"Outgrowing" Asperger's Syndrome?

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I think mine has got worse or if not the related conditions anxiety , depression etc.
My only explanation is that as a child i had few freinds , they always led the games but mostly my freinds and i shared one or two specific hobbies , ie we played lego all the time or we polished our bikes or cuddled our pets. i never throughout school ever felt i had as much fun as the next person, my freindships always seemed limited whereas other peoples didnt .
When i got older I had to do exams college and work it was at this point that i rember having severe anxiety, the older i got the more obvious my failings become , hard to hold down a job , didnt have freinds call round to go partying with the way other people did. the gap got wider and wider as i realised i didnt have the neccersary skills or personality to make it in the working world, i just couldnt cope with the stress, when i was younger i longed for the day that i would grow up , but its never happened , i still dont have a job or any freinds , and my sensory problems and anxiety and depression are at an all time high, and i do feel like a second class citizen. I would think the people who outgrow aspergers are those who find there niche , so they are valued as people and there stress levels remain low because they dont feel purposeless or so insecure.

I often read postings about people asking how they can be sure whether they have got Aspergers Syndrom or not. Well, I do not think it is that hard to know whether you have got it because you would feel strong impairment because of it.

There are symptoms if you have got an autistic spectrum disorder like AS/HFA, most people would not voluntarily talk about because they are nasty, embarassing and clearly point at you with their fingers (metaphorical). Their appearance tells you that you have got a disability that makes you, to some degree likely all your life, different from other people.

So most people, especially those who are dx'ed, would not easily twaddle about that, even anonymously at the Internet. It is very private stuff. I decided to talk about those symptoms here as they occured to me. I experience them regularly and I know they are related to autistic spectrum disorders.

I will only reveal those things here because I am anonymous and I will only do that one time. Since most symptoms are seldom talked about in public, somebody without AS might think he has got it but is far from it. I want to try to give a partial solution to that, so I do not have to read in the forum that it is all about self confidence because I am fed up discussing self-confidence with NT people. I am self-confident, damn it. I am smarter than most people on this planet. Many people are superior to me. This is not an issue. I do not intuitively compete with other people. I am an aspie.

If this posting should not be welcome, the responsible people may freely decide to remove it. But I think it would make some things clear for the undiagnosed who think they might have AS or HFA. Instead of using generic descriptions I will talk about the symptoms how I see them firsthand.

I must insist on a few things first: My life is not unhappy at all. I work in computer science research, I got paid well and the Asperger Syndrom is far from being the making up of my life. This posting contains only bad and nasty things because it is intentionally written that way.

There are absolutely no things in here somebody would easily like to attribute to himself without this being a real physical issue. A description of my life would look entirely different. I am having fun with other people, I own and drive a motorbike, although I doubt it is wise to do so and there is more fun. I do not complain about my life. I know I am lucky all the way. I do not have any serious anxiety issues or life impairing phobias.

As a child I have always been in social environments. It began with nursery, continued with kindergarten and continued with school. I will not talk much about socialising because I never really did. I never really wanted to play with other kids. But I do not remember very much of that time, so I will not talk about my early childhood here.

I always wanted to be able to read books and learned how to read from the TV at the age of 5 1/2 by watching a newspaper being read aloud while the text was being shown like some news broadcasts do. That did it for me somehow, although I have no explaination how that was possible. My handwriting has always been very bad. In elementary school I had very good marks in most subjects (except for PE or sports) but my handwriting was most of the time inadequate and hard to read. Usually I had striked many things out and wrote them again without being much better. But of course I have developed a readable handwriting later.

In school I was at first very strong with maths, but there was a problem, because I was talking my thoughts to myself all the time. I had a girl sitting next to me who always copied my speech down to paper and she got really upset when the teachers got fed up with me and insisted I would not talk to myself anymore.

I coped with that, but I was not very strong with maths anymore, just a bit better than average. My very good abilities to work with mathematics and theoretical computer sciences would not show up again before I went to university. I still greatly benefit from those today, although it seems to be the only special ability I have got.

I do have very bad hand-eye coordination. I also have problems dribbling with a ball. I could not do that when I had physical education in school. I improved that by training, up to the point where I can dribble standing still. Dribbling while walking or even running is still impossible. To coordinate hand and eye I have to track the ball and my hand with my eyes all the time but I would have very little control.

I always watched other students doing it, was impressed how well they do and I thought they must train that a lot. But they did not have to train. It was just fun to them. Playing any ball game with special intentions, tactics or strategies is a miracle for me. Today I do not play ball games with other people because I always feel very inferior. It might relate to confidence issues I picked up in school but I am really a very bad player and know it.

I strongly disklike being touched and I prefer not to touch anybody voluntarily or intentionally at all. I also do not like being hugged and I do not hug anybody. When I grew up I learned that people hugging you means to be friendly, so I try not to repell them if they do. I am intellectually touched by emotionally well meaning people hugging me but it still discomforts me a lot and I would prefer them just talking to me instead. I would not have a positive emotional reaction from being hugged, it is pretty much useless for me. I can usually not hide my first intuitive reaction towards anybody approaching me with such intentions, that seems rude and awkward to many.

I was together with some friends recently, they have got friends who have a little child. When the child was about to go to bed it should tell "good night" and go around and give everybody a kiss on the cheek. My reaction to this idea was just: Not me! This was a terrible situation because of my friends and of course the child did not have any chance to understand what is going on. I felt very sorry about the whole situation and for the child, but this little thing is a serious issue for me. I would have had a serious meltdown if I was to kiss strangers as a child, just talking to them would have been an issue.

When I was a child I would become upset if somebody, even a family member would try to hug me and I similiarly fighted off any such intrusion into my personal space. Beside that I hate the habit of people to hug and kiss each other on their cheeks on every occasion they meet. That is incomprehensible for me and incredibly nasty.

I may dislike being touched but being grabbed, pulled or pushed almost instantly drives me mad and I hate that without any chance for tolerance. This was a big issue in school, but incredibly nasty in teamsports. I only very reluctantly enganged in such activities and always felt very miserable, I evade situations where I would expect anybody interferring with my personal body movements at all. Like hell. Sorry.

My mind is not telling me "to stop it", it is more more like "something terrible happened, make that it did not!". I cannot tolerate such situations, if I try I become kind of paralysed. If I experienced such situations as a child I always was in a very miserable condition afterwards even when I got older and I knew my reaction is not appropriate for a boy of my age and a stupid thing to do in front of other kids. There certainly came a point where the students of my class stopped doing some things to me but they did neither understand and for sure did not admire me for being a comrade of some sort. Neither did I understand what was going on.

I had a situation with a family member just a few weeks ago. The man is 80 years old (I am 30, btw) and he got the habit of grabbing and holding your hand while greeting and talking to you. I could not help myself shouting at him not to hold my hand and I fiercly draw it back from him. Of course I know this does not make sense to most people and I know it terrifies people. Of course this is rude behaviour. But that does not make a difference.

My mind and body seem to be linked very closely, somehow the wiring is short circuited at some parts. As a child I usually felt uneasy with my body and I never admired it a lot because I felt somehow trapped in it.

If I am thinking about something I begin to stim. The recent years I stim by repeatedly turnig the pen in my hand, let it bounce off the table and turn the pen again. It is not always the pen, I also do that with the remote of my TV or my cell phone. Because I do that very often I can do that very quickly.

This usually distracts and annoys people around me. I understand their reaction but I can only stop doing that by stopping to think or loosing a signifcant level of concentration. When I think about something more deeply I have to walk around, back and forth, usually not in circles (do not ask me why). Not for going somewhere but for having the body moving in some way. The requirement to remain seated introduces additional difficulties impairing my concentration.

I can fight back this awkward body stuff but not for too long and not without my ability to do concentrated work with my mind being affected negatively. When I walk around shopping and in thoughts I usually have my thumbs in my fists or between other fingers. It seems this provides some kind of sensory input that must go together with my thoughts racing through my mind. It does not have anything to do with hurting oneself, but the sensory sensation comforts somehow.

This can reach a level where I do not fight it back. When I feel alone and not watched by others I can let loose some of my self control while in deep thoughts and that would occasionally lead to body movements that are similiar to those with Tourrete syndrome. But it is not Tourrete and when together with or watched by other people I can control it all the time without any problem. I am afraid of other people watching me like that because it would be very embarrassing and make it clear to them that something is not right. So it adds something to the reluctance to go out with other people, especially when I am tired and the events mean additional or unsual sensory stress.

I was having a transatlantic flight two years ago when I somehow went to sleep and was woken up by a stewardess. For a very short moment of disorienation and with the noise of the plane around me I had a very nasty attack and the stewardess was shocked to see that. I felt not well about that moment at all, to express it mildly.

While I attended university I had serious trouble learning from and with other people, especially if they were at my age. There were small learning groups I always had trouble joining. I sometimes got in but learning with them was another story, it never worked out and I always had to learn the things for myself again. This extends to the professors sometimes but seems to be related how sympathetic they appeared to me. I had trouble following a lecture for more than 30 minutes. I had that for about two years without progress in exams.

Finally I developed some strategies to stay at university. I would sit in the lecture with the manuals and the other books and learned for myself, about half an ear out for what is going on. That helped and I got along with some average to good grades, up to some very good results as well.

I generally avoid situations with strong sensory sensations because I feel very uneasy about them and they impair my self control significantly. Some papers say people with AS/HFA are especially sensitive to sensory sensations. I cannot compare my experience with others but I would instantly agree to that. It seems some kind of filter is missing and to keep within a good range you must prevent the sensations from reaching your brain by limiting being exposed to the sources. The limit can be quite high but it is there and not passed without reactions. You can feel those reactions and you do not like them.

It also means I partially evade some of the fun situations other people especially look for in their leisure time. I can swim very well and even over distances and I have no fear of drowning but I avoid jumping in the water. I had to do that in school and I could do that, but sometimes the moment when I hit the water produced so much sensory overload that I was paralysed for a moment and panicked after. I also hate swimming in crowded places where you constantly bounce in somebody.

I also can do roller coaster riding (up to some point of intensity) but it is not enjoyable and when its done it is more the feeling that "I made it" than having fun. I would not do that for having fun or for relaxing from stress. I can imagine that some roller coasters, for example those built with wood and therefor much louder, would mean a serious challenge.

I would rather avoid theme park experiences. I would go there with friends but I would hardly really enjoy it and I hate the moment when I would tell them that I prefer not to do some things. You can only relax or keep yourself pushing forward. You cannot do both things the same time. You can do many things, but they do not provide you any fun. So what is the point? But I am always eager to try something new or I might me trapped with a very restricted life.

For the few of you who have read up to here (and I hope there are not too many) I will write about the special and most troubling challenge in my life. It is about having relationships with women. Like most of you will already know this involves sensory sensations a lot, and they are of course very welcome to people. I am sure nobody would like to have problems in that regard or easily tell other people he would. Society does not welcome men having such problems and it follows this strategy seriously.

However, having somebody else in a relationship causing strong sensor stimulation without me being totally in control and that person present is something I always was afraid of and usually the sheer imagination of it is difficult for me. I did not manage to solve that contradiction. Ignoring or tolerating is pretty much useless here. There are other dynamics involved here.

When I was a teenager I had of course attempted to have a relationship several times. That was not easy given the social problems I had but there is more to that, especially when my parents moved to another big city. I never engaged in the endeavour to have relationships passing a certain level of intensity, because I always stop short on the way. I can give some snippets of conversation with girls I had:

Why do you not try to kiss me?
Do you not want to kiss me?
What is wrong with you? Is it me?
Oh, I hate you!

I think you got the point. I can ignore some fears and push me further but usually a woman would feel uneasy about it. There are problems with body contact, giving and taking and it seems to stay that way. I had and have got some friendships with women but certainly not with those with who a serious relationship failed.

Today I feel comfortable but I excluded having a relationship from my life, trying to have other positive and more self-confirming experiences. I am too frustrated to experience repeated failure, defeat and disappointment anymore. I cannot and will not risk to loose any more of my self confidence. I doubt there would be any kind of training or therapy situation for my difficulties and I do not want to look for them anymore but enjoy from my life what I have got.

I think it's possible to evolve out of certain Aspie characteristics, but it's not the same for everyone. I'm 31 now, and I'm at a point where it's much easier for me to do things that other people mastered at the age of 21, for example. I interview for jobs very well, have even become good at some forms of sarcasm and joking. I can do a lot of things that the NT population can do. A lot of people have said they wouldn't know I had AS if I hadn't told them.

But the thing is, all of this happened simply on the basis of three factors: having Twice Exceptional status insofar as being identified as Gifted, which gave me an intellectual advantage in learning social skills, a lot of trial-and-error and learning to conceal certain Aspie behaviours for the sake of adapting.

Part of this falls under the normal maturity process. I look back on some of my psychological profiles from my early teen years (this was way before AS was in the popular consciousness) and it practically screams out that I had AS (nobody really knew why I had such profound social interaction problems, it was anybody's guess in those days). Some notable factors include: tremendous anxiety, depression, teased a lot, inability to make friends, not contributing in group discussions, not adding ideas to groups but being willing to criticize other people's ideas, poor muscle and motor control, bad at math, hugely advanced in cognitive and linguistic skills, et al. I gradually learned to adapt to these social norms out of survival.

That being said, I'm still Aspie in the sense that I have behaviours that some people find impossible to deal with. I *hate* parties and most social events, really not understanding what the point of them is. A lot of people don't like hanging around with me. I've lost friends. I'm still very clumsy and have poor motor control, along with ugly cursive handwriting. I want to talk about subjects that interest me, but I never really do with people mostly because I know if I get going, I'll lose myself in the moment sometimes and I just try to avoid talking about things I care about, simply because I know it's going to earn a negative reaction from people. I don't cry at all during funerals, because I know if I start, I figure it's going to draw more unwanted attention to myself. So I cut myself off, because when my emotions ever do come out authentically, it's off the wall sometimes. I hate it.

I think the point is: you don't outgrow AS, but you can learn to evolve and adapt around it. Some people have an easier time than others. Some people can adapt to the point where they're almost indistinguishable from the NT population. Some never evolve at all.

Since this two year-old thread had been revived, I figured I toss in my 2¢. From what I've seen and read, AS - as it's currently defined is not something one outgrows, at least not clinically. IOW, it's not like a milk allergy and the brain doesn't rewire itself so that AS is no longer there. I'm no doctor or researcher, so take that with a grain of salt. However, whether one outgrows it clinically is not as important as one "outgrowing" it due to adaptation and compensation.

I was very recently dx'd with AS at the tender age of 35. I had done such a good job of compensating that none of the psychologists or psychiatrists I had seen over 20 years even had it on their radar screen. They certainly saw AS traits in me, but nothing to match the DSM-IV criteria. I had been dx'd with depression, anxiety, and finally ADHD - all of which are comorbid with AS. The one person who believed I was AS was my mother, who was a Special Education teacher for almost 40 years. I have learned that she saw AS traits in me when I was young and even before Asperger's paper was published in English in 1979. She and my dad worked on teaching me skills to compensate, such as making eye contact and being involved socially with others. The result was that I functioned normally throughout childhood, albeit with more difficulty than others may have experienced.

When my parents' alcoholism (and resulting non-physical abuse) manifested itself, at age 15 I realized I was an alcoholic by default (though not drinking) and whatever was going on in my parents was going to happen to me. As a result, I sought psychiatric help and have been aided by anti-depressants since. I think the combination of therapy and medications further masked my AS. I managed to hold down my first job for over eight years before being asked to resign due to a combination of my inflexibility and a supervisor who had actually told me she wanted to see me gone.

I finally got my AS dx'd because of my daughter, who had exhibited many of the same characteristics of me when I was her age. While I had my ADHD dx'd, I knew there were things, such as my poor executive functioning, that I was fighting and by identifying them, we could make my daughter's life much easier through early intervention. That's how the AS dx came along. The cognitive psychologist immediately pegged me for AS and her testing confirmed it. She said I met all the DSM-IV criteria for AS, but my compensation, especially socially made it difficult to detect.

Nothing has changed about me as far as AS from when I was three to now. However, through compensation I have been fortunate to overcome most of the unproductive aspects of AS. All the AS things are there, from my internal anxiety in dealing with people, to my intense interest in systems (databases, computers, electrical, cars, etc), and gmy continued poor executive skills. For me, the difference is I can choose to have the unproductive AS run me, or I can choose to compensate for it, in line with my commitments.

So my answer is this: AS does not go away as we get older. However, as we learn to function in the world and gain experience and knowledge, we compensate for AS and reduce the apparent symptoms. Rather than saying we "outgrow" AS, I think the more accurate thing is to say we have harnessed our AS and can temper the nonproductive parts while capitalizing on the good traits.

You can't. What looks on the outside like 'outgrowing' it is simply adapting and learning a script to seem normal.

You can "outgrow" various symptoms. For instance, I'm not nearly as hypersensitive to sound and touch as I used to be. I suspect, though, the AS will always be there in some form, whether I would like to admit that or not.

I have to give my hat to the psychologists because no offence how would you react if someone would jump through my door and say I HAVE ASPERGERS AND HERES THE PROOF
the psychologist simply replies I have been doing stuff like this since you were in nappies lol

I see it like this and it will have a little tale with it

Now before I start I think and there are many papers and signs of evidence about it actually being a congenital/ juvenile illness that is permament but at its intense over the ages of 1 - 18 and as a poster said which I completely agree on is that it can mentally cripple if ignored a come one people of the ages of 20 30 40s rocking two and fro, sucking on pasifiers and falling to pieces at some points is that mentally crippling, I as a psychology/ media student say yes because it certainly does not scream I am am in absolute control of myself now I am an aspie but i am theoried to have PDD which is basically aspergers with dyslexia, and other learning difficulties chucking in, I am also blind and frankly when I read some posts feel a twinge of pity bu mostl my heart goes out to them wondering how they were in their past because
YOUR PAST SHAPES WHO YOU ARE TODAY

Now I have 2 aspie friends who in most honesty I will not bother with after university because they are weak, pathetic and self piteous upon themselves and what makes me upset sometimes is that have seen a woman a friend of mine who is blind handle 100s of cases and not even bat an eyelid and continue onward, her co worker is an amazing man who has my admiration and respect as he is pralysed in his legs and three fingers on each hand and he handles over 2000 cases and every summer he rings up every student with a disability to write a report of their needs and handles them through out the year and he has never in my year of knowing him has ever asked for help and I read these stories about people being so wallowing in their own problems and I think of frankly myself and those people and many amazin other disabled people and it makes me shudder as they do not know what not being able to see, hear or touch truly feels like, I have seen god bless her name my best friend even in the arms of death as she was slowly dying of scepticemia and previously she walked with a gaping hole in her foot and she never ever complained we sat in each others rooms and talked and laughed about music and our lives and past and shes gone now but she died with dignity and love from all thoe she had met.

All I am trying to say is if you think and wallow it perpetuates itself until it controls you sometimes you got to let go and I have read every single post to see the reactions and I am very glad ad I know and share the feeling with those who have said one day **** ot and walk outside and do something random like grab a pizza or just walk around town with out a care my heart is with you

Aspergrow topic

On the contrary, I have grown into AS, and it fits really great now.

My behaviors have altered over the years. I doubt I am outgrowing anything, but I have certainly evolved and adapted. I am certainly not an expert on behavior, but if you are self aware, you will modify your interaction with the rest of the world to get by. Ironically, I have noticed that some of my deficiencies have improved, but others have deteriorated.

Ha, I think I've actually become more of an aspie in some ways. I guess part of it is my anxiety problems, which kicked in during middle school (because middle school just wasn't awful enough already). I do feel like I have - well, not outgrown, more like changed or adapted - in other ways.

Yeah, well, why not.

I'm sure that there are - or soon will be - definitive tests that check things like individual eye movements during social interaction, or timings of responses. The shape of the missing bit that defines aspergers isn't as mysterious as it used to be.

While our magnificently plastic brains do their utmost to deliver us long life and happiness, they don't do it by filling in the missing bit. Shading around it, even glossing over it, but not filling it.

I have been thinking on this very thing for weeks now. I am 61 and it's quite apparent I'm not growing up. I am not passing for just "odd" anymore either. I find that many people just don't care so much either like when I was a teen or a young mother. At my age everyone is a little more forgiving. Or perhaps it's the people I choose to associate with. There aren't many, but the ones I feel close to accept me for who I am now and it's really a nice feeling and very satisfying. I think perhaps as an aspie, we do grow into a sort of maturity from life experiences, but I doubt that we ever lose that love of knowledge or become "mature" like NT's. And I am thankful for that! This world needs our input and our way of seeing things. Now to convince THEM of that!

My traits seem to be getting more profound with age. Or perhaps it is because I am becoming more and more educated about autism and better able to recognize them.