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.

I am commenting on the post and what she has said.

Jesus Christ.

YANBU - I expect that I also would have been diagnosed as a teen. I was very socially awkward, immature, found it hard to relate to most others and had strong obsessions. Now, I’m pretty socially well-adjusted, have a great family, friends and job and no longer show up as autistic on tests. Do I have traits? Definitely? Have I a disability? No. What helped? Age, a uni environment where I met my (spectrum) tribe and learning social skills over time. And no it’s not ‘masking my true self’, it was learning basic skills so that my true self was able to express themselves in society.

DS is diagnosed ASD and relatively severely so. But he has developed and progressed and is so much better than a few years ago. He will always have traits, but he has managed to cope in a mainstream comp and has learned some social skills over time and is so much happier for that.

sorry but the traits you listed seem probably quite normal for a neurotypical teenage girl/ child and again it’s very normal that you wouldn’t have those traits as an adult.

I have two adult relatives with autism who have not outgrown it as it’s not possible to do so, both are impacted in different ways. One has a very good professional career the other has struggled with unemployment and depression due to how their autism has affected them as an adult. I very rarely hear either discuss their autism as much as I do compared to the self diagnosed adults that I know.

Sounds like you were a normal, slightly awkward kid, with the kind of issues most people grow out of. No idea whether you could have been diagnosed with something or not.

I think some children and teens are slower to pick up social skills and emotional regulation. I count myself in this, and one of my DC. For many people it's a learnt skill that doesn't come naturally. These kids are sometimes pushed into a diagnosis early because they don't fit the mould, when some of the time it's just slower development. These kids probably aren't autistic.

However, if you are autistic I don't think you can outgrow it but you could learn to manage it. Many children and teens need time and experience to find their feet socially, and those traits that are associated with autism may become less apparent as they mature. People talk about a spiky profile. If a child is able to really focus on those areas in which they struggle, it's entirely possible that they can overcome or at least learn to mask those issues successfully. To be clear, I am not talking about autism co-occuring with a learning disability.

Yes this.

OP, I kind of understand your thinking. There's alot of overlap with some typical teen stuff.

But - I sat in on my son's Autism assessment ( age 9). It was incredibly thorough beyond words. I saw things and heard answers that showed me things about my son I had no idea about. It was then quite obvious. They know how to ask and test certain things that go way beyond the behaviours you list. My son is what you'd call high functioning. Many people doubted my insistence he was autistic because he masks so well and there's a great deal of denial out there.

You were never Autistic OP. I'm quite sure of that

Lots of people have autistic traits but it doesn’t mean they are autistic. Nothing you have written there stands out as an autistic child to me either.

I can suffer from weight gain, nausea, reflux, bloating, stomach cramps but it doesn’t mean I’m pregnant.

Virtually everyone I know feels like they don’t fit in, like they don’t have their shit together when other people do, like socialising drains them, that they don’t have as many friends as other people, that they have odd quirks or habits they’d be embarrassed to reveal to others, etc

I wonder how much of a role ‘my perfect life’ social media plays in this

Tony Atwood, one of the authorities on ASD is clear that you can outgrow it or progress to the point where you longer meet the criteria for a disability.

I read the post as the OP saying she has outgrown the traits which could have lead to an ASD diagnosis at the time, not that she's saying she's outgrown autism! There's a fair difference between them. It's regarding a diagnosis being potentially incorrect (but understandable at the time).

DH would recognise a fairly similar trajectory and he is diagnosed as autistic but most people are pretty disbelieving if we tell them

I do worry that there is a risk that diagnosis as a child means children are shielded more and they miss development opportunities. On the other hand diagnosis helped DH make peace with the things he found hard as a child. There's a delicate balance to strike

You’ve no idea if you would have been diagnosed with autism based on that list of ‘traits.’ Also what about your behaviour as a younger child? My DD is 6 now & very sensory sensitive & I realise that she was displaying signs of sensory overload as a baby which is why she was so hard to soothe.

The things you are describing sound more like ADHD than autism to me.

Not that you can grow out of that either but you can learn coping mechanisms

Thanks everyone who has engaged thoughtfully. Interesting to see there is a split between those who think I am neurodivergent but a very successful masker (very possible) and those who think I was just a typical teen. That perfectly reflects the dissonance I experience when I think about this subject.

In case it isn’t clear from my OP - I have never received a diagnosis, and I am not currently struggling, so I do tend to think of myself as Neurotypical.
I just can’t help but see so much of my younger self in some of the neurodivergent young people I meet.

That’s really interesting, thank you.

This.
DS is autistic. At 16 and finishing secondary (specialist school) he has learned coping mechanisms and can deal with situations in a better way for him than he could at 11. He is still autistic, he's just matured and learned more about himself and the world. For example, he can now enter a shop and buy something by himself whereas he would never have done this two years ago. He can now handle a difficult situation without laying on the floor. Looking through his EHCP from 4 years ago the changes are evident.

I remember reading a very long time ago that a portion of autistic kids grew out of it - did this change at some point? Nowadays it is very much "you are autistic, you have always been autistic and you will be autistic all your life"

That's not what the spectrum means.

It's difficult to say because you never had a diagnosis. I was trying to think of a way of putting it to the GP. I attended an appointment with my DD, she's had her medical symptoms for about 18 months. But it's only been this year that she could tolerate sharing them with HPs and being examined. She went to a SN school and was diagnosed around three years old. I think that it is more than masking and I see the lessening of some symptoms in adults around 40 who have ADHD. It isn't just learning to manage either. As we age neurological changes happen, there isn't the research on how this inpacts some ND. I think that the difficulty will be that so many people seem to treat their ND as if it's the sum total of them, even taking on traits as adults that have never been present before.

Just wait till perimenopause kicks in and see if you're still saying the same OP.

And yet this causes such rage in such quarters when it should be a cause for optimism.

Could it be ADHD rather than Autism? And you've just learned socially acceptable coping mechanisms.

I tend to think I've learned to live with being autistic, which could be perceived as 'growing out of it' (though wouldn't call it that myself)

Then something happens that makes me realise I've just very carefully tailored my life so that it works. Eg I think I'm less rigid in my thinking, but then I have far more control over things as an adult than I did as a child.

It'd only take a job interview, a wedding etc for me to be very aware of the impact of autism. That and of course, seeing young children learn how to do something that I've ruminated on for days!

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.

My money would be on this one. I've also learned how to do a lot of things 'well', and can get by easily enough in most situations. However, people always inevitably end up looking at me a little oddly (I now recognise the look) and that's when I realise I can't fake it as well as I think I can.

I'll always be autistic, I can just feign the right manners a bit better now. I get worn out with it way more quickly now than I ever used to though.