Do autistic traits get worse into adulthood?

Post Reply New Topic

+1

you too, eh?

For the last couple of years my autistic traits have been worse than they've ever been. I put this down to more stress and pressure. I spend around 80% of my time doing stuff I don't want to be doing and hardly ever have time for my special interests. This is a big contrast to when I was a child and the only thing I had to do which I didn't like was go to school. I would come home and my mum would make my tea, I didn't have to do any chores. Probably not the right way to raise a child as I find those things very difficult now but in comparison my life then was easy. I find the more stress and pressure I have in my life, the more intense are my autistic traits.

My autistic symptoms got much, much worse at the end of my marriage. The stress of attempting to deal with a career, a failing marriage, family, and continuing education so that I could advance my career led me to a very high anxiety state. I was having frequent meltdowns, was isolating myself from everybody, became very sensitive to sensory input, and lost some of my speaking ability. The search for what was causing my speaking gibberish, and constant loss of words is what led me to my discovery of Asperger's.

Since my divorce, most of my traits have returned to what ever normal is.

So in my experience, yes, autistic traits can appear to worsen with the stress that comes from adult hood.

Temple Grandin felt very strongly that many people improve and have less symptoms with age. That has certainly been my personal experience. But, it probably has more to do with learning more social skills like eye contact and becoming more socially interactive in my dealings with others and also finding less stressful and confrontational environments to work and live in.

If you stop eating wheat your symptoms will improve

I have emotional/social problems too. I wasn't very emotional 2 years ago. I lived on my own, but I moved in with my sister & my nephew when tragedy happened. My sister don't understand me, I been telling her it's my Asperger & maybe my Cerebral Palsy too, but she don't believe me. I read CP can make you more depressed than non-CP ppl & they can be emotional, have anxiety & more problems when you age.

Your eggsperience at university is likely problems coping with much more demands in all areas of life.
It doesn't mean that your brain has become more autistic, or that autism has become more severe permanently.
Failure to cope situations like this are common on spectrum, based on others' eggsperiences that they have described on wp.
These situations are also common in general population, as most people will have such a period at some point in their lives.
I suggest that you think about this in a way that doesn't attribute your problems to autism getting worse in adulthood.
Some of the things that you think are getting worse may be yourself noticing them more now that you know more about autism.

I've seen my brother who's 3 years younger than me surpass me in maturity like you describe. My brother who's 8 years younger is essentially about to do the same (and he has some ASD traits, but doesn't seem to be affected negatively by them).

Lights (annoying, flashing ones in particular) and noises have been bothering me more as I get older. If I'm sitting at a table in a restaurant and a child is making a lot of noise nearby, I'll get increasingly perturbed. It's not just kids, although they tend to make the most noise, so I notice them more.

Also, I don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but I'm noticing as I get older (I'm 43 now), it's getting more difficult to mentally switch tasks. I get somewhat confused if I'm asked to drop a task and work and turn my attention to something different. I don't know if that's an age thing, or if it's a case of my ASD becoming more pronounced in certain respects.

I don't know if they get worse... I do know that I have more issues with it now.

As a kid I didn't really have much obligations and I was raised pretty... well, I guess liberal in that sense. Then overnight, you turn 18 and you get a metric ton of things you have to take care of.

Mentally I'm still in that mindset of "I wanna play" albeit with different things. Doesn't help that many things adults do, I just don't have an interest in. Honestly; I have no interest to run my own household and if I would, I doubt it would be any different than how I live now; I'd probably have my own place, put everything I have in one room and ignore that other room alltogether.

At times I don't have any sense of responsibility and I feel that it's just... it's just not there I guess. The moments I actively had to show some responsibilities it ended in depression and meltdowns of sorts.

I suppose the entire notion of "well, that's what adults" do doesn't appeal to me at all, and mentally I'm still an 18 year old wanting to party and do incredibly stupid stuff; just with the added experience. Jokingly I recently said "I'm an 18 year old with 14 years of experience" and that kinda sums up how I feel as an adult.

That by itself actually makes me wonder how much of it is ASD or just me being mentally behind for some other reason. But I just don't feel responsible I suppose. And if anything; I can't force things, I really, really, really need intrinsic motivation.

To make it more interesting in a regard; no intrinsic motivation and my brain pretty much freezes up. In short; I do what I want or I don't do anything at all and I sit around like the most non-functional aspie imaginable with the prospect of me punching you out.

So yes... in adulthood it got worse; yet I'm 32 and I've managed to remain quite stable (but obviously my record of dropping out of school shows for it, among other things).

I don't think I've gotten "worse". I'm definitely less severe than I was when I was younger. But the social demand has become much greater as an adult, so it's more problematic. I could go to school without saying a word to anyone and acting as weird as I want without any problems. I can't get a job when I can't hold a basic conversation.

I don't know. If you ask NT spouses - they sort of seem to get worse over time. Some of that may be the natural settling in a relationship. Some of it may be additional stresses of adult life (things got bad in my marriage after my son was born). Some of it may be the human tendency to get 'set in your ways' - which may or may not be exaggerated by autism.

On the other hand, my MIL who I suspect is an aspie seems to have her most major sensory issues around sound*. Now that she's nearing 80 her hearing is going - so I think this is bothering her less these days.

___
*and fluorescent lighting - they stockpiled all the old style incandescent light bulbs after they were banned by the EU - hope it lasts her!

Maybe some things do get worse with age being on the ASD spectrum while others improve. I know my traits with co-ordination getting worse while some social and verbal traits improve.

I can't say they have gotten worse. In some ways things have gotten easier. What I have noticed is that I have developed allot of idiosyncrasies. For instance, because I live alone I do things that someone might not typically do if others were around.

> Not brushing hair all day or wearing clothes backwards and inside out on days and evenings that are not spent at work.

> Using plastic cups, utensils , and paper plates.

> Not closing the bathroom door when occupying it.

> Not using the livingroom but instead spending most of the time in the bedroom.

I could be wrong, maybe allot of people live like this. When I lived with people I did not do these things.

It seems to have gotton worse for me. The stress of college make my autism traits worse.