" and poorly done aba. I missed adversives and special ed. classrooms.
So yeah, I was always the odd one out, but I was academically challenged and I was allowed to be ambitious and my ambitions we encouraged not dismissed in a flurry of realistic expectations for someone of my "condition".
I was included in normal play more often than I would have been had I been segregated into the special needs services.
Coming to my autism as a young adult, instead of as a child let me integrate that knowledge into a a whole person instead of it becoming my sole defining trait.
I think in a lot of ways I'm 'more normal' than I would have been had I been identified earlier.

There are a lot of kinds of people in the world and a lot of kinds of weird. I think i you put in a little effort and do a little reading about some social basics (personal space, appropriate conversation, some body language) you'll be able to relax and be yourself, there are probably more people out there like you than you'd think.

whoops sorry

Last edited by DogsWithoutHorses on 25 Apr 2012, 2:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Somehow I managed to cobble together enough skills to get married twice. Both ended in divorce though as I did not have the skills to maintain. I tend to use comedy in social situations because it breaks ice and helps me feel less pressure to say anything else. I have absorbed a thousand joke and one liners from a thousand movies. But that's not really enough is it? Enough to break ice and maybe get a date...but after that.

ps. Haven't dated in 5 years, so you see how well that's been working for me lately!

Discovering that you are AS before age 30.... I think you will do just fine. That's a stark contrast to my situation: discovering that I was an aspie at age 59. I had to discover this on my one, and it happened whilst reading the Robison book "Look Me in the Eye."

For me, one of the worst aspects of "not knowing" aside from dating difficulties, were the disasters in my work life. The office environment is not very kind to aspies who are clueless as to their condition! But I sort of did O.K.... I survived 6 layoffs during my 35 years of work.

My big disappointment is that I'm not seeing very many older adults (> age 50) in these online communities. I could use some advice on dating. It was a big surprise finding myself retired and still single. I just figured I would have the wife and the big house with the 2.5 cars in the garage.... or was that the 2.5 kids?

I'm only 26, but I didn't receive my diagnosis until 2 months ago. The frustrating part is that I did receive counseling for being a problem child, but it wasn't very effective because no one knew what was wrong with me. Even after I was put on medication, my psychiatrists figured that I only had an anxiety disorder.

One thing that I really missed out on was dating. Maybe I could have done something about it in high school, but now I'm essentially locked out of the dating pool for having no experience with it.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, it is sad there aren't more older Aspies here, offering dating advice for those of us who are struggling. I'm hopeless with women, myself. I'm embarking on my career in teaching, and yet I've never had a single girlfriend. It's like I missed all the expected social milestones of life.

I fear that most of us who have grown older (I'm almost 60) have realized that any dating advice we would give anybody is probably pretty suspect. I've been married to an NT for 30 years or so; I think she was attracted to me in the days when I will still just "weird" - probably helped that we lived in Berkeley, where weird was a positive. Over the years, my lack of social skills, uncomfortableness with physical contact or even with talking about things has been a repeated issue between us. We just had one of "those talks" this morning, and even though she understands what it means that I'm an Aspie, that doesn't change the fact that she feels like she's having to carry a lot more than her share of the load.

Being an Aspie just affects things in a lot of unexpected ways... I'm also struggling with facial pain (neuralgia) and one of the ways AS affects me is that I tend to put off calling the doctor until it hurts so much to talk that I have a really hard time calling the doctor. And things were better when I was working, but when I got laid off I realized that job hunting is really hard for me... and that was 8 or 9 years ago, so we've struggled with that whole issue as well.

Anyway... if there aren't a lot of oldies offering helpful advice, it's kinda because we've realized that we really don't know much about how to succeed at relationships, especially close ones...