If I was ever autistic…. I outgrew it

[Finlandia86]

So to start off, let me say that I am far from ignorant about Autism, I have studied it at length and I know it is a condition present from birth / very early childhood and is not something you can outgrow.

Having learned a lot about Autism, including its presentation in girls, I look back on my childhood and see that I had a whole load of traits, including:

• Difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality, especially as a young child
• Long running obsessions as a tween and teen (characters in books and TV shows mainly, to the point where it would interfere with my life and I would secretly pretend I was them…see above)
• Fixations on certain people in real life (usually teachers).
• Social difficulties - being thought of as aloof and stand-offish when actually I was shy and didn’t know how to ‘be’.
• Avoided showering (couldn’t be bothered and didn’t see the point).
• Sensory seeking (chewing stuff all the time, humming all the time, tendency to jiggle/rock in my seat)
• Difficulty with eye contact (shyness and low self esteem)
• Difficulty organising myself and terrible procrastination, until hyperfocus kicked in (after days of tears)
• Black and white thinking about right and wrong / good and bad, and giving myself an extremely hard time because of this.
• Lots of examples of supremely cringy behaviour, because I didn’t understand how I would look to other people.

If I was a teen today, pretty sure I’d get a diagnosis.

But… at nearly 40 years of age … I have grown out of all of it.

Okay, not quite all. I am still a terrible pen chewer and procrastinator (although my hyperfocus superpower seems to have left me). But the rigid fixations and the social awkwardness… gone. Gradually, it has to be said. It took until I was about 26 to truly grow into myself and find my social confidence, and it was around then that I stopped fixating on both real and fictional people, which I think had a lot to do with finally developing some self-esteem. You’ll be pleased to know that I now shower daily.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this, as I imagine a lot of people will think I am trying to invalidate their diagnoses or those of their children… I’m not. But I guess I am wondering whether we can be a bit quick to diagnose ‘low support needs’ / Aspergers type autism, when actually it’s just a case of ‘quirky child’ / ‘immature teen’.

Or, I guess a different takeaway could be one of hope: that as a probably autistic person I have learned to navigate and overcome many of life’s difficulties by middle adulthood.

I suppose my question is whether anyone else can identify with my experience, and if anyone has any interesting thoughts about it.

@TellMeDinosaurFacts you’ve articulated my own experience way better than I did. While I see myself in my daughter, and definitely experienced difficulties owing to those traits I can identify, she has those traits to the power of five. Where I was miserable and isolated as a teen, she is incapacitated. I can see the similarities but also the differences.

I hope this thread will not be shut down. Personally, I have found it enlightening.

And to all the people who accuse the OP ( and probably by extension anyone who has agreed with her) of evil intent, of mockery or cruelty, I would like ask why you assume that enquiry or discussion is meant to be harmful ? I can assure you that these are not my motivations , and I don’t believe that they are those of the OP, either.

Whether autism is ‘ on the rise’ , or whether it has always been as prevalent and is being revealed by more widespread diagnosis, surely it is useful for society to try to understand the complexities of the various conditions ( or perhaps we should say: modes of being). If we don’t, how can we expect to frame strategies to help people live more tranquil and fulfilling lives?

Now he’s somewhat resentful so I do understand how labels like high functioning/low functioning can be harmful.

Exactly, @confusedthirtysomething2. Functioning labels harm all
autistics. There’s a saying in autistic advocacy circles: ‘"High functioning" is used to deny support. "Low functioning" is used to deny agency.’

May I ask why you did get a diagnosis as an adult? It seems to be quite a new thing and I don't understand the reason so am genuinely asking why.

Really interesting thread. I do think what constitutes or qualifies people for a diagnosis of (some types) of autism is slightly nebulous. I also think the insistence that it is a lifelong condition is somewhat at odds with the assertion that autism is only autism if it has a significant negative impact on your life - because to me that does imply that it is possible to develop coping strategies (or indeed to naturally stop being bothered by certain things following progression through early childhood, adolescence, etc.) to the point where a diagnostic threshold would no longer be met.

From a biological pov - there is massive cognitive pruning/reshaping that takes place in the early years, during adolescence and increasingly there is evidence that similar reshaping takes place following major life events (including things like childbirth and menopause). Presumably time will tell, but with what we know currently it seems plausible that experience and biology could work synergistically to move an individual below the threshold for autism diagnosis.

Without answering for @Jessica3075 I would say that my adult diagnosis was transformative for me in understanding and forgiving myself, and finding out even at my late age things I could do to help myself. When you’ve felt all your life that you are just ‘wrong’ and then you find out that there’s a reason for that and you’re not just failing at life, it’s like finally finding some peace with yourself (or it was for me - I can’t speak for others).

If you are a reflective, self aware, sensitive person then it's plausible that you notice all your 'deficits' and actively work to either hide them from others, or self learn coping strategies to the point where you no longer notice them on a daily basis, and your life appears to no longer affected by it.

I recognise a lot of myself in my ND dd, and in Geek Girl. I've always felt 'different' but just thought that the things I was thinking and feeling were experienced by everyone. I've never felt like I've lived up to the potential I showed academically. Something has always held me back from 'flourishing'. I've done ok in life, earn a fairly decent salary, but fear of being watched, perceived badly, making mistakes etc has definitely held me back.

Perhaps I am just a reserved introvert. I feel like I've always struggled to fit in, but couldn't quite put my finger on it. But I've always been very socially motivated, too. I enjoy spending time with those who 'get' me and I've surrounded myself with my kind of people. And as I've got older, I suppose the effect of that is that I feel increasingly safe to just be myself without fear of judgement. I don't really notice the challenges until I'm forced into a situation totally outside of my control.

Op, as others have said, if you were indeed autistic, then you still are. You've just self learned your strengths and weaknesses and worked hard to hide the deficits to the point where they're buried deep under layers of coping strategies you're not consciously aware of using.

I fully appreciate that you can't grow out of autism, it is part of a person, like a hair colour, eye colour etc. Those who seem to have 'grown out of it' were likely mis diagnosed in the first place.
But I appreciate where you are coming from - the testing is observation of a person's behaviours, it's not a blood test/scan etc which gives an absolute yes/no answer. Much of the diagnosis is subjective/based on the skill of the clinician assessing.
My brother was diagnosed with ASD as a child, and I agree that his presentation was in line with that diagnosis back then. But now he absolutely presents at neuro typical, so it must have been a misdiagnosis.

For what it’s worth the NHS were working on a different diagnosis for people with complex meds like my son eg with the hypotonia, language issue as detached from ASD although a major component of many people with ASD. He was late diagnosed ASD despite having complex needs as the consultant is pushing for this separate category as others are doing.

Eventually there will be a separate category where there are actual physical elements and empirical language issues eg receptive on the 1 percentile etc

At least in that way this detaches people like my son from any notion they he can outgrow. He can improve but he won’t outgrow.

For instance severe receptive language impairment is untreatable pretty much and well muscle tone is muscle tone - it has improved but the motor coordination remains low. My poor son can’t get his stomach up when doing the breast stroke and his legs drag down - we are using floats underneath his belly. His crawl is amazing and I’m so proud.

I am beginning to see why this other definition. might be necessary as so many people and their dog are claiming to he ND now it’s trendy. At least it takes out of the category those with SLI and motor/ hypotonia into a separate category etc . Hopefully that might lead to targeted treatments as there is lots to be done with the motor issues and impact on the brain. There are lots of papers looking at low tone impact etc

It's absolutely typical to plan out unusual conversations or to have a set of "starters", safe topics etc we go for. When I say my DH plans conversations, I think it's more like a running internal strategizing: "ask about x, listen to response, ask follow up, offer piece of information about y but not too much, try to work out if they look interested or if I should stop talking, people like Mr b like rugby so maybe ask if he watched the match yesterday" - and this is consciousness processing alongside listening to the subject of the discussion. And then if someone "breaks" these rules that's really wrong footing.

DH is actually very comfortable in interactions that are highly scripted with explicit rules - interviews, public speaking. You follow the rules, nothing to worry about. Spontaneous interaction - nightmare.

I think you learn strategies to cope. You would be surprised if you met me, as I come across as confident and outgoing and socially at ease.

I spent years watching how people interact and essentially mimicked it. I used to have to write myself scripts before I made a phone call, or rehearse what I would say in a shop, but over time it became second nature.

I wish I had learnt these strategies when I was younger, because I look back at childhood and teenage years and think how much better it would have been, but the reality was that I needed to experience life in order to learn them.

It is one of the reasons why I believe people with ASD shouldn’t be over-protected or hidden away or given too many get out clauses. If they don’t get a chance to see how the real world operates, they will struggle to ever adapt to it.

This is why I struggle when people make excuses for autistic children, because I believe they are failing those children and not giving them a chance to learn how to integrate into the world. Yes it’s exhausting and overwhelming, but it really is essential.

What is your life like OP.
Frenetic commute to demanding high powered job, home to cook clean and sort out your 3/4/5 DCs? Money problems, demanding elderly relatives?

Perhaps the stresses have disappeared from life and so your symptoms have gone.

Recent life experiences (family bereavement, redundancy, DH on end of life care) although life changing and challenging (I abhor change/chaos) have given me mental downtime to sit, evaluate and reframe other things that I've struggled with all my life (shyness, not fitting in etc). I'm very much a person who loves lists and order to help me understand and control my environment/my understanding of the world, and dislikes change, chaos and disorder. I need time to evaluate and consider. There is high functioning autism in our family that can be tracked via relatives behaviours in the last 3 or 4 generations. Some became more "quirky" as they aged and needed much more support from the wider family, others just got on with it (presumably found their own ways of coping). Maturity, life experience, coping strategies, self awareness and education has helped me with managing myself and my relationships. I've accepted I'll never totally feel like I fit in, but hey, "nearly" is good enough for me and for those I love and care for.

dh drives me mad because he will say ds1 has outgrown his autism. What he means is ds1 used to be someone who was autistic who could not cope with the world & needed a lot of support whereas now he is someone who is autistic who has matured and developed coping strategies such that he can cope with mainstream life with minimal support (most of the time anyway).

@Finlandia86

It wasn't my intention to derail your thread
It was a simple question to another poster.

@Jifmicroliquid this is something I wrestle with all the time, for my kids rather than me. There are loud voices now saying that the world needs to be adapted to include neurodiversity, and while of COURSE it’s great if people are more understanding, inclusive in how they approach people and situations, less discriminatory, it feels unrealistic to think that things will change to the extent that ND people won’t continue to find mainstream life challenging and difficult. And therefore helping them to cope in that world is essential. But my eldest is entirely ‘they need to understand me’ and won’t really budge (spot the autistic mindset) and accuses me of not respecting his neurodiversity when I try to suggest things he could do differently.

Having managed to adapt myself, while often finding it exhausting and difficult, I am so torn as there are clear benefits to ‘coping’ rather than deciding to live life on my own terms. But then I never had a diagnosis and grew up in a different time so how do I know if whether it’s me being unreasonable and setting low expectations for our society?

This requires a flameproof suit and a half, but the tone of some posts reminds me of the trans debate. "We just have a different type of brain and one day science will prove it, we can self-diagnose and nobody outside our community may question anything" - that kind of attitude. I don't think most posters on this thread are like that, but there are clearly some. I make no comment about either condition/phenomenon (e.g. is this one genuine, is that one genuine, are there too many self diagnosed or not) and nor do I draw any other comparison between the two.

Although I would be one of the first to say diagnosis are handed out to freely and I believe most people certainly have nd traits. The other side of that is I feel I definitely would of been diagnosed as a child as Nd if I'd been born 10 years later but instead I got diagnosed as having bpd as an adult which is most likely just undiagnosed asd,adhd ect and having bpd which is one of the most stigmatised conditions a person can have certainly does you no favours and I have fought so hard to get it removed but their not budging.This is the problem with labeling it's so damaging

It is a spectrum so there are always going to be people that can better adapt to societal norms and those that can't. You were never officially diagnosed so it is hard to know whether you are autistic or not and tbh when you read the list of characteristics most of us can identify with one or two. I don't think you can grow out of it but as others have said you can learn to cope and manage better in the neurotypical world the older you get.

My dd16 is autistic. I think she would probably be more likely diagnosed with aspergers if that term was still being used. Autism has effected her differently at different stages in her life but unless she told you, you would not know or think she was. The impact it has on her and how she struggles are quite subtle and hidden and really only her immediate family would be fully aware of how the outside world exhausts her and how much of a toll interacting with it can have on her. As her mum I have noticed how much more self aware she is now, she knows what situations she can and can't handle and she generally does not put herself into situations that she knows will overwhelm or over stimulate her. Or she is able to leave events etc when she can feel it is getting to much. She has a voice now and understanding of herself which means she is no longer getting to a stage where she might have an emotional meltdown like she did as a child. She is probably the most self aware 16 year old I know. She is also using things such as ear loops when she wants to go to a gig or a party that may be too noisy for her.
School remains her biggest issue and she really struggles in the environment. She has two years left and I think she has accepted she will never fully feel comfortable in a school environment but wants to make sure she makes the most of it and leaves with good results to ensure the struggle has been worthwhile. She does struggle socially and overthinks every interaction she has and can often have no filter which can be embarrassing if she says something inappropriate. She is lucky and does have a small group of good friends. If there was one thing I would change for her is her negative image of herself, I wish she could see herself as we and most other people who meet her see her, as a beautiful, caring, funny, engaging young woman.

So in saying all that, do I think people grow out of autism? No. I think, for some on the spectrum, they learn to live with it, understand it and themselves better so can protect themselves in situations and to an extent learn when they may need to mask it to get on such as in work or school, but that masking can take a huge effort and huge toll on them and their mental health.

Are MN for real? You delete my post and let all these others that are goading and offensive stay? Absolutely unreal that this site continues to allow these harmful threads targeting, demeaning, undermining and insulting autistic people. It is so upsetting that people continue to think these threads are about ‘discussion’. They’re not.

Where did I say they weren’t?

Autism isn’t something you can grow out of. If you were an autistic child you are still an autistic adult.

Two things could be happening.

1. you were not an autistic child. The traits you consider to be autistic were the result of something else which you did outgrow.
2. you are an autistic adult, and you either live a life which avoids your significant triggers and is very accommodating of your autism, or you have learned to mask so completely that it now feels natural to you.