Do you feel your Aspergers gets more pronounced with age?

Post Reply New Topic

I am (finally) in the process of being assessed profesionally for Aspergers.

One part of this process is going through a questionnaire together with my therapist (who, unlike the first one I saw, actually believed me when I said I thought I could have Aspergers...).

It's quite long and we've gotten through about a third of it in two appointments. There are 4 answers to choose from, "The decription fits me when I was a child/under 16 yrs", "The description fits both now and when was under 16", "The description fits only now" and "This description has never fit".

The sessions and the questions have made me think a bit about how Aspergers "progress", in lack of a better term.

In my own case I would have to say that while as a child I had more social trouble and came off as more socially awkward and was more often told I had strange behaviour that got better with age, as I got a bigger social repertoire, or database as I like to call it.
As a very young child I also either didn't notice or didn't care if I came off as strange.

I have often heard others say the same as well, that with age they become better at hiding their difficulties, giving the appearence of the AS becoming less severe.

What is interesting to me though is that in some other areas the AS seems to be MORE pronounced with age, seems to be getting worse.

Personally I notice it as a lower tolerance to stressfull environments, more likely to be "weird" and care less about what other people think, general less tolerance for putting up with things or people you don't like, being more egocentric and not making excuses about it.

I see this as sort of the grownup-version of AS, where as we as kids are somewhat happily ignorant, in our teens and early adulthood we make a serious effort to appear to be normal, and at some point we, maybe, get to that point I'm trying to describe, and I believe it might be a result of getting more confident and accepting of ourselves and our Aspergers.

Or I could be completely wrong..

I'm not saying this is true for everyone, but these are my thoughts about it and I'm curious to see if anyone else has thought about this and what their theories are

In some ways. When I was younger, I was more prone to intense obsessive interests. I still have special interests, but they're not all-consuming as they once were. As a side note, my special interests from my younger years are essentially the same as they are now. I, too, am more prone to stress, but I think that's growing up and entering the real world. I'm more hypersensitive now, as well. I have meltdowns at work.

Edit: I definitely try to seem normal now. With little avail.

I'm still on the outside looking in. I'm still the social misfit. At least now I'm not tortured by being conspicuosly alone as I was in high school and college. Those were EXTREMELY painful years. My special interests haven't changed. I no longer wear coke bottle glasses so I do look less nerdy. (I wear contacts). Suicide, unfortunately, is always a hair's breath away. (Or is that hare's breath?)

I got over a lot of my misfit-ness in late high school, but now that I'm in college it's back and worse than ever before.

I don't think the underlying issues change, but social demands in particular change dramatically depending on context and as we grow older those contexts change-- e.g a different work place may place more or different demands on you than a previous one.. In addition, one of the things that's said of people on the spectrum is that we have greater than normal degree of neuro-plasticity which means that we learn and unlearn things more rapidly than other people. For that reason I think a lot of us can get rusty or out of practice at dealing with certain situations and therefore seem to regress or worsen. A famous example might be someone like the pianist Glen Gould who retired from live performance because he was overwhelmed, and in many ways became more and more withdrawn and eccentric as he grew older.

<----- Loves Glenn Gould; his mumbling over his playing he can do without.

I definitely believe my AS has become more pronounced as I've aged. No doubt about it. But I think one's life exoeriences may agrrivate it - in this case risking my life.

Longshanks

Depending on the situation, my AS will either get better or worsen. If I'm put in a situation that doesn't provide me with happiness, comfort... in other words, a situation that doesn't benefit me, my AS will get worse and my traits will become more obvious. For example, last year my parents told me I would be exempt from going on a trip to Europe with them since I was over 18 (I have grown pass the "family vacation" phase and like most people my age, I want to go on vacation with my peers), but as usual, my dad ended up deciding against the idea and forced me to go the trip despite my protests against the idea. Of course his reasoning was that he didn't trust me so yeah.

I have nothing against Europe, but when you bring an aspie kid who has been socially deprived most of his life to spend two weeks in Europe with just his parents (and also my dad's friend and his toddler son were with us) it doesn't provide good results. Most of the trip, I was having meltdowns with my parents and just not caring about my behavior or anything. Of course I'm socially awkward so the whole trip was pretty much me following behind my parents while they did what I want... certainly not the type of person who is going to run off on his own to hit up the bar, you know.

I've never made an attempt to "fit in" since i don't have nor ever had any perception of how others may perceive me unless they'd write it down in very clear words. In normal people and also some with ASD there must be what i call a feedback circuitry of social adaption and as a matter of fact i lack this module. This has never changed.

For myself, i can't see any change. Bad days, worse days, better days, but AS remains the same.

I think mine was much worse for me socially as I was younger, but it's still pretty bad, and my social issues led me to get a diagnosis. Not that I'm that old - I'm 20.
My obsessive interests are still obsessive, but much more varied and broad. I can put them away for a while, but have to bring them out. That was something I was unable to do as a kid. I still spend 6 hours a day on my interests during school breaks.
The things that have gotten worse are my sensitivity to my environment, and stimming. Once I realized all those nervous habits were stims, I quit trying to ignore it and just let them happen. Thus, they "got" worse, when really, I was using so much energy to hide them ALL the time.

I think the sensitivity got worse when I entered University and am around so many people that make the noises I can't stand. More stress = more sensitivity.

[My usual disclaimer, I'm not dx'd with AS, I'm dx'd with another ASD.]

Some of my sensitivities got worse over the years (hearing, smell), but there's one thing I wasn't aware of even a few years back. It has to do with responsibility or managing skills. People now expect from me to do such tasks and activities in my work that require better perception of (social) environment and informal relations, to be able to see more of the whole picture and act accordingly, without any specifics. Have you heard the term 'proactive'? This is it. So it's not enough that you have certain difficulties with executive functioning, you have to be a manager. Being a specialist is just not enough over 39.

Also, I often wonder how people with definite traits of ASDs end up in their later years. I see a few around myself who become less tolerant and more oblivious of their surroundings and what their needs are. They often appear to me so lonely that they even cherish depressive, suicidal thoughts. Others become aggravated over the simplest things when something isn't happening their way.

When you are young, you can rightfully be oblivious of some menacing stuff and think that things will be going better in time.

I noticed that as I got older I've become wiser NOT the way like others had expected of me. I did it on my way, and that's not good news, so to speak.

So, I think, unless you're fortunate enough to have a supportive person or persons beside you and have a lifetime behind you that's good to remember, it could be harder after a couple of decades, despite all the efforts. You have to learn how to live life in peace with yourself.