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.

You can't grow out of autism. You either have it or you don't. Girls/women often mask to fit the social norms.

Because of the way it's assessed/diagnosed, there will inevitably be a grey area where you only just fall inside the criteria, or just fall outside.

Thanks for your reply, may I ask if you are a highly qualified neurologist and/or psychologist? And if so, what insight is it that you feel the anecdotal narrative is lacking?

I find the tone of your post ignorant and also offensive, do you think you know more than the consultants and educational psychologists who diagnose autism? To get a diagnosis of autism you need to show evidence of severe difficulties in more than one sphere (eg at home and at school), it isn’t just being a bit shy or awkward FFS

Too many people self diagnosing these days 🤪

Were you actually diagnosed
Because I am .and the amount of information I had to give the assessors was astonishing
I had 3 different relatives give their views on me as a child and their experience of what I was like
My doctor sent information
And I had pages and pages of questions to answer
After all that I had two face to face appointments that were filmed so two other assessors could watch my assessment,they all read my information and all three decided I was autistic.
This was on the NHS .
There is no way , someone who has been through such an thorough assessment is going to grow out of anything.
And autism is so so much more than a spiky profile or the random quirks you mentioned.
I don't doubt for a second that anyone claiming to out grow autism,was never diagnosed by the NHS to start with

OP, are you me? I tested negative for autism as a child but I've always been "quirky" (read: odd); however, I've developed better social skills as I've got older.

Some of us are just a bit different, I guess.

I think that you need to go out with the group of ASD adults my son socialises with and see ASD in its full depth. Even being on their ‘chats’ is an interesting thing. These are all relatively intelligent ND adults.

1 Literal meaning of words makes messaging hard
2 Really poor executive functioning - need prompting and explaining
3 Huge vulnerability - trusting but also suspicious
4 Inappropriate remarks
5 Poor or little interest in dress sense
6 Absolute obsessions eg sending repeated gifs or talking about something repeatedly eg trains.
7 Child like quality
8 problems regulating eg self harming.
9 Challenges getting out - having to find quiet space - some rock or flap or talk to themselves.
10 The speech rhythm and tone is not quite right

They have not grown out of it and would struggle to mask or adapt.

I feel that this thread or topic is demeaning to the huge issues people like my son and this group face and I don’t see the point.

Maybe people with more minor symptoms might get diagnosed because they have enthusiastic parents etc but in the main people with diagnosed ASD face huge issues, unemployment, poor health and most are confronted with a low life expectancy due to self harm/ suicide and poor medical care etc

If you're putting yourself forward and paying for private testing, then surely you think it's because you're ND and therefore you're more likely to be? Data suggests that NT people don't want to be ND and so wouldn't pursue this avenue if it didn't make sense to them?

I'm getting the impression that some people think it's incredibly easy to get a diagnosis. It really isn't.

A lot of what is described on some of the posts in this thread also indicate that some people think a few general social misunderstandings as a child or social awkwardness as a teen is the crux of autism. It isn't. And no, you likely wouldn't have been diagnosed as such if it wasn't significantly hindering your life in ways that can't be managed by any means.

Of course what's lacking is, after success at medical school, you would need to join a paid two-year foundation programme where you'll work in six placements in different settings. After your foundation programme, you can apply for paid specialty training to become a child and adolescent psychiatrist, which will take a minimum of six years.

Paediatric specialist Neurodisability services are delivered by consultants trained in Neurology and Neurodisability - again success at medical school and into specialism.

In addition, work with multidisciplinary teams consisting of;

• Paediatric physiotherapists
• Paediatric occupational therapists
• Paediatric speech and language therapists (communication, social communication, dysphagia, feeding and swallowing)
• Dietitians
• Paediatric surgeons (e.g. orthopaedics, gastroenterological)
• Neurophysiology
• Children‘s nurse specialists (children‘s community nurses, learning disability nurse specialists, epilepsy nurse specialists etc.)
• Specialist teachers

My DD has outgrown a lot of her ASD symptoms she had when she was diagnosed at 4. So much so that the NHS agreed to re-assess her.
The NHS list 12 potential 'markers' but only 6 are required for a diagnosis.
At age 4, DD scored 10. At age 8, she scored 2…..

People's brains are developing all the way to 25 and 99% of people could fit into the ND spectrum at somepoint in their lives which is why it's so important not to be so quick to label children. These labels do you know favours in adult life. It's different when a person is on the severe end of the spectrum as they will require full time care for the rest of their lives and then a diagnosis is very much needed and beneficial.

Very interesting thread OP.

Leaving aside those posters whose family members are so seriously affected that they are unlikely ever to live independently as adults, people’s opinion seems largely split between those who believe that individuals can change or experience change in their psyche ( best word I can think of) and those who believe that it is fixed immutably, although it can be concealed or alleviated by learned behaviour.

Oddly , this debate has several parallels in previous ages , in particular the concept of ‘grace’ and the Calvinistic doctrine of determination. I feel that some people do embrace the concept of immutable neurodiversity with a similar passion.

Yes sorry!

If you were autistic as a child, you'd be autistic as an adult. The definition is one of a pervasive neurodevelopmental disorder.

It's possible for people to develop effective coping strategies. Having effective coping strategies doesn't change someone's underlying condition which means they need the coping strategies.

As far as the OP's description, I think the reasonable scenarios are that either the OP wasn't autistic as a child and isn't autistic now, or the OP was autistic as a child and is still autistic now, just with more developed coping strategies than they had before.

I'm so confused, your lists sounds like typical teenage behavior minus the sensory stuff, so of course you outgrew it.

Is autism really being diagnosed in teens for the things in op's list? Yikes if so

It's pretty standard with any disease or disorder that if it doesn't make you ill, or cause a problem, you don't "have" it.

So you can have a particular virus in your body, like flue, but if you aren't sick we don't say you have the flu, you are a carrier.

With things like autism, where there is no actual test for it, and it's origins are poorly understood, it would be difficult to say someone "has" it if they don't fall outside normal behaviours or effects from behaviours. And there are lots of behaviours in autism that are also found in non-autistic people, that can be considered within the range of normal.

So it could be tricky to define who should be diagnosed if people who cope as well as most people are included.

Sometimes I think some forget that everyone struggles to cope at times, many of us pretty regularly. That's within the range of normal.

I think this is really interesting and perhaps reassessment needs to happen as standard as children age as I'm guessing if you hadn't of requested this yourself she would be stuck with the label for life which is probably the case for a significant amount of people

Curious as to what you base this assessment on if you haven't been through the diagnostic process.

I think this is why for a long time they would not usually diagnose autism, or things like ADHD, in young kids. It seems more common now, and not just for severe cases.

No it isn't.

Yeah I was going to say, these don't really scream autistic to me. Just being a child and teen.

The organisation thing sounds more ADHD.

I think it’s still on the autism spectrum though but your situation will determine what supports you need and therefore a diagnosis.

But that’s true for a lot of conditions. For example a short sighted person might need reading glasses if they do a lot of computer work but perhaps not if they were a farmer or taxi driver.
Someone with ADHD would probably not need supports if a labourer or a hunter / gatherer. A deaf person would not perhaps need support if they signed and lived exclusively in the deaf community.

I think you have misunderstood my post. I am not claiming to be a neurologist. I’m interested in talking about the similarities I perceive between my own childhood as a neurotypical / undiagnosed person, and those on the autistic spectrum, and the way I have developed in adulthood.

I am more than happy for you to disagree with me and tell me I am wrong about something I have said, but I would be interested in hearing why you think so? Just listing the qualifications to become a doctor does not add much to the discussion.

I know its different but a lot of psychiatrists won't diagnose eupd until a person in a minimum of 18 as a lot of the traits are just normal teenage behaviour. The same as a lot of traits of autism and adhd ect are just normal child behaviour.