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Roman
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24 Jul 2011, 6:46 pm

I am 31 years old, but I have a very hard time seeing myself this way, because I still feel like a teenager. What is devastating about it is the fact that I am USED to be a teen who is far ahead in school (such as taking college level math or physics whie in high school, taking graduate level math or physics while in college, and so forth). Right now the situation is the opposite: I am an adult who still does not have a career set in place. I got my Ph.D. at 29, which makes it total of 8 years in grad school, as I started grad school at 21. This is to be contrasted with 3 years in high school (15-18 ) and 3 years in college (18-21).

The reason I spiraled down in grad school is that I didn't know the rules of the game. I didn't believe people when they said I should focus on my research and not on taking courses. I took courses anyway. Why did I do it? Because I am a lot younger than my age, so my decisions are not very wise! Now if I look at my actual age rather than passport age, I don't feel 31 anyway. My actual age is probably somewhere in my teens. This means that having ph.d. at this point is quite impressive.

The only question I have is this: since I am younger than my age, do I get to live longer? If I do, then I have time to catch up in my academic career (I plan to be a physicist as lifetime goal). If not, then that means I just wasted the best part of my life.

Now I just watched a certain video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xxKyrXq ... re=related

In this video they mentioned that a typical aspie is either 1/3 or 2/3 of their age. WOW. So this means that I am somewhere between 10 year old and 20 year old. I would LOVE for it to be the case. But, again, do I get to live longer? If an average NT lives till they are 80, does it mean that an aspie should live until they are 120 -- 200 years old? I mean it is only fair that an aspie who is 2/3 of their age lives till they are 120 and the one who is 1/3 of their age lives till they are 200.

I guess I am quite sceptical about 200, if there were ANY people living that long it would have made it to the news. But 120 is a reasonable question. I mean, independantly of my mentality, the thing is that I LOOK very young. If you look at me I don't look like 30 year old, for sure. So if my body is so young, do I get to live longer?



pree10shun
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24 Jul 2011, 7:06 pm

While your mind doesn't age mentally your body does physically. So I think no an aspie won't live longer.



kat_ross
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24 Jul 2011, 7:17 pm

I am 23 years old and feel like I am about 12 years old. But, I'm pretty sure that my heart has beat as many times as the heart of an average 35-year-old due to all of the anxiety and stress. So, I have actually always assumed that I will die sooner than NT's my age.



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24 Jul 2011, 7:21 pm

No, I don't think so. We may suffer more stress and if we're on medications we're dramatically cutting our life short. That's what I think personally about myself anyway. I think I've done more damage by being on I think it's only three different meds but some of the side effects are disastrous. I'd rather a short life and accomplish one thing than live a long life and accomplish very little. Live fast, die young - that's me.
I also have problems with taking care of my physical health so for that reason I might have shortened my lifespan too.

I've been mentally 12 years old for 10 years and while I still look that way I don't think I'm going to live longer than most people. I'll be lucky to get to 60. Actually at this rate I'll be lucky to live to 40.


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John_Browning
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24 Jul 2011, 7:31 pm

If you factor in the suicide rate, ASDs would likely average a substantially shorter life expectancy.


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BillyIdolFan217
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24 Jul 2011, 9:15 pm

I`m mentally 12 as well! I always say that! Aside from having AS I also have Peter Pan Syndrome and refuse to grow up!


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LuckyLeft
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24 Jul 2011, 9:25 pm

kat_ross wrote:
I am 23 years old and feel like I am about 12 years old. But, I'm pretty sure that my heart has beat as many times as the heart of an average 35-year-old due to all of the anxiety and stress. So, I have actually always assumed that I will die sooner than NT's my age.


I'm 20 and I can't help but feel as if I'm 10 years old a lot of the time, and I tend to agree with the last two sentences that you stated, thinking I'd die earlier assuming with all of the stress that I have dealt with and will have to deal with, eventually.....

Will I feel like this 5 years from now? I hope not. And I hope the same for you as well..........


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voyage-one
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24 Jul 2011, 9:40 pm

I'm 23 but at times I feel like I'm still 18 or 19. I'll be lucky to have a career by the time I'm 25.



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24 Jul 2011, 10:11 pm

With the stress that the world puts on us and the drugs that Big Pharma pumps into us, I think that we have a shorter life span than the average population.


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John_Browning
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24 Jul 2011, 10:21 pm

voyage-one wrote:
I'm 23 but at times I feel like I'm still 18 or 19. I'll be lucky to have a career by the time I'm 25.

Realistically, plan for 30 if you are proactive. As you get older and have more time to learn about the world, expect your assessment of your emotional age to drop.


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haruka
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24 Jul 2011, 10:52 pm

I am in my early 30s but feel like I am only becoming an adult now.

As for living longer, one of my passions is taking care of myself (yoga etc) and I have mostly structured my life to be stress-free. Of course, that doesn't always work but I am less stressed than most people, even with the higher anxiety.

Plus I have an ability to not notice some stresses (like when someone is making fun of me or doesn't like me) so I save myself that aging factor.

Ironically, I find the idea that I will live longer to not be a positive thing. That in itself is bizarre.



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25 Jul 2011, 1:03 am

pree10shun wrote:
While your mind doesn't age mentally your body does physically. So I think no an aspie won't live longer.


Mental age =/= physical age.


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AbleBaker
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25 Jul 2011, 1:06 am

I hope not. :P



danum
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25 Jul 2011, 1:26 am

I would imagine our life expectancy to be slightly lower than average because if we have any medical emergency we are more likely to be by ourself and so there's no-one around to help us.



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25 Jul 2011, 3:01 am

Depends on how happy we are...

A self realized aspie should be long lived



kat_ross
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25 Jul 2011, 3:21 am

Thank you LuckyLeft :)
I hope everyone here will be able to reduce their stress level in the coming years.