Anyone out there whose autism/aspergers is getting worse?

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I got a lot worse in my teens. It was a combination of hormones and extra pressure at school. The hormones made my emotions very volatile and I could not handle them except as an infant perhaps might. I am sure they also brought on the anxiety disorders I developed and the fatigue.

It is probably to do with him growing up. Up until the age of 12 I was pretty carefree, I had more friends and if I did something aspie-ish I didn't even care and mostly didn't notice it and just floated through primary school in a big bubble. But the older I've got the worse I get socially, even though my traits have improved how I deal with them hasn't, so now I get really anxious about talking to people, I can't carry on a conversation to save my life and I barely know what to say. It's really annoying, and I'm starting college this september and I am sh*****g bricks about making friends, the friends I have now are just fine and I don't want to start all over again. I also still haven't grown out of trantums, they aren't aggresive or anything but I just cry and shout alot, I hate them.

I'm not sure, but there could be many factors going on, as is d escribed on the page Callista linked to. Puberty with its physical and mental changes, increased expectations (eg. at school), dropping a facade of normalcy, etc. I myself seemed to "regress" from age 20 on, and am still not sure whether I actually lost skills or whether it is all related to the increasing expectations that came with moving out of my parents' house and startng college and later university. It is hard to sort out which of these is contributing to what extent, because so much changed in my life in 2007 (age 20/21) and that is when most of the "regression" occurred. And then again, I may've lsot some skills (eg. behavior got worse, less able to cope with daily living activities, more stereotyped habits), but gained others (eg. social skills - I am in a relationship for the first tiem in my life).

Well I have a few times had these times when I would "regress". Whenever major changes are happening in my life, I seem to get worse. For example, when I was 12, I developed an anxiety disorder because of the transition between primary and secondary school and because my mother was having a transplant.

When my father left us, it made me go back to square 1 on my recovery from anxiety and it got even worse when his absence caused a lot of money problems for us (because he wasn't paying child support). It made me have panic attacks in class and it made me so frustrated that my anger problems got even worse and I used to throw childish tantrums a lot.

Right now, I'm about to go to college and I'm terrified because it's so different. I have become a lot more angry over the years and it is getting even worse now that my life is changing so much.

It doesn't matter if the change is good or bad, if it's a change, it's scary. Maybe your son is experiencing some major changes in his life or maybe there is something bothering him at school or something of that nature. Perhaps keep a diary of every time he does throw a tantrum or becomes difficult and find out why he is doing it. My sister works with a woman whose niece is autistic and her sister keeps a diary of all the times she becomes difficult. It helps to create routine and structure as well, so it could be very beneficial.

Also, I don't know if this is healthy, but I write lists a lot. Sometimes I fulfill them, most of the time I don't, but I like writing lists of things I want to complete in the day and lists of future goals. Sometimes it helps me to anchor myself onto the world and not get too caught up in the uncertainty of life.

I've been degenerating for about five years, I even picked up a monotonous voice and lost my cool (I was weirdly cool a few years back, if affected by crazy-ass illogical schizophrenic thought and paranoia ). I've fixed my monotonous voice lately, I'll never have social skills but I think I can be cool again some time, after I leave my current school I'll get a decent haircut, and look cool again. having a crappy haircut is a defence mechanism for me to make sure everyone labels me as "introverted geek loner" than being a "ret*d". It's fun fooling the NT's at there own game

I think autism CAN get worse as one ages. When I was younger (according to my mom at least), I hated the tags on the back of t-shirts, would only ever eat two types of food (bread and cheese). By the time I was in middle school I had to deal with problems socializing, the fact that my parents didn't like me spending ALL (as in early waking hours to late night) my time on the computer, to severe anxiety attacks. When I was 14 I started developing a tic, my stimming (I shake my left leg) seems to have become more pronounced, I've noticed that my voice is becoming more and more monotone (it just feels awkward otherwise) and I frequently find myself unable to get my thoughts out into words when talking to someone, as I frequently pause and struggle to piece together a coherent sentence (what is this condition called, by the way? there should be a name for it). I can only imagine that's all downhill for me from here, but I'm sure a little support would go a long way in helping ease the difficulty.

AS shining through topic

The teen hormonal rage was just torture. I would never want to relive those years.

Since the hormone chaos has ceased, my AS sensitivity has become more apparent to me and others. But at this stage in my life I am satisfied with it.

Since i'm pretty sure that i have AS, i'll tell you what i think.. Or, at least how it was with me. When i was really young, i obviously had some social problems... My first grade teacher thought i was "slow" because of them, but i still ended up having some friends. It could, in many cases, just be passed off as shyness("oh, she's just quiet!") when i didn't know what to do, because everything is really structured at that age and kids don't really expect a whole lot from other kids. Then parents set up play dates, teachers set up games with really defined rules, so it's easier to function in a lot of ways. But when you get to middle school a lot of things change, and it's not just hormonal/biological stuff. Both adults and your peers expect more of you. You're expected to just automatically understand things, and when you don't understand you get accused of "not taking initiative." With me i got really good grades in elementary school, so it was obvious that i was intelligent. So, when my grades started to drop and in middle school, people get really diappointed with you. But, the thing is, in elementary school someone was always imposing a schedule on me and i'd always get help from my parents with studying and things. Without all of this stuff keeping me on track("you're growing up now, you need to be more self-sufficient"), added to the fact that it wasn't recognized that i had AS or any related issues, i started sinking like the titanic. You're expected, more and more, to get things done on your own(for those of us with executive dysfunction issues, that can be difficult and eventually turn into a pattern of horrible habits in school) and to understand things with less and less explanation. And whereas everything in elementary school was really black-and-white and easy to understand for most intelligent kids, middle school and high school get more and more vague(at least for someone who is confused by a lot of basic social things). It's complicated, so if your mind wanders then it's harder to just figure it out for yourself later. If you didn't understand something, it might be really hard for you to ask for help from peers or the teacher. And them they expect you, more and more, to "explain" things about a story or concept.. which might be difficult if you have a hard time understand what exactly the main idea they're looking for is and the question or project description isn't worded in a very narrow and exact way. To add to this, the support system they probably had previously in elementary school(adults keeping them on track as they do with younger kids, usually not expecting that some older kids are going to continue to need it) is slowly disintegrating under them, and they're left basically alone in their own head trying to interpret things they aren't fully making sense of... I've said on here a lot that i don't have hardly any "routines" associated with AS, but, in order to know what's going on, i do need for a situation to have some sort of structure or be clearly defined.. So i guess that's a related thing. With me i think that all of this stress and anxiety caused by a lack of understanding and structure made most of the appearances of functioning "normally" disappear in my teenage years. Yeah, if you're putting me in a playground with a group of kids where you're often giving us little rules for interaction, as in set up games, i'm naturally going to end up getting to know some people.. Because, in those cases, the rules are spelled out to me. But, if you throw me into a group of kids chaotically walking through a hallway and waiting for classes to start, then, unless i find someone that i already know from somewhere else to attach myself to, i'm going to end up by myself staring at a wall. With no clearly set up structure for how to talk to people(like in the job i have now, in sales, where there are clear expectations and it's mostly question-answer stuff) i simply have no clue how interact. In school i didn't know how to become part of a group or how to interpret whether or not is was okay to join in.. And, even if i did, i wouldn't have known what to say or do to remain part of the group of friends. Your peers expect more of you at this age, too. They don't just learn to play with whoever their parents happen to put them with, they are choosy and expect you to understand certain things. Everyone else always seemed like they were a little bit psychic to me, the way they just knew all the right things to do and when to do them without anyone telling them. It's like how an ant hill works, almost.. And i don't even think most of it can be explained simply by nonverbal communication, either. It's like there's some certain wavelength they all tune in to with their mind. I mean, i understand that being unaware of nonverbal stuff can affect your ability to empathize, but there's no way that this nonverbal communication explains how most people know what they are supposed to say most of the time and how to become part of a group. This can be frustrating if you don't "get it." Add in the increasing social anxiety i was getting because of all this confusion, and i was pretty much afraid to even try making friends when i was that age. This is just my experience.. But i think that things similar to this probably apply to a lot of ASD kids. At least your son has been diagnosed, so i'm sure that that'll help him get help and make other people sensitive to what he's going through, so that's a plus.. It'll mean that he probably won't have to feel so alone and misunderstood. But, even then, there's a lot of things going on in middle school that can increase stress and possibly make some issues more apparent. So, uh, yeah. It'd probably not getting worse, in itself... It might just be causing more problems because of growing up and the expectations associated with it.

Another thing that really upset him in school this year was seeing a girl that he had a oort of crush on since third grade run around with a whole group of guys. And of course these are guys who want nothing to do with him. Everyday at lunch he would see her with these people. He now refers toher as a "whore." I didn't even know he was familiar with that word. Yikes.

My anger became a real problem as an adolescent.

I think I am getting worse. I just noticed it when someone pointed it out to me. It made me sad. I am trying to be how I used to be now. It's not working.

ya had episodes where i been worse..i think worst one was around 9year