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New Member - World's Oldest Aspie?

Catana

Catana

Well-Known Member
V.I.P Member
I'm sure I'm not really the world's oldest aspie, but at 81, and self-diagnosed in my late 60s, I feel as if I might be the only aspie who didn't grow up with TV and all the electronic goodies that the younger generations are surgically connected to. I'm still trying to sort out the whole autism thing, so I recently started an autism journal to keep track of what I'm reading and my thoughts about being non-typical even for aspies. I don't know how much I'll participate in the forums, but I'll certainly be reading. And maybe blogging.

Anybody else here who's looking for more of an age-peer?
 
Welcome to AC, it's a good place to be. There are some older members here so you should have plenty of folks to relate to.
 
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Welcome to the forum. I'm not as old as you, but I'm old enough not to have grown up with mobile phones and internet.
 
Progster said:
Welcome to the forum. I'm not as old as you, but I'm old enough not to have grown up with mobile phones and internet.
Click to expand...

I'm only 47 and I grew up without mobile phones and the internet. All we had back then was TV and line lines and the computers of that time never connected to anything. There were mobile phones, but they were big and were only installed in a car, only worked in big cities and cost about $5 a minute to use.
 
Catana said:
I'm sure I'm not really the world's oldest aspie, but at 81, and self-diagnosed in my late 60s, I feel as if I might be the only aspie who didn't grow up with TV and all the electronic goodies that the younger generations are surgically connected to. I'm still trying to sort out the whole autism thing, so I recently started an autism journal to keep track of what I'm reading and my thoughts about being non-typical even for aspies. I don't know how much I'll participate in the forums, but I'll certainly be reading. And maybe blogging.

Anybody else here who's looking for more of an age-peer?
Click to expand...

Hi and welcome Catana...

Can I ask you a serious question I have wanted to ask some of the older folks, but never have...

When you were younger (even though times might have been more difficult), did you feel life was simpler or easier?

Did you have anxiety problems when you were younger? Did they get worse as you aged, or as times changed?

Please do not feel obligated to answer, if I made you uncomfortable. Its just something I have always been curious about and only and older person with ASD can give a truthful answer to it...

I'm glad your here and there is lots of nice people to talk too...
 
Chance said:
Hi and welcome Catana...

Can I ask you a serious question I have wanted to ask some of the older folks, but never have...

When you were younger (even though times might have been more difficult), did you feel life was simpler or easier?

Did you have anxiety problems when you were younger? Did they get worse as you aged, or as times changed?

Please do not feel obligated to answer, if I made you uncomfortable. Its just something I have always been curious about and only and older person with ASD can give a truthful answer to it...

I'm glad your here and there is lots of nice people to talk too...
Click to expand...
Hi Chance, no I'm not uncomfortable and would be glad to take a stab at your questions. But the first one really needs some clarification, if you don't mind. What age range are you thinking about when you say "younger?" And what am I comparing "simpler and easier" to? To now? I'm not sure I ever felt that life was simple or easy in any way. It was always a puzzle to be solved, particularly if it involved other people. I suppose it's simpler and easier now because I care less about most of the things that I used to be concerned about. It's helpful that I now live by myself and don't have much contact with other people.

Anxiety... It would be more accurate to say that my childhood was fearful. You could say it moderated to "mere" anxiety over the years, as I became more familiar with the world I encountered, and more self-aware. I have far more control now over the tendency to indulge in useless anxiety. But I'm not typical, so don't give my answers too much credit for enhancing your understanding.
 
Catana said:
Hi Chance, no I'm not uncomfortable and would be glad to take a stab at your questions. But the first one really needs some clarification, if you don't mind. What age range are you thinking about when you say "younger?" And what am I comparing "simpler and easier" to? To now? I'm not sure I ever felt that life was simple or easy in any way. It was always a puzzle to be solved, particularly if it involved other people. I suppose it's simpler and easier now because I care less about most of the things that I used to be concerned about. It's helpful that I now live by myself and don't have much contact with other people.

Anxiety... It would be more accurate to say that my childhood was fearful. You could say it moderated to "mere" anxiety over the years, as I became more familiar with the world I encountered, and more self-aware. I have far more control now over the tendency to indulge in useless anxiety. But I'm not typical, so don't give my answers too much credit for enhancing your understanding.
Click to expand...

I had no actual age in mind... I was more or less comparing (my view) of how it might have been a simpler life back in say the 1950's or 1960's (before technology became such an issue)...

Maybe I can word it this way... Did LIFE seem slower, or less hectic? Or was it filled with other stuff that technology has replaced today? I'm always curious about stuff like this?

I tend to always feel time is flying past, and in that I feel I am always behind or lacking the skills to deal with all these things coming at me at once. I look around and other people seem to be navigating it just fine as I flounder and seem to battle this environment and my own thoughts about it all the time.

I always seek a simple slow paced life, but it seems illusive no matter what I do.

It actually sounds like (by your answer so far) that it wasn't much different back in the day... You used the word "fearful." Well that explains my life 24/7 it seems. Not as in standing in a corner shaking, but just a constant heightened awareness that I seem to be more vulnerable to the negative impacts of what surrounds me.

I try very hard to lead a positive life, but its like being on a raging river in a kayak and pattling upstream all day everyday (mentally)... Which seems to drain me physically.

Sometimes I just feel lost in (what is supposed to be) simple day to day stuff because there is so much I have to get done. IF I can break it all down into small tasks its mostly okay, if not I get overwhelmed and messed up.

I say very often that I want to just head for the mountains, build a cabin and just hide away. Sadly its not really near the joke I make it sound to be. I just want to find a simpler life in all this mass of confusion.

It just seems at times there is more LIFE than I can handle, but I always find a way to handle it so far. But in that I dream of a place where I don't have to feel forced to interact with so many people who just don't seem to have the same viewpoints, or the battles in my head with having to communicate with them.

I'm very able to speak, but I simply don't like conversations with people much. When I was little I didn't speak much at all. I never saw it as an advantage to do so, I still don't, unless its something important.

Thank you for replying : )
 
Welcome to Catana!

I'm one of your older peers here.
I think the meaning of when we suddenly become termed older is a grey area.
Different places like theatres or restaurants and such call us Seniors. But, that can be at 50, 60 or 65 usually.
I am 60.

Some of those wonderings Chance ask about
I was thinking on as I read them.
When I was born, we had TV, but not mobile phones or
the net.
I didn't have them personally until I was about 38.
They were around and I used a computer at work before that age.

I lived in truly rural country for 2 yrs. when I was 5-7.
No modern facilities at all. No running water, outhouse,
wood stoves, no electric. Kerosine lamps, no fans!
It didn't bother me at that age.

I was a fearful child too. The sensory issues and being on the spectrum made the world a scary place and yet
I was always curious and wanted to understand how it all worked.
The anxiety part got worse around age 13 when I first
started getting panic attacks from out of the blue and didn't know what it was.
Life was simpler then though until I started working.
That made it more hectic although I was fortunate in having a job I liked and was working alone most of the time in my own area.

Kudos to you living alone.
I wish I had a way to.
I lived my life with my parents and never learned to be
on my own, nor did I want to.
Then I lost them leaving me with no family 5 yrs ago.
I moved in with a man who gave me part of his large
house to live in but is very controlling and demanding
as he is 15 yrs older than me with a lot of health problems and wants me to do everything like a caretaker to help him as part of having a place to live.
I would love to live on my own at this point in my life,
but, money and health problems stand in my way at this time.
Well, that certainly introduced myself to you.
Too much. :eek: Glad to see someone of your age here though.
 
Chance said:
But in that I dream of a place where I don't have to feel forced to interact with so many people who just don't seem to have the same viewpoints, or the battles in my head with having to communicate with them.
Click to expand...
Hey, @Chance : We've spoke enough you know those are my feelings also.
That small, simple cabin in the woods just living out
my life in peace now with nature. Would be so nice. :rolleyes:
 
Chance said:
I had no actual age in mind... I was more or less comparing (my view) of how it might have been a simpler life back in say the 1950's or 1960's (before technology became such an issue)...

Maybe I can word it this way... Did LIFE seem slower, or less hectic? Or was it filled with other stuff that technology has replaced today? I'm always curious about stuff like this?

I tend to always feel time is flying past, and in that I feel I am always behind or lacking the skills to deal with all these things coming at me at once. I look around and other people seem to be navigating it just fine as I flounder and seem to battle this environment and my own thoughts about it all the time.

<snip>
Thank you for replying : )
Click to expand...
Okay, Chance, now I gotcha. I'd say, in general, life was slower and somewhat easier. Much less technology to deal with, fewer ways to interact with people at a distance, maybe even less pressure to succeed, to be social, etc. Always having been a fairly extreme introvert, I backed away, from an early age, even from what was standard then. My parents didn't put much pressure on me until I was in high school (their parenting technique was "benign neglect"). My survival technique, increasingly, was passive resistance. If I didn't like something and couldn't see a legitimate reason for acting normally, I just quietly refused.

That's still how I function. No TV for the past 10 years. No Facebook, Twitter, etc. Not even a smart phone. I don't welcome drop-in visitors; basically, I don't socialize.

There's so much you could do to reduce stress, without being as extreme as I am. How much of what you're doing are you really obligated to do? How much of it is necessary? Have you just slipped into the busy-busy round without thinking about how each new thing piles on top of what you're already dealing with?

The world is definitely moving faster these days, almost too fast for anyone to keep up. But there's no law that says you have to keep up.
 
SusanLR said:
Welcome to Catana!

I'm one of your older peers here.
I think the meaning of when we suddenly become termed older is a grey area.
Different places like theatres or restaurants and such call us Seniors. But, that can be at 50, 60 or 65 usually.
I am 60.
<snip>
Click to expand...
Glad to meet you Susan. Yeah, "old age" is a slippery term. Finding myself starting my eighth decade means people in their sixties look pretty young. It's all in the perspective. Talking to my 20-year-old grandson yesterday, he mentioned someone just a couple of years younger than he is regarding him as old.
 
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