Level of functioning declining with age

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When I was elementary and high school age, I was always one of the kids with the most discipline. The teachers would always rave about how "delightful" and how well behaved I was compared to the other kids. I was able to go on and attend college while working two jobs, singing in the church choir, going to church every Sunday, going out places. and keep my chores up to date.

However, after college, I noticed my peers surpassing me maturity-wise. After being hospitalized for severe depression, it's as if I never recovered to that level of functioning I had when I was in my 20s. My brain, it seems, just decided to give up trying. And now, I struggle to step outside my house much less keep my grades up in grad school or get my laundry done.

I've wondered if this is inevitable for those of us on the spectrum to lose some functioning as we grow older. I thought when I got older, I would be that brash worldly adult wearing a suit and answering lots of calls on a Blackberry while driving a car to my middle class-paying job. But it looks like that possibility keeps running further and further away from me each day.

In some ways, I have lost the ability or desire to fake it. I want people to accept me for who I am. However, outside of the AUtism Education Center, my congregation, and my immediate family, that is not happening.

I don't think we lose any function, and in fact, I think we grow and build on whatever our best skills are. I'm 7 years older than you are, and definitely I know the feeling of falling apart after high school, but it came back together slowly but surely for me. I think the same is possible for any of us. My 20s were really REALLY rough. I don't even like to think about that time. But after I turned 30, I stopped sliding downhill, and started to put things together in my life.

Charles

I would think and base it on my experience that this is due to depression.

I tend to agree with the OP. I got to do a lot of things in my thirties to forties. I went back to school and got a good career in health care started. I also did freelance work on the side. Then I was in sales. I made my own contacts, did demonstrations, drove miles to make sales. Then my health took a header and it's been downhill ever since. I no longer care as much as I did before about getting ahead in the world. Like nirrti_rachelle, I thought that by now I would have built a professional life that would see me through until retirement. But instead, I am disabled and mostly indoors because of growing increasingly lackluster about socializing. I am a gifted writer, but won't make the effort to publish. It's like I burned out or something.

My experience is more like nirrti_rachelle and hartzofspace's. In my 20's I worked hard, hoping that I'd eventually find myself in some cool lab job where I could play off the "absent minded professor" image as cover. But in my 30's I crashed pretty hard and have never felt quite the same, since.

But, I'm not sure if my functioning is inherently reduced, or that I'm no longer using "emergency power" all the time. Depression also was a part of it, but since having that treated it doesn't seem like that's all that it was/is.

I hope not.

I'm only 21 and already I suffer from Agoraphobia, Social Phobia, an anxiety disorder, OCD, depression, and lots of other small pschological conditions what make up one hell of a problem - also what I never really had before the age of about 18-19. When I was school age, I seemed OK. I didn't worry about people looking at me in the street, I didn't have so much self-pity as I do now, I was never afraid to go out on my own (in fact I liked it), I never felt socially phobic, I was a little anxious but nowhere near as bad as I am now, and was able to sit still for ages and concentrate more. Now I can't sit still at all, and I get so nervous all the time, and I worry too much of what others are thinking of me, and I hate myself so much that I feel like screaming 'til my lungs explode, and I've just turned into such an aggressive, nervous, miserable, irrational person. And I have also developed an intense fear of young girls wearing thick make-up and the top fashion, because my state of mind has become so fragile that if I catch prettier girls judging me, I know I'm going to have a nervous breakdown and may never come out of my front door again.....

I must admit, the only negative emotion I kept having when I was school age but don't seem to have so much now is jealousy. I have it a bit, but not as intense as I used to have. I used to get into jealous rages when my cousins were out seeing friends because I never had any to go out and see and it made me feel so lonely and isolated, and I wished there was another one in my family who was lonely too and so I could relate to a little bit, instead of everyone being NT and having to feel the need to go out and get friends and forget about me (OK, that does sound selfish but that was how I felt). Now I've got some friends who want to see me, and I have a small relationship with a handsome man (the relationship has only just started). But still, I still feel I'm emotionally worse than what I used to be.

That does really sound like it is mainly depression doing that. However, changing what is expected of you as you age also can make this stronger. Put me back in school and I'd look far more functional than with me trying to find a job. Also if you live in a different environment that can affect this. I moved to a city for college amd my apparent functioing lebel was strongly affected. Untortunately we need to balance difficult sets of needs in our living envoronments often that can be essy to overlook.

I don't think it's inevitable, but I also don't think it's uncommon. I had a major depressive episode 6 years ago, when I was 21, and have never fully recovered my pre-depression level of functionality. I think it's more than just depression though, because my functioning didn't improve with the depression. For me, I think part of it was that in a very short period of time, the expectations that I was supposed to meet changed a lot, and changed without my being adequately prepared. It's possible that my functioning didn't even change all that much, but I perceived a change because of new expectations placed on me (similar to how the expectations placed on you went from being a dependable student to working a middle-class job. I feel like we're expected to just flow from one to the other, but it's not that simple).

Article you might be interested in:

http://americanaspergers.forumotion.net ... ic-article

I kinda know what you mean......sometimes I wonder how in the hell I was able to pass elementary, middle and highschool. I guess I was really focused on getting it over with so I would be free to live my life. Then I went to college, did okay the first year but was really depressed and lonely......so I transferred to another college and ended up dropping out. I've been going to community college for the past year and now I am getting burnt out on that. So yeah I feel like my functioning has gone down a bit, I mean I really am not quite sure what I want to do with my life I have some ideas but all of them have their downsides.

I guess, one get early depressed because of "feeling different" and "failing" to many times. And later life is getting even more complicate, because you have to take care of your own and it doesn't make the symptoms stronger - or maybe it does, because of depression and anxiety - but you just realize, what you are really not capable of, because after school you are expected to take care of yourself - I fail in it...I am mid-thirty and still not capable to cope with life. Still too much in my own world and couldn't learn, what others did.

Although I never understood what was really happening to me until I learned about AS few months ago, when I look back at my life now I see that I was either consciously or subconsciously (from learned experience) compensating for my inabilities and limitations and avoiding things that could trigger sensory overload, meltdowns/crashes, anxiety and anger. I have also noticed that the last several years have been harder. I think I'm losing the strength and the energy, or possibly the will to constantly compensate and "act the right way". It's just getting harder every year to deal with stuff happening around me.

There has been a lot said here that hits home for me. I went through a severe bout of depression during my final year of my bachelor's degree five years ago, after which I know I have not been functioning as well as before.
I attribute that depression in part to my anxiety over finishing school and the uncertainty following it. I can link most of my major depressive episodes to high stress, routine changing times in my life; switching from highschool to university, finishing university (the first time), quitting church...
I am working on understanding my depression and functioning in councilling, and between that and these posts, I am thinking, at least in my case, that the depression, followed by a poorly established routine, is what has left me feeling less able than in my early 20s. I have been lost in the past 5 years, having to work and study on my own schedule and of my own initiative. Before that, even in my undergraduate university career, everything in my life was pre-scheduled and set, so my routine was easy to maintain. Now, I can't seem to keep my feet on the ground, hense the feeling of regression.

I'm considerably more autistic than I was a few years ago. I've been slowly losing ground, basically my entire life.

Nope I have improved or stayed level.