Aspergers & Your Real Age

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Me too. I have been told by different people who don't know each other (so they didn't share notes) that I must have been born 40. The first time I heard it was in my 20s. My late wife used to say it a lot.

I was the typical "little professor" as a kid. Repaired my first antique tube radio at six years old. Asked probing, logical questions about anything I didn't understand. Fortunately, my parents weren't ashamed to say "I don't know", so I didn't get bogus information from them. Some of my teachers made stuff up when they didn't know, and I generally found flaws in their explanations.

On the other hand, my wife passed away last year after 24 years of marriage. My two sons are grown, so I am effectively single again. I find myself doing the frequent camping, boating, and hiking I started doing in my teens again.
Don't have as much energy, but I definitely enjoy my wilderness time.

Like several people in this thread, I was also called an "old soul" as a kid, which I one day saw someone on Disability Twitter posit was code for often ND children who have become withdrawn in part due to trauma, which is often as simple as the trauma of being invalidated and rejected and overwhelmed by the world for being the way we are.

As for the question of maturity, I think the most important thing in this discussion is this question: how are you defining "adulthood?"

A lot of us have internalized a very conventional idea of it being related to independence like living on your own, but that's a cultural standard, and historically speaking humans were part of interwoven communities where cooking, for example, would be done in one house where people gathered (some houses didn't even have kitchens!).

What about relationships? Those expectations are narrow, as they don't consider things outside of the cis hetero nuclear family to be the "final destination" of adulthood.

As for interests, what you're allowed to like or enjoy, or how you're allowed to do so, is a total construct. I think cis society self-regulates out of a sense of vulnerability to be so openly joyful about some things. Fear of judgement by peers, for one... "childlike wonder" could simply refer to not having internalized their self-imposed construct of acceptability.

TLDR: adulthood is a construct made by and for neurotypicals, in particular those who are straight, cis, able-bodied, etc..

Einstein was an absolute genius!

(I like your post, but not just yours but others too)

But maybe he was also Asperger's like many of us are.

His brain was also different by physical connections.

I had also studied the narrative of his brain autopsy.

It is impossible to resemble an absolute genius, even in imagination.

I don't have any fantasy, maybe he did, he did.

Imagination I have been working on it since I was 4 years old: I understood the deficit and was looking for strategies.

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Why don't we age mentally?

A medical-scientific answer is that our neuronal connections, even non-standard ones (I will perhaps explain this elsewhere) are almost double the connections of NTs, even gifted ones, compared to gifted NDs.

Theirs die and remain at 100%, ours do not go into apoptosis (programmed death) and remain...*forever.

If I show a photo or video of myself to a peer he will feel old.


If I think about what I know I have about a hundred times more ability than a NT with the same level of education.

*The answer to why some autistics never age and if they physically age their mind doesn't age is because it simply can't!

It's called neoteny.

My mental age is 25.

But it always will be.

Not aging physically gives us an average ten year advantage.

The rest are also galactic disadvantages!

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I agree with many of you, sorry I only mention two, but there are many in this conversation.

FNord and Isabella Linton who often writes things in a centered and really clear and concise way.

However, being more effective than FNord is impossible, I think!

Like others: I was perceived as mature as a child and am childish as an adult. I think it's my constant wonder and inquisitiveness. The inquisitiveness made me seem older and the wonder makes me seem younger.

I still feel like Im running an errand for my parents when I go into a bank.

Ive never really felt like an adult - just playing at it and following a script.

I am told I look nothing like my chronological age so perhaps that has a bearing on it?

I follow the script less these days as over the past 5 years I have masked less and less.

Im almost at the point where I really dont care. Outside of work I only associate with other Autistic people which probably helps.

I'm 64.