Anyone Experienced A Gradual Decline Over The Years?

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It's a fact that a person's body changes physiologically from youth to adulthood to old age. The mind also changes.

Aside from the gradual mental decline that many people experience when they get older I think autistics change the older they get. The coping mechanisms that are part of learning and adaptability in youth seem to go away or at least lessen which can make coping with daily life more of a challenge.

I know there are other autistics that have experienced what I have around the age of 50. I think "autistic burnout" is part of it, but I think it's broader than that. I think autistics hit a "wall" around this age, a convergence of work burnout, social challenges, isolation and exacerbated sensory issues. Maybe this wall is an autistic's 'mid-life' crisis of sorts?

Maybe there can be a positive aspect to hitting an autistic wall such as focusing on yourself and what you need and how you want to change your life even in small ways to make things better for you.

A big hurdle for me is to claim sickness benefits as I feel guilty, and I can't really face the benefits people if they try to queory if I make a claim. If they say I am not eligeable, I won't claim and will continue my life with no income.
I feel guilty that I have reached a point where I can't face working with so many partial shutdowns. It feels like I am giving in. It is why I am saying to myself, that if I make a claim, then it is a "Buffer zone" to give me a chance to recover. It is why I can't think to myself that I won't recover.
I don't really know where to claim for sickness benefits or how to go about it, but I have been told that I will be sent a supporting letter so I can take it to either my doctor or the benefits people? Maybe an idea to copy it incase both need a copy? No idea. I was informed I may have someone coming with me, but reading between the lines, this may not take place as I am on the assessment list rather then having been assessed. So if things don't work out I will wait and sell some more of my train collection to make ends meet. I am a survivor so I am used to living without an income. (My Mum feeds me). Ok, some of my clothes have holes in them, but I don't mind as they are more comfortable like that.

I have no idea how the benefit system works in the UK.

That was my story in the 20 years or so prior to diagnosis.

Gradual decline?


More like rapid decline



Practically brain dead



After four years, flunked structural engineering at UCSD, bachelor, 2005


In 2008 aikido instructor Warren pottebaum,. Structural engineer. Had the nerve to ask me if I knew what a ninety degree angle was and high school diploma



Plenty of precious lil "people" overestimate or underestimate my iq

That could be natural, involuntary, necessary or subconscious


And I try as hard as I can to ignore because they have a legal " right" to be ass holes



But emotionally disturbing s**t every day since Warren I have thought about the ninety degree angle and it is now 2019







Plenty of lil dips**ts acted like I am intellectually challenged but none of them were structural engineer. None of them spent as much time with me as Warren





f**k mister redelings

How do you define a 'gradual decline'? Is it a case of the higher you've climbed , the harder you fall ?

A gradual increase in partial shutdowns which also makes me weakened and more fragile to get more. I find after a stressful day (E.g. lets say I did a few hours at work. I don't have a job now), the decline has meant I need more and more restful days to recover, and if I am in work, the hours I can manage have been less and less. It has reached a stage where if I could regulate my work hours and the rest days needed between shifts to an acceptable balance and level for me to cope with, I am at the stage where commuting costs would be higher then my earnings if I am to be honest. I reached this stage a few years ago where I was working part time 12 hours a week. Initially it was 2 days a week, 6 hours a day. But because I was struggling towards the end of the shifts, they put it at 3 days a week... Then I found I was struggling towards the ends of those shifts. Finally they put me to do the hours spread over the week at 2 hours a day, and I had hardly any recovery days and also the cost of commuting was the same as my wages! So I left.

Back in 2007 I left my last full time job I was able to tackle and I was in such an emotional state. Suicidal... Sleeping patterns all over the place (Mind you, the shifts were all over the place! Haha! But though I had 12 hours between shifts to sleep, my actually sleeping pattersn as my mind was active at the wrong times as it took ages to wind down aftet a shift and mentally prepare for tne next, that I was getting 4 hour to 6 hour sleeps if I was lucky. I had to hand in my notice and leave as when I had annual leave etc, I was finding that I was ill during every few days I had off etc...

I have found throughout my working life before rhat, that I could stay in a job until the masking wore thin, which usually was about two years, and then I would look for a new job and try to hold things together until I found one, which was usually six months to a year later... And I would always try to start the new job with a few weeks of a month rest as I really needed it.
As I have got older, I found I need more rest inbetween shifts, and less hours per shift, and these days, I need sucha long time to recover that I can only take temporary jobs... As most jobs here one gets paid monthly and first works a month in hand, and require a months notice. If I quit early I would lose out on all the pay I had earned plus all my commuting costs. And thses days I find even with low hour part time woek, a months work is too much. So I would have to be handing in my notice the day I start so I could cope! Which any employer would not have me work to do this.
But, as I have found, even temporary part time low hour jobs are too much. And they need to be low pressure jobs where I don't deal with the public.

What I believe I really need is a year or two in somw sort of seaside place with no work or stress to get myself recharged and raring to go! I believe once I am fully recovered where I can have lone times inbetween shutdown events, I will be back able to cope to stand financially on my own two feet.

Mh real fear is that the UK benefits system may not allow me to do this and will be trying to push me back into employment before I am ready... Before the shutdowns start to subside.

I like driving. I do habe partial shutdowns on rare occasions whild driving but never a full shutdown. (I would be too petrified to drive if that happened, but as I get warnings and can feel how deep I am in a shutdown, I can pull over a long time before I torally shut down: Hence why I never have fully shut down while driving).
So, I thought "Why don't I take a driving job?" BUT what I really fear is that as I am now I can drive. I am safe on the roads. I relax while driving. It gives me the opposite effect of shutting down. If I try to combine the pressures of work with driving the fear is (And I know this will happen) is that I will have to quit driving as I will associate driving with work, and I will be in a dreadful position living a couple of miles from a bus stop and not being able to walk when I get partial shutdowns (When I work I am stressing through one partial shutdown to the next constantly trying to find ways to cope etc).

So I just can't take the risk of taking a driving job. If I am out driving for myself I can go for hours and miles if I keep to the stress free countryside roads we have here. As long as I keep out of cities and large towns other then passing through, I am relaxed and fine. All is great. I actually use drivinb as a method to destress. I know it sounds strange. On the right type of roads with some nice green country scenery going up and down hills etc... It to me has a similar effect as spending time with my special interest. Liberating freedom from stress.
Traffic jams are the opposite, hence I know many, many avoiding routes in local towns and villages.

Why don’t you try Uber on a trial basis, Mountain Goat?

You can make your own hours driving for Uber. If you don’t feel up to it, you can just not drive.

You can pick me up should I come to Wales

Haha. Well. It is the needing to be places and the stress of going there by certain times which would give me the issues where I am likely to shut down.
If I am driving and there is no set deadline... No heavy lifting etc. I would be ok. Is the set deadlines and the heavy workloads where I would panic.
The toughest job I ever did was for 8 months as a postman. I seem to have a mental allergy of calling in to peoples homes that I don't know (Or phoning etc) where I don't know what to expect, and the postal service workload was immense. 6am till 8pm with a single 25 to 30 minute break for mid day lunch. I was getting thinner and thinner and thinner as when I got back home I was too tired to eat, and due to nurves I often would skip breakfast. So some days it would be 4 sandwiches scoffed down a day and that was it.

Yes, I am your age and I am in a "decline" (flare up) --- I hope that it's partly temporary as I readjust; I am exploring masking less.
* Work stress - before I self-diagnosed I was already saying to folks "I'm exhausted" of constantly adjusting
* Hormone changes - ASD are generally more sensitive to hormonal changes, something to keep in mind as I face menopause and you face "andropause" (starts mid 40s for men; a more gradual decline, but nonetheless a change)

I also am capable of living extremely frugally if needed. That said, I used (US) government benefits during my 20s and would do so again if needed and available.

Umm. It was about the age of 43 to 44 that the decline really esculated, though I had noticed it over time before then... But a lot more gradual.
But certainly the last four or five years has been such a decline that I can't think how much lower things can get.

As I have always enjoyed bicycles, I used to have unbelieveably strong legs. I have never really had the ability to sprint or run on my feet... Well. Nothing like others could do, and I was not that good at ball control either... Catching balls and throwing them in the right direction... Uhmm! Well.. Haha!
But I more then made uo for it all in lower body strength.
However, partial shutdowns felt like owning a very powerful V8 engined cars but it only just about able to turn the engine rinning on just two of its cylinders. Yes the engine turns (As in I am alive) but to try to get those big heavy wheels to turn! No chance!

^ ^^ I'm at a low/very low level compared to what you've achieved and done . Hence any decline ,presuming there has been one,isn't as dramatic .

It's very rare that you would need to do heavy lifting driving for Uber. The most you might have to do is putting suitcases into the boot.

I know you don't want to go on "benefits"---but is it possible to have a social worker help you with the paperwork? They do this all the time in the United States.

I would give an anonymous call to the "benefits" office----maybe it's "jobseekers allowance" or something like that? Maybe recruit your mother, if possible, to help you in this?

Graceful degradation

The aging process s**t

36 is pretty old

The longer I have not been in school or work, the worst it's going to become s**t

Sysyphus

Exhausted and tired from competing with nature

Nature will win

f**k mister redelings


Diagnosis Asperger's, 21


Regional center only serves clients diagnosed before 18


Occupational therapy, speech therapy, applied behavior analysis

Never had jack s**t

No $$$ to pay out of pocket

Barely enough $$$ for room and board s**t


The primary care physician told me that she is trying to research the answer to the question, what autism based services does the insurance provide


Although find it hard to imagine the answer is not, nothing



So whatever


You are always getting better, worse, the same, or both


You can't guarantee just the first one

I can't cope with people anymore. Is why taxi would not suit me.

I understand. I get you.

I hope you can get diagnosed with something soon......so you could go on "benefits."

And also get some good therapy to help you. So you can feel good.

And maybe you can repair bikes "when you feel like it."

Personally, I want you to live a long time. I don't want you to feel hopeless upon your mum passing away.