Late stage adolescence

Not included in the new psychiatric manual DSM-5, this is a common condition with a wide range of symptoms which have not been well researched nor have they been well documented.

Unlike teenage adolescence, usually accompanied by confusion and unhappiness, late stage adolescence is often characterized by happiness. What it does share with its teen cousin is the intense feeling of change, the experience of a major shift in what the world feels like.

Both males and females in late stage adolescence are prone to bouts of chuckling like the proverbial teenage girls.

For instance, when singer legend Joan Baez told of her visit to one of the music events at President Obama's White House, giving a detailed humorous description of her fancy black dress and recounting Mr. Obama's reaction when he saw she was going barefoot ("cool" or something similar, just subpoena that if you really need to know), many in the audience chuckled -- an indication of a large crowd of late stage adolescents.

People who experience late stage adolescence frequently had a non standard teenage adolescence. While they share confusion and unhappiness, their behavior tends to be different from that of normal teens.

Most of the typical, heart wrenching, not "smart", sometimes vile escapades of normal teens are either very mild or completely absent.

The desperate need to be cool and loved, with drinking, smoking of anything smokeable, the yearning for the driver's license, the veneration for jocks and cheerleaders, the magic of the 18th birthday -- you will hardly find these symptoms. 

Their absence or subdued manifestation in the teen years is a fairly good predictor of a late stage form in their adult life.

This can have disastrous consequences for a period from five to twenty years. Active exclusion from the social life of their peers or - more common - just being ignored as boring and uncool have been reported by those who later undergo late stage adolescence.

It is important not to mix up this phenomenon with the good old midlife crisis.

The 50 year old male who buys a convertible and gets a girlfriend half his age is not a late stage adolescent, he suffers from a typical midlife crisis.

The destructive power of a midlife crisis stands in stark contrast to the mild mannered late stage adolescent's views and behavior.

Tell tale expressions of the latter are utterances like "see, 18 was not the huge milestone, I knew it even before that", "man, it was sad and funny watching every get panicky around 30", "the 40s are kindergarten all over". They also tend to be not very religious but quite spiritual in a sweet way.

We have kept this description free of further attempts at classification, such as careers whose members tend to be more late stage than others, or wider social characteristics for two reasons. One, we don't know. Two, we want to give you an opportunity to think about the concept without spin, which becomes inevitable when you add careers, money and the lot.

Here's to the late bloomers who add color to life when others are starting to fade.