Aspies are big children on an emotional level?

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freddie_mercury
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31 Jul 2014, 1:10 pm

I don't think thick skin is actually something that exists. People just learn how not to react on the spot - and then just blow up somewhere else; either in a healthy way (working out, etc) or an unhealthy way (drinking, etc).

I do find that I have a tendency to lose it when too much is put on me that I didn't expect. And I have to shut the door to my office and kick the walls. When I am at home, I will sometimes just leave the house and walk for about 10 minutes or so. Sometimes mid-conversation. But that is so I don't blow up at home - where my kids could see it.

Are aspies emotionally children? I don't think so - but from what I have read, we tend to fall a few years behind our peers in emotional maturity. And I see that in my son (who is also on the spectrum).

But regardless if someone is on the spectrum or not, I think that emotional control can be taught/learned to a large degree. There are all sorts of people in this world...some with really bad tempers, and some so low-key that you aren't even sure they are awake.



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31 Jul 2014, 2:32 pm

I think it's more than just emotional control though. I know for me it is anyway. Speaking of myself, I can't speak for anyone else, but I know that there are certain things that I actually do process on the emotional level of a small child. There are certain emotional things and emotional relationships that are on that level for me. It's not that I am out of control emotionally. Even small children are not always out of control emotionally, and even when I was a child I was very rarely out of control emotionally. But I actually feel certain feelings on the level of a 5 to 12 year old sometimes.

I remember sharing an experience with a friend of mine about something that had scared me and how I had reacted to it. I was not "out of control" at all, in fact no one even really noticed that I had been afraid. I had gotten physically ill though and they noticed that but they just thought it was a reaction to something I had eaten. But when I told the entire story to my friend who had not been there, he told me that the way I responded to what I had been afraid of is exactly the response he would have expected from a ten to twelve year old little girl. And it's not always fear that I can process at a very young age, but other feelings as well.

I remember going on a horse trail ride once and I was so excited about being on the particular horse that I was on. But I was processing it and expressing it like a little kid. Well the girl who was helping people get on the horses and showing us how to use the reins had no idea that I am very familiar and experienced with horses and that I had ridden a good bit before. So she told me to calm down because she thought I was too excited. She got the surprise of her life when I ended up riding better than she did.

But I experience and express a lot of emotions like a little kid, not all the time and not all of them but a lot of them. Every now and then I can get out of control with them but that is pretty rare. I might express them in a way that is much more or considered much more sensitive than a neurotypical way but no one is ever in any danger around me and it is extremely rare that I actually ever get destructive.


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Ectryon
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31 Jul 2014, 4:46 pm

For me and i'd hazard alot of aspies the big kid syndrome really comes into effect as we reach our 20's. Im still pretty young emotionally if im brutally honest, whereas my peers are marrying and thinking of starting families. The idea of marrying and starting a family is totally totally alien to me. I have absolutely no idea where to even begin thinking about that kind of responsibility. I approach that with the same kind of fear with which i'd approach becoming king or given the task of saving a dying man.

In other way im more mature than my peers however as I am not as reactionary and try to process things more deliberately and objectively. Cold comfort though when you feel like a big kid.


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