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 think that’s a really interesting perspective op and I think we are too quick to put children into categories when in fact they are just being children!

Interesting thread!
I can relate to having a kind of personality shift where you suddenly have much more insight about things, I dont know it that's in the same category op?🤷🏼‍♀️

It really isnt.

It is interesting isn’t it! Thanks for such a thought-provoking response, I agree with you.

I think today you would be thought of as ‘maybe autistic’ by your peers and prob self diagnose.

I’m not sure you’d get an actual diagnosis or even a referral, if it wasn’t significantly affecting your life in a negative way.

You do not speak for all autistic people. In fact, if you’re not autistic you do not speak for any autistic people. Being autistic has caused me immeasurable difficulties throughout my life but I wouldn’t want to change it. I would not be the same person without it.

I am, I can, and I would absolutely change it if I could.

Did you aye?
ok....
i suspect youve just threw yourself in front of firing squad.
so.first-you havent been dignosed. so..coulda\shoula\woulda. Not unusual,esp in adult,female.
Start with spectrum. In my head its pretty much sold as "all encompassing" As such it very much depends where you sit on it-as to whatchu see. Youve said "low support needs"- maybe thats a reflection of your belief you have outgrown them. the definative characteristics remain the same -did you consider that potentially,once identified there is room to adapt.sure tho may not be "natural"to you-doesnt mean incapable of learning/resolving how you present.
By mid twenties is likely -"low support needs"most probably are less obvious. (diagnosis not required) Theres possibly common denominators "quirky child/immature teen" and "increasingly able to mask"

Its my view indicting you "overcame"this is a stigma thing.
its a wee bit funny too-even suggesting that pretty much a declartion of ...no you havent.

Reminder that an individual cannot be “neurodiverse”, just as an individual cannot be diverse. Populations/groups are (neuro)diverse; individual brains are (neuro)divergent. Neurodiversity is a paradigm that describes the variance of brains in society, including neurotypical brains. I see this error a lot on here and it irks me a bit as a pedantic autistic person who has a special interest in autism and the language of neurodiversity.

Also, if you’re not autistic please refrain from speaking for or over those of us who are. Your opinions about “the spectrum”, “severe autism”, self-diagnosis and how autistic people feel about being autistic are invariably invalid and are often completely at odds with the consensus of the autistic community. You will never understand what it is like to live with a brain like this.

Perhaps it’s something similar, what age were you when you had the shift? A PP have mentioned the influence of hormones, which could have something to do with it? For me it was more of a slow process I think in my 20s, I was a very naive and childlike 18 year old going off to university, but I think the frequent changes of environment and peer groups in uni / early career did me good as I could learn from my mistakes with plenty of ‘fresh starts’ and just grew in confidence.

Are you talking to me, or just making a general point? I don’t think I have used any of the words and phrases you have flagged up.

General reminder – not directed at you but rather at various others in this thread. Sorry, should have clarified that.

No problem 🙂

I wish all the different degrees weren’t all lumped together under one diagnosis. I don’t know why anyone who manages to cope and mask things would want a diagnosis, it’s not as if there is any real help out there for autism.
As it seems every second person has been diagnosed with autism at times, you can almost feel the internal eye roll when having to let anyone know your child is autistic when it’s unavoidable not to tell them and the child isn’t present which would make of obvious and no explanation necessary (the type of autism that anyone would definitely wish away if they could as it limits their life and affects their well-being greatly).

Haven’t read the whole thread.

I have/have had most of your traits. (Definitely showered, though!) I was tested extensively for autism, but all the testing came back as “not autistic, definite ADHD.” Unless you were actually diagnosed with autism, you’re looking at your own “symptoms” from not only a biased perspective but a layperson’s perspective.

Interesting to track the changes across time.
Victorian (Australia) schools are tending in a direction that will, if trends continue, lead to more students meeting criteria for ND diagnosis than not in (iirc) the next decade.
Will this reflect an actual change in the population or is there a drift in how assessments are being made? Will it lead to changes in what is referred to / thought of as "typical"?

People can have features of various conditions when they don't actually have them of course. I was investigated for lots of medical conditions including genetic conditions as a child as I was extremely small. But there wasn't anything wrong, I'm just short. I'm still a short adult but within the normal range for the general population. I didn't "grow out" of any medical condition though as I never had one. It just looked as though I might for a while.
I imagine the same kind of thing can happen with other things including autism. A neurotypical child can have some traits that overlap with neurodiverse children just as a child with a normal genotype can share some features with children with some genetic disorders but as they grow up they will develop differently as whilst they may look similar initially they are not in fact the same.
Obviously it is easier to say whether someone has a condition that can be proven by lab tests than it is to diagnose autism so it is not a perfect analogy but I think that is maybe where the illusion of people "growing out" of autism comes from. Neurotypical children who have some behaviour/personality traits at the far end of the range may look like they could be neurodiverse. If they change as they get older it could create the illusion that they have grown out autism when in fact they were never autistic in the first place.

The UK’s plan for managing autism in healthcare has a table showing that more than a third of people in their 40s diagnosed with autism and registered with a GP have a learning disability, This falls to 1 in 10 for children under 10.

You’re not saying anything ground-breaking or surprising, @Finlandia86. The vast majority of autistic adults of normal or above intelligence remain undiagnosed and, in most cases, won’t even suspect unless they have DC diagnosed. I think the estimated number of people who’d now receive an autism diagnosis in the UK is about 1 in 33.

It’s mainly a box to get support at school for kids with a set of similar traits, likely caused by different underlying mechanisms - a bit like with dyslexia, dyscalculia or ADHD. It’s just a better way of helping kids with those traits than labelling them ‘naughty’ when they often just need extra support to reach their full potential.

All that said, there are a lot of ‘wow, snap’ similarities shared by some different autistic adults (e.g. having grapheme-colour synaesthesia and hating wearing socks), but only as much - I suspect - as between fans of obscure bands.

I have not read the whole thread but I'm 30 and was diagnosed at 25. My siblings were all diagnosed before 5yro. I think you can fit the criteria, and still adapt and grow, particularly if you're intelligent/not otherwise disabled. I don't think it makes the diagnosis fake / not useful - if you knew and understood autism better you'd probably still notice that your thinking is naturally a little different than most people's. But yeah... just cos it takes longer to develop social skills etc doesn't mean you can't get there eventually. Well done and I'm glad you are happy op.

Absolutely this!

I work with a mature, recently diagnosed, autistic woman and she has become more "socially adept" over the years in the "observable" areas of her professional life, through practice and observation, to the extent that not many people at work know she is autistic. And this of course is when she is masking.

However, I happen to know, because I manage her, that her executive function skills which govern her home life, have deteriorated considerably in some areas, as her work life has become more challenging, but as these are largely "unobserved" by anyone except her DH, people might jump to the entirely wrong conclusion that she is "improving" or "cured". And this is her unmasked self.

We all have a public and private persona but I don't think many people fully appreciate how extreme the differences between those two states can be in late diagnosed women with ASD, especially when they have a significant other at home on whom they rely for support. For example, my colleague is a hard-working, creative, professional strategist in the office, but most days she cannot tolerate shopping in a small, local supermarket or travel on a train alone, but not many people know that.

I agree OP. I don't understand the masking aspect. The idea that only autistic people behave in certain ways because they watch others and mimic them and hide how they really want to act or be. Maybe I am autistic but I thought that was what everybody did. It is certainly what I do.

No you definitely don’t understand masking!

Probably because you have no need to mask to the extent that a person with ASD does in order to fit in to a predominantly NT school or workplace, because you don’t have sensory issues, or communication challenges, or difficulties with stimming, for example, that you are trying to suppress or conceal in order to appear like everyone else.

This is a profound misunderstanding of what masking is.

Tell that to the Harvard study that says a person with autism may vary between the various levels during their lifetime.

Please read the latest research before dismissing the OP.

This (changing between the levels) is something my child’s paediatrician also told me but he didn’t reference the study. He warned me that symptoms can get worse.

At our last appointment my son had made so much progress the paediatrician said what we can find is that autism symptoms can be completely taken over by ADHD symptoms so that ADHD is the main issue - not autism.

So yes, it’s absolutely possible. Women also tend to mask so symptoms may not be obvious and these people may not seem autistic at all.

The symptoms of autism may disappear but a person will always be autistic.

As a parent of a child with autism it is my hope that my child will make progress to the point that his autism may be undetectable so that he can lead a normal life.

I do however have a massive issue with the classification streams. My son is classified as the worst case of autism. However, he’s clearly not when you look at him compared to the kid that is completely non-verbal who runs full force into windows, hurts others, screams and constantly shakes his head.