Late bloomer

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Hello everyone,

I was a very slow person as a child, both intellectually speaking and socially. I was always the one not comprehending the homework or the one that does not do it because of the various difficulties I was approaching when thinking. Because of this I would be qualified as a "stupid" person, or at least a slowly developing person, so my question is:

How come I have observed some drastical changes in my personality, social reasoning (reasoning in general), intelligence and physical posture? I am far ahead of my peers (in my class) at subjects which I normally would fail because of my utter incompetence, as an example I would put physics in here. I was always very slow, yet I finished a whole physics book that was intended for us to study in two whole years, I did it in less that a month.

So what is going on with me? Is what I have described simply shortened into a term called "late blooming"? I was just an innocent child wanting to play around with car toys, now, suddenly, I want to become an astrophycisist? I just can not comprehend this. By the way, I am 17 years old. This sudden change happened when I was 16 (before 16 I was a dumb person).

Can you help me adress this tiny problem?

It's no problem. You're just growing up. You remind me of a younger me... when I was about 25

Anyway it sounds like you'd be well suited to a career as an astrophysicist so go for it.

I developed slow in every aspect except academically. I walked late, potty trained late, extremely late social development, coordination has come late and is still not as good as normal people, I don't think. It is weird. I was always considered ret*d outside of the classroom but also considered the smartest when in the classroom, kind of like a savant. I guess this is autism.

I think that happens to everyone and it's really irrelevant when it happens. In some respects I matured really early (in terms of intellect) but really late in other ways (social skills and sexuality).

It sounds like you're doing just fine you precocious young whipper snapper.

Late bloomer at what?

I lived much of my 20's and early 30's believing I was a late bloomer. I was smart, had some talents and the ability to focus intensely on things that were of interest to me. Yet I still struggled to find something that I could be "successful" at, meaning economic and social success.

As I got older and my peers were leaving me behind in life, I started to wonder if maybe I'm not a late bloomer, maybe I'm not a plant that blooms, or if I am, they are small flowers that aren't particularly attractive and have no scent.

Now I'm trying to redefine what success is for me, so maybe I'll still bloom after all.

I can't think of much that i wasn't a late bloomer in.

Takes me forever to 'get traction' but once I do I'm usually pretty quick.

Sorry I forgot to be more specific in my question. What I meant was, were you a late bloomer intellectually speaking? For example, performing poorly in school, but getting a sudden neurological twist that makes you very well capable of mastering what you had difficulties in. That is my case. Another example is when you are suddenly able to learn quicker than before and at the same time experiencing a sudden improved memory, all of this happened less than a year in my brain which I think is odd in a negative way.

Yes - very much so. Almost failed grade one (my mother wouldn't hear of it however). By middle of grade 2 I was reading at a grade 6 level.

I seem to be a very slow starter in a lot of things but once I get going I catch up and then I proceed to speed past everyone else.

Thanks for the clarification.

Intellectually, no, I don't consider myself a late bloomer. I was often placed in advanced groups in school. But did struggle with things that didn't hold my interest, or went too fast.

I really struggled in college, though. I felt I didn't belong there, had no friends on campus and couldn't connect with any of the profs.

I tried to go back to finish a degree a few years ago thinking that maybe I was a late bloomer, once again. I did quite well in many ways, yet found I could not write papers to save my life and the degree program I was in was writing intensive. I gave up again.

But I was a late bloomer socially. Didn't date until I was 22. I would say I was socially less inept in my mid to late 20's, but that might have been because of alcohol and marijuana, which made me much more lively in social situations. I don't use those anymore, so I have reverted back to being quiet and shy for the most part.

Last edited by grbiker on 21 Oct 2014, 7:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I think I was. I didn't do well in elementary school at all: Bs, Cs and Ds for the first six years, and zero social life. I behaved as if the other students didn't exist, and they behaved like I didn't. It was easier that way. By middle school at age 12, I started doing much better academically, primarily As, a few Bs. I think part of it had to do with the way they segregated the classes: we had English in one room, maths in another, etc. and it wasn't all blended and unclearly defined the way it was in my younger years. I was able to keep better organised because of it. I also made a friend in middle school, which was a novel experience for me. I'd had one friend up until that point, but never one I got to see in school or do homework with and talk to about teachers and the like.

By high school, I'd started a social backslide. I kept improving academically, but I was still playing with toys and watching cartoons when all my classmates started getting interested in the opposite sex, dating, and social hierarchies that I couldn't begin to understand. I did keep my one friend, but became less her equal and more like a cute pet she kept around as she began to develop socially. She started seeing me as a geek and a nerd because of my love of academia as well. She thought it was "cute" but never wanted to talk about the things I liked.

These days I'm entirely caught up academically, and doing fine in university, but I'm still very socially stunted. I joined a social skills group to try and fix it, and I'll have to see how it progresses.

Yes and no. To start with I was the other way around. I've been top of the class in primary school and bottom of the class in high school. In later high school I got a bit better and actually started passing classes. What changed? Did I get smarter? No, it was mostly that I got more organized. Either that, or that I used the extra year I gained by skipping year 9 to do year 12 part time over two years.

I work so much more efficiently doing half days but that's not always practical.

As for friends in School I had less of them when I was the only one in my group who decided to stay on 'till year 12 and the rest of them dropped out (the upside was I got to be in less rowdy class rooms because now that it was voluntary that got rid of the students who didn't really want to be there).


Not to worry, you beat me by three years

So my social problems are caused by a lack of drugs?

Been there.

Well, since I've recently started taking "drugs" again (prescribed) to deal with severe social anxiety, that may be true.

But where is the neurological aspect of my situation? Such a drastic change is very unlikely to occur in a small time interval of time, that would require exceptional changes to start in my brain which is odd as it should have been progressively improving rather than going like an exponential curve.

Any thoughts? We are talking about a maximum of 1 year's of change. Was it maybe because I started studying more? But neuroplacticity does not have an impact on your other cognitive abilities (I think).

OP you'd be surprised how common that is. The brain is changing all the time. It can change a great deal in a single year. Like I said, you remind me of when I was 25 or 26 except that that wasn't the year I got smart, that was the year I grew a spine.

Really you have always been improving progressively except the apparent rate of improvement can seem to go in stops and starts. Even when you feel the same, you're getting smarter, your brain is always preparing for improvements before they happen.

Yes you can a quantum leap in cognitive ability at 17 and this probably isn't the last time that will happen to you. It could happen every few years. It's normal for that to happen to people. It's also normal to think that normal things aren't normal because people only know their own story, not everyone else's.

Well that's my unscientific hypothesis anyway

Thank you for the insightful information!