Adolescence

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I recently was talking with some person I know online and we raised at some point the topic of adolescence. I'll turn 30 soon and my online buddy will be 25 next month. I remembered, which memory I shared with that person instantly, that some time ago I read a post written by some young woman who stated in it that at 13 she perceived herself an adult. And this is the standard age when, as psychologists and neurologists claim, our brains start to undergo a rapid change, which entails the change of our mentality, we stop to behave and think like kids - and if one is smart, then there's no problem with their entering adulthood then, mentally at least, avoiding adolescence as such. You get access to the possibility of performing all the thoughts operations possible to perform by adults, you develop the ability of logical and abstract thinking and so on. Children, after all, don't have the ability of abstract thinking developed fully and therefore a child, even having the IQ of a genius, being I don't know how mature and responsible etc., can't take care of themselves besides the most basic needs - can't live on their own, can't get married, run a firm, while an adult person, even not too smart, can in theory do everything and is limited just by their own ambitions, education level and money they possess.

Throughout he whole history of our civilisation it was like this: when you were not a child, you were an adult - check out history textbooks, how old the kings were and when the age of maturity started. It wasn't taken from nowhere. It somehow works like this that at the same time our body changes, also your mind changes. You think like an adult. Adults are of different ages (the same as of different IQ levels, life experience levels, maturity levels) but all of them share one trait - the ability of abstract thinking. Though you develop for your whole life and at 18 you aren't exactly the same as when you are 80, regardless of your age you remain a grown up - one with the mind of an adult. You have the same legal rights. The law sees that in your early teens you start to change mentally so it gives you with some legal privileges children don't have - you can decide in case of your parents' divorce with whom you want to stay, you can have a bank account.

So coming back to the topic, the aforementioned woman got verbally attacked by some other one, older a bit that herself, who said that it's physically impossible that she was a mature teen ,for teens aren't capable of rational reasoning - this ability develops in one's twenties and this is why a teen can't think rationally, is always taking risks etc. and if she thought that she was as adult mentally as when she was that young, it meant in practice that as an adult woman of like 27, she wasn't mature, for adulthood is the same as maturity and maturity is about rational reasoning which helps you not take risks and because at 13, you aren't able to judge a danger rationally, it means that if in your twenties you are the same in this respect, it means you aren't able to think rationally and you are immature. "But teens for the entire history of our human species were generals of armies, kings or at least, in case of girls, mothers and wives, given in mariage right after they started to be able to give birth, to produce new heirs to their family". "That's true" - said her interlocutor - "but you can't compare a person living in Europe in the 20th century with someone raised in such conditions as you just described, so the fact you are doing this, indicates clearly that you DO have problems with rational reasoning; these were different situations and different youngsters".

I described this to my online friend, by stating that I noticed the same about myself when I left my childhood, to enter the world of adulthood. "Me at 13 and 30 were exactly the same mentally, Peter, you know. The whole difference was (but for the natural differences that stem from the natural process of one's personality development over years - not that there were that many of them) that I was younger. That's all. That's all about quantity and not quality, like you know, the quantity of knowledge I acquired, like you know, in college I was taught how to teach kids myself and now I know this, which I didn't know how to do when I was a teen. Mentally I was identical, just younger."

The friend of mine agreed with this, stating he was the same when it comes to thinking - just younger. That it's all about knowledge - when I'm like 50 or 70 later on, I'll have even more knowledge acquired, but it doens't mean I'm not an adult now (in case of actual adults and not mature teens, there's also legal adulthood and not just mental and the adulthood of your body, of course), I'll be an adult with more knowledge. Nevertheless, I often see on boards that teens are referred to as immature. For example, the age of consent in Poland is 15 but when people often suggest that it should be one year lower (everybody is fed up with people having sex with 14 year olds going to prison, as it's often heard on the news), there are people who oppose this silly idea stating things like, let me quote from one board: "a fourteen is mentally a child yet, I don't know what it is about that but at 14 and as an adult teen of 19, I thought differently, there was a huge gap between my styles of thinking, so I think that this is how a TYPICAL teen develops". Well, I was not a typical one, for sure. So as a teen, especially a younger one (older teens are more mature), I was a VERY mature one, I behaved, interpreted reality that surrounded me, thought, spoke and wrote exactly like now, when I'm an adult woman. People forgave me my immature behaviors or likings, for I was going to grow out of those. When I read in teen mags about teens, my peers, which was when i was between 12-15, it was a weird experience for me - I was nothing like the youngsters described in there, I could read them now, being an actual adult, with the same result.

So here comes a question: do you share this experience of adolescence with me? I was mentally an adult, I was the same as now. Only that now no one forgives me my immature likings and tastes. Were you a typical adolescent or not? I think teens with AS develop differently than their neurotypical peers.

No to the 1st question & I was not a typical adolescent. I did grow up mentally some as a teen but I grew more after I graduated high-school. I do not think the same way now about lots of things I did as a kid & teen & my personality is different in some key ways too. I'm not quite sure what you consider abstract thinking but if it's the definition I think it is, I had major problems with that as a kid & teen & still kind of do. I don't think I developed my rational thinking well till after I graduated high-school. I never did much reckless behavior as a kid thou. I'm still immature & behind my peers in lots of areas but I'm gradually growing/learning/maturing but I don't think I'll ever be a full adult.

I'm an HFA teen with an IQ of 140ish. Often times, I was more mature because I experienced a lot of the adult world by seeing all the scum I knew as "teachers" and the mockery people call "the cool kids". But also proved that I may be mature mentally, but emotionally and socially, I am very immature because I have little to no control over them because they are always very strong and I feel them harder than normal people and socially, I'm just a wreck. I can barely talk to people unless they talk to me and usually when I am isolated or not talking to someone, I kinda notice my hands start to flap.