10:05pm April 29, 2015

Not to perpetuate stereotypes but…

feliscorvus:

…sometimes it really does kind of feel like I’m hitting developmental milestones *now* in my 30s that most nonautistic folks reach in the 16-18 range.

Mostly this rates as “kind of interesting” in my brain but occasionally it leads to situations where I can only hope I’m doing it right/avoiding being the Creepy Old Person in a group. Like recent I joined a hobby-related forum and immediately got along well with a bunch of people there.

But I started getting the impression that most of them were probably at least 10-15 years younger than me, and started wondering “wow would it be unethical of me not to disclose my age?” I decided to do it and so far so good, but still, it’s sort of annoying to consider the fact that there is no way in hell I’d have been able to navigate that kind of social environment when I was the actual age most people there are now.

Not surprisingly I feel the same way. Also even younger milestones like in infancy. I feel like most people took one path to adulthood and I took a completely different one. Each are missing things the other is born knowing.

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