Autism and ageing
Written on 28th Apr 2022 by Alex Lowery
As many of you know autistic often people have special interests in certain subjects. I am no exception to this. I have had many interests in my lifetime. However one of the most strange and bizarre interests I have (and have had for many years) is people’s ages.
I know this likely sounds like a really strange interest to have but it is definitely something I’m interested in. When I was 3 years old I thought age was like a part of a person’s identity and I didn’t know it was to do with the number of years you’ve been living. When I turned 4, I was anxious and very upset because I was used to being 3 and I thought I always would be 3. I actually really liked being 3.
I have a very good memory of how old people are. There are literally people I haven’t seen since I was a kid and I still know their age now! I particularly tend to remember if they’re a similar age to me. I tend to work out their age by remembering how old they were when I was a certain age. I get family members asking me to tell them people’s ages and the majority of them I do know. Whereas with other people, I’ve met some people that forget my age even days after I’ve already told them.
I remember people’s ages better than I do their names sometimes. There are actually a number of people that I remember the age of but cannot possibly remember their names. I’m not even good at remembering names unless I get used to the name. I think most people tend to remember names better than they do ages. I tend to have quite an interest in trying to guess a person’s age and finding out how close or far away I am. It might sound absurd but I tend to think about this for hours.
Another thing to know about me is that I have never liked getting older and still don’t. Like I said at the beginning of the article, I did not like turning 4 because it was a different age from what I was used to, I also didn’t like turning 13 because it meant I was a teenager and I didn’t want to be. I also didn’t like turning 18 because that’s when I legally became an adult and I didn’t feel I was ready to grow up because I still had so much to learn. I also didn’t like turning 20 because that meant my teenage years were officially over and I couldn’t really escape the fact that I was an adult.
These ages tended to represent a change and I really do not like change much. I’m 28 now and in less than 2 years I’ll be 30. Even this age scares me. Now I wish I was 21 again. When I was 20, there were several things I really hoped I would have achieved by the time I turned 30. Now that I am heading towards 30 I still haven’t achieved all that I wanted to and it is a bit depressing. I also think about how quickly the last 10 years have flown by for me. It makes me realize that I’ll even be 40 in no time.
Despite my stress over it, I try to remain positive and think about the fact that there are at least some things I have achieved. All I can do is pray to God that he will give me the strength to cope with and accept my challenges. I can also pray that he will help me to continue to make progress and learn new skills.
Thank you for reading. I hope you found this informative.
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