Do you FEEL like NTs are all somehow older than you?

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This might just be me, I don't know. But I tend to look around at "grown ups" in my world, especially those who are in positions of some level of authority (e.g. managers at work) and think of them as being significantly older than me, even when it often turns out they are my age, or only a few years older, or even younger than me! I don't know whether this perception issue is a spectrum thing or not, but I'm curious.

Quite often I find the opposite. I feel that people treat me like I am an adolescent even when they are much younger than I am, particularly those aware of my diagnosis, This can be rather annoying since I have effectively taken care of myself for thirty years. It also results in my work being under closer scrutiny then my co-workers which is a little unfair.

That's interesting. During my childhood and teen years I actually felt older and more mature than my peers. But somewhere around my twenties (I'm 30 now) I've started feeling like I'm much younger than other people my age.

Same with the other two above me. In fact, I actually am the oldest in my group I hang out with at school.

Sounds EXACTLY like me (I'm 30 too). When I was a child I felt like older adult/senior trapped in a child's body and even though I was the younger in my class I felt like I was by far the oldest. I read high school level as early as I can remember. Now, I am still in disbelief I am in my 30's. I still feel like and get along best with those in their late teens and early 20s!

I had had the same experience as you. It's kind of like the Benjamin Button effect for me. The older I get chronologically the younger I tend to act and respond to things. Maybe it is because now I don't feel the need to fake who I really am sometimes so the neotenous traits of my Autism are more free to show themselves. And some of my closest friends are half my age.

There are two main factors involved in the "how-old-do-I-feel-equation":


1. Emotional (social) intelligence

2. Academic intelligence (IQ)


If you are aspie it's not unlikely that your academic intelligence is higher (or more developed) than average and that your emotional intelligence is lower than average (or less developed, hence the term "developmental disorder").

In elementary school the higher academic intelligence can easily make an aspie feel way older than his peers. But already at the end of elementary school and in highschool things may start to turn around drastically. Now emotional (social) intelligence is of more importance when it comes to how old one feels. This is the time where people have to make bigger decisions by themselves, move out and become independent. These things require emotional (social) intelligence. Basically creating a life of your own. So at this point an aspie can feel way younger than those at the same age (and in some sense he is!).

The (social) handicap in Asperger Syndrome is basically a result of the lower emotional intelligence. The special skills sometimes seen are basically a result of the higher academic intelligence.

It was a weird (and not very comfortable) transition for me back then. I did not understand what exactly happened.

Through my academic intelligence I understand that emotional intelligence is basically about understanding how to serve one's self-interest on an intuitive level (i.e. without conscious/academic thinking).

I used to feel like my friends were older than me when I was about 14.

I've also had the experience others have described on this thread of feeling older than my peers when I was a kid, but feeling younger than many people my age as an adult.

I think qawer's idea about emotional intelligence vs. IQ really gets at a lot of what's probably going on there.

Very good point.

I think everybody's older than me and everyone treats me like I'm the youngest as well.

I have always felt that other people are older than me. When I first started school I didn't really feel different as such, I just felt (and believed for a time) that I was younger than all the other children in my class, especially out of the girls. I've always felt everyone else is cleverer than me as well.

I always feel like everyone's smarter than me too.

I think it's probably true in my case

I have always felt like a child among adults. My father used to say he felt like that too and he was very emotionally immature.

Sometimes. I am 13, though, and I am MUCH more 'childish' than most people around me, but at the same time more 'mature' in certain ways, so most of the time I actually do feel younger, but my reasoning and the way I explain things makes me feel older.

Last edited by serenaserenaserena on 06 Aug 2013, 3:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes. I fully understand what the OP is saying. I've always felt like that.

Mind you, I've always looked and sounded younger than I am, so that doesn't help. I'm the oldest child in my family, but I'm the only one still living at home, and who has never been in a relationship. I sometimes have to "fight" to be treated as an adult by my parents, although I can totally understand why they treat me like a child.

When I go to work I avoid the subject of age like the plague because as soon as people know my actual age they become awkward around me as if they don't know how to treat me anymore.