Could this be considered regression, or not?

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Lately I've been going through/doing some stuff that I think some would call regression. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this and it's somewhat unnerving.

(Warning: this is VERY long)

At my job, one of my duties is to help customers and convince them to open store credit cards. It's generally a scripted speech and I had no problem doing it for the first couple years I've been there. But over the past year I've been finding it a lot more difficult to do this. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed between multitasking, screaming kids, interacting with customers, and being always being expected to do my job well that I'll actually try to interact with customers as little as possible, often at the expense of asking customers to open store cards. I'm surprised my bosses haven't said anything to me yet, as I used to be very good at this. My (perceived, at least to me) drop in job performance isn't due to lack of effort, I've just been too anxious and overwhelmed at times to do it, where just a couple of years ago, I wasn't.

I've been stimming a lot more than I have in the past and have been hitting myself in the head lately, something I haven't done since I was a teenager. When I would get upset in the past, I would either cry or hold it in. Now sometimes when I get upset I'll hit myself in the head, sometimes with my hand, sometimes with a hard object. Paradoxically, as much pain as this causes, it also feels good in a way because I'm doing something about my frustration instead of holding it in, and the pain distracts me from the frustration I was feeling in the first place. When it's all said and done, I usually feel somewhat better afterwards and I'm able to think through the issue more levelheadedly.

As I said in the first sentence of the last paragraph, I've been stimming a lot more lately. Some of the more stereotypical ones apply to me. But the ones that are really distressing me lately (and I don't know if these are actual stims, correct me if I'm wrong) are 2 of them: one is when I go to bed for the night, I'll have an absolute need to rock in bed, make humming noises, and toss, turn, and twist my body into the weirdest positions continuously until I just stop from exhaustion. It's something brand new that's been happening, like over the past few weeks, and it's not something I want to do, it's something I almost need to do, on the level of someone needing to pee after several hours of holding it, or someone needing a drink after hours in a hot desert, you get the idea.

The second stim (if it's even that) I'm referring to is when I have this uncontrollable urge to rub up against comfortable things, pace around, and make very odd movements and noises. If anyone saw it they would probably think I belonged in a nut house. And the weird thing: I could be very relaxed, watching tv or surfing the web, and out of nowhere comes this strong urge to do this, again, on the level of just about needing to. It almost feels like it takes over my body. Again, a brand new thing that's happening, only over the last few weeks.

The other thing is, when I went to school as a teenager, I was actually very social, going to dances and proms, talking with classmates, things like that. They invite their alumni to social events every so often, and these days I have absolutely no interest in going. I don't know if this is just a case of outgrowing some people (this was a special ed school) or related to regression in any way. Also of note, I go to work during the day, I come home, and I just want to be left alone. I also feel like just relaxing at home on most of my days off and not going out too much. I never used to be like this, but these days I am. My mom sometimes worries about my lack of a social life, but for me just doing my customer service job is more than enough interaction for me.

Has anything like what I've described above happened to any of you? If so, did you do your best to live with it, or did you try to "re-normalize" yourself when it did? And would you consider this regression?

Any help is really appreciated. Thanks.

It sounds like stress is causing an increase in your autistic behaviour. Have you been getting enough sleep? If I feel tired and don't get enough sleep, I tend to get anxious, stressed and then depressed. My sensory problems get much worse if I am sleep deprived.

A lot of this is very similar to me (I'm 18). When I was younger I'd just wiggle my legs back and forth at night, though I've been stimming more when trying to sleep as well as during the day.

Normally it doesn't bother me, but I was having some pain in my feet, knees, and hands, and one thing that I do a lot is to have the urge to flex my toes and fingers out, which was hurting A LOT, but the only way to try to stop this was to sleep on my side, which made my normal rocking and such harder to do, but I always sleep on my back and can't sleep on my side unless I'm just really sleepy.

I think it's actually pretty common, as an adolescent or adult on the spectrum. Yeah, most of this resonates pretty well with my life in the last few years.

Yeah. Stress can cause a "regression". I should be sure to say that by "regression" I do not mean "permanent" (it almost never is, with autism); I mean "loss of skills"--in your case, loss of some of the ability to cope with your environment, resulting in needing to stim more and socialize less. I don't know of a solution, but I'm willing to bet it has something to do with managing physical or mental stress...

corroonb,

My sleeping patterns are pretty irregular, as in, going to bed late and sleeping late on weekends, and not getting as much sleep on work nights from falling asleep late, but this has been a lifelong pattern for me, since childhood, so it's not like it's a new thing to me. I know that many of us on the spectrum have an increase in symptoms when we don't get enough sleep, myself included, but my specific symptoms have always been predictable, never anything like I'm describing. But I have been under stress lately, as my family is having financial problems, and my job probably isn't the most autistic friendly. I just don't understand why it would bring on completely new behaviors, as opposed to exacerbating existing ones. The latter I'm used to.

earthmonkey,

Thanks for sharing this. It makes me feel much better to know I'm not the only one who does these things. This is a brand new thing for me though, in addition to feeling like it's out of my control. Those are the key things that make this unnerving for me.

Callista,

I think that's a pretty good description in my case; if my workplace is the environment you're talking about, it's totally spot on, as like I said above, I'm having more difficulty doing things there than I used to. Whether it's due to regression, or increased expectations from when I first started, I'm not quite sure. As for stress, see my comment to corroonb.

Tried melatonin for sleep? It's used for jet lag, mostly, and it gives your brain the "it's late" signal. (I like it because it doesn't drug me up like a sleeping pill does.) I think it works for a good percentage of the population, and has shown its worth in controlled trials, which is pretty good for a "dietary supplement". I have been able to use it to keep my otherwise unpredictable sleep cycle to within a five hour variation.

I've tried just about every formulation, 0.5 mg, 1 mg, 3 mg, quick release tablets, slow release tablets, you name it. None of them work for me, unfortunately.