Aspies are big children on an emotional level?

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As regards this thread It's nice to know I am not alone.

It's really nice to know I am not alone.

I'm also a big, sensitive kid.

Yes.

I was not interesting in most teenager things, I am not interested in most adult things, which seem stupid, boring, or dangerous to me. If that makes me emotionally a child, well guilty as charged, I guess. I though most real kids couldn't wait to grow up. I didn't.

This. Maturity is a subjective concept, and people have different ideas about what it entails. Some people define it as the ability to adjust to circumstances. Some people define it as having a secure career and a family. Others define it as the ability to identify with those less fortunate than themselves, whilst others define it merely as knowing one's own mind.

Come to think of it, I'm not sure there's a single social virtue whose definition is less open to interpretation. As for the idea of us being big children at heart - a lot of NTs are too. I've also met aspies who are capable of keeping their head and being rational in situations which would make most NTs lose it, so I'm not sure the OP's question entirely holds up.

As an adult I do everything I'm supposed to do. I work, pay my bills and I've got a grown up daughter who I also support.

I do all these things because it's what is expected of me. However, inside me I feel like a child who has a hell of a lot of responsibility on my shoulders.

I have to keep a brave face on but it is really hard. I know that I am still very young.

I don't know I think its not just looking younger than I am that people assume I am like 15-18, even though I am 24 before they know my age, but I feel like I definitely moved passed the child/adolecent stage at least and I feel more mature than a lot of people in some situations, but it kind of varies I guess.

Brackets, I feel like that too and I´ve been wondering if I lie to myself, being this old, but I´ve actually come to believe, that this is the real me. It feels real.Good interests and good friends and that´s it.

As far as being "responsible", I have been an adult since WAY before I should have been, and I do carry it too far according to some people.

In MANY ways I am like a little kid. For instance: I decorate cakes and cookies in a way any adult would find beyond tacky, though kids seem to like them. Ussually I do not wear makeup, but when I do, if 'french whore" look feels fun, that's what I'll do. If I am in a hurry to do something fun, it is not unusual to later discover that my shirt is inside out or my socks do not match. I think I get more excited about Christmas than when I was a little kid, because now I get to receive gifts AND I get to be Santa. I cannot resist bringing home stray animals and stray people. I cry WAY too much. Other Autistics seem to stim less as they get older. I stim more. I am still waiting for a grown-up thick skin. I still walk on my toes. I still swing on swings and I will never understand why people are mean. I love playing pretend with my grand kids and creeping people out by keeping one eye straight ahead while rolling the other eyeball around [I can only sometimes do that] I still like to skip and to spin and to belly dance. I cannot sit still. I have no clue how people can sit through church without bringing a book they can read. This is just a start.

If the shoe fits

I've thought about about this recently actually, perhaps I'm just a more intelligent child. I'm too dependent, I've had such a rigid way of thinking, there are thoughts and feelings that I have now that I feel most people experience at a much younger age. I've sheltered myself so much, all the responsibilities and everything else that goes along with being an adult has been really hard for me to cope with.

You are absolutely not alone SA. I am interesting in that in some ways I am super mature. But in so many emotional ways my maturity levels can range between the maturity age range of a 4 to 12 year old. In one instance I can be intellectualizing and emotional event at a maturity far beyond my years which even amazes people and then in the next instance I am emotionally handling that same incident as a small child. It's a difficult dichotomy to have to live with and balance because it can get very confusing and sometimes even exhausting. And when you are around other people it can be very hard because many people cannot fathom the concept that you can have such dramatically opposing personas at the same time. So I have to be very careful how about what other people are allowed to see in me at any given moment. If that little tiny kid part of me comes out in front of the wrong people or in "unsafe" situations it can cause me a lot of problems. But you are definitely not alone in this. From what I have read it is very common on the Spectrum.

And I believe one of the reasons, if not the reason, is that they have found that in the Autistic brain the Limbic system is actually younger than the Limbic systems of NT's. Because of this, the entire Autistic brain is actually physically younger than an NT brain of the same chronological age. And the Limbic system is responsible for our emotional life as well as other things like long term memory and behavior. They found that the Autistic Limbic system part of the brain has many more neurons than the NT Limbic system and that the Autistic neurons in that area were much smaller than the NT ones. This would explain why Autistic people can be emotionally much younger than their chronological NT peers. It is very interesting though since the emotions and behavior is handled by one part of the brain while intellectualizing that emotion might be handled by another. That would explain the dichotomy that I talked about above.

Parts of the limbic system also play important roles in cognitive processing, attention, spacial memory, and decision making which many of us have trouble with as well.

I don't think I ever grew up. I still feel like a child. And a responsible adult at the same time.

Could you post a video of the eyeball thing?
(I just said that in jest).

YES!! I want to see that.

Are aspies big kids on an emotional level? Aspies are a diverse bunch. Perhaps some are big kids and some aren't. I've met some who are quite responsible and some who are also more level-headed than your average NT.

I don't think I have the emotional level of a child. Not anymore. I had the emotional level of a child when I was about 22 (though not the cognitive level of a child). Now at 26 I have the emotional level of an adolescent.

I feel like I had more emotional maturity when I was actually a child. Although I cried very easily, and I always had trouble holding back my feelings, I felt like it was far healthier for me to be that way. I got things out of my system more easily. Now I feel like I am just bottled up and frustrated most of the time, and I can tell when it affects my physical health in a bad way, plus it can make me accident prone sometimes. I think society has it backwards about what it means to be emotionally mature.

I still don't get why some people consider that to be immature. When the weather is hot, I reserve the right to dress in a t-shirt and shorts. I think that's practical, not immature.