Getting worse when growing up?

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Hi! I've been recently feeling bad because of a couple of incidents I've had not too long ago and I just wanted to see what you guys think about the possibility of one's AS symptoms getting worse or more noticeable when growing up. I'm nineteen years old and I dropped out of college after attending it for just one month because I realized I couldn´t cope with the level of "independence" that was apparently needed there.

Before that, I had always been a top student, so it was a rather traumatic experience for me and I got depressed and my parents started taking me with a bunch of people to see if they could help me. I have been seeing this really nice woman in charge of a special-needs institution for little kids and I think she has helped me until now but I still feel overwhelmed by the implications of belonging to the adult world. Specifically, by the independence level someone my age is required to have in this sucky country known as Mexico =/

The symptoms I've been noticing as getting worse include principally my language skills. This year I've been stammering a whole lot more and I've been noticing I haven't been able to speak coherently since this last year. I've also been suffering terrible meltdowns and stress related symptoms like my hair falling a lot and I've also become extremely paranoid.

I don't give a damn about marrying and having children or having a significant other or even a close friend but still, it's kinda frustrating when you realize your younger siblings are more mature than you and you feel stuck with a 10 year-old's emotional maturity and there's nothing you can do about it

The world gets worse as you grow up, so unless your coping mechanisms improve as you age, you'll struggle more.

Don't feel bad. I started doing badly in college after being a good student throughout school before then also. Everyone does things on their own timetable and in their own way. So far I am finding that college is not for me and that socially I do a lot of things later than most people. So it is!

That's exactly what happened to me in my first semester of high school. But after that, I knew what to expect, and I started doing better.

I also experienced that studying at the university was much harder than school. I had problems with learning, managing my time, sorting out what's important. I wasn't a good student any more, and that frustrated me.

OK, with me, there's a yes and a no answer to this question.

I know that as I'm growing up, I'm able to hide my AS more and more, and I've made a lot of descent friends in the passed 18 months or so, so I think I'm doing pretty well. I feel that I'm understanding more and more social cues, and I am now trying to very gradually teach myself to say ''no'' to people. I'm not doing it abrupty - I'm letting it take time, to build up more confidence in doing this, so that in a few years to come I should become more confident at being more assertive in the right way. So I'm working on that.

But - I feel that as I'm getting older my anxiety level has risen up a lot from how I used to be. I'm now starting to think I might have an anxiety disorder, which is co-morbid to my AS. I feel so anxious about looking for work that I find myself backing away from any jobs I get offered at the job-centre. I don't even know what's so daunting about it really. I mean, I've got to get a job sooner or later. But I wonder if it's lack of confidence what is holding me back. I have been through therapists, disability employment services, you name it, but the government are cutting all these services (w*kers!), so I'm not going to get much help any more. And because my AS is mild, I tend to ''slip through the cracks'' - which means other suggested disability support services are hard to come by for me, because they're looking for people with very low IQs (although mine is slightly lower than average), or people with more severe Autism or other conditions, (physical or mental) who really can't get on in a job. So it's all hard for me.

It's the f*****g government fault - I HATE THE f*****g GOVERNMENT OF BRITAIN SO MUCH!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !

Hi

First off . . .

Welcome to WrongPlanet!! !

Depending on the situation, yes, I think social skills gaps can become more noticeable as a person gets older. And if you're in a situation where you're expected to be adult and mature all at once, that's probably a no-win situation and probably will lead to an increase of stress, which could lead to such things as increase of stammering.

Okay, let me share some of my college experiences, which do have a gap of both culture and years. This was at a large state university in the U.S. starting in 1982 (yeah, a few years ago!).

Professors can be unclear. They can sometimes almost take delight in being obscure. For example, I got burned over and over again where they said they wanted something creative in papers and then they didn't really.

With students, there was a lot of hierarchy and superficial social games. There was even a fair amount of physical bullying and intimidation. Yes, really. Almost as if it was a throwback to junior high (ages 12-14). I even wrote an essay. Tight, defensive boxing to a draw. One week.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt134616.html
And I recommend a person almost prefer a draw because you're not trying to humiliate someone, esp a person you're likely to see again. And of course I recommend a person simply walk away from a fight if he or she reasonably can. Now, I am a male. This was the dorm of a large state university way back in 1982. Hopefully, things have improved in this regard, but I kind of suspect not.

As far as the classwork, I highly recommend the method of pre-study. Pre-studying works so well it's almost cheating. Actually, it is cheating but it's an entirely legal form of cheating! And it can be as casual as picking up a slightly out-of-date geology textbook and leafing through it. That pays surprising dividends with the arc of time and the headstart it provides to mull things over and start thinking about things. And I also added skills of skimming and "arcing across" a topic (more "right-brain" skills) to add to my skills of hard logic and memorization ("left-brain" skills).

With papers, I finally kind of got it when I took African-American literature at age 28 (even though I started college at age 19, I got my degree at age 28 and that's perfectly okay). No, the professor does not want me to merely give my own views about the text. And no, the professor doesn't really want a summary. What the professor mainly wants is for me to include references and summarize what these other critics have said about the text! Now, that's not necessarily more rational. But that seems to be the way the game is played. So, a little bit I decided, I can do my main intellectual work on my own and perhaps publish some of it of my own choosing on the Internet, and then I can play the game and do the 'formal-normal' writing for the sake of a grade. And even that writing has positive transfer! And also, if I had it to do over again, I might say to the professor, 'I have really struggled with papers. Do you think I could submit it early and you could tell me if I'm on the right track?' Or I might use disABLED Student Services or something similar to make this request of the professor.

Again, welcome to WP. Good to have you. I think you'll find us a group where people do generally jump in and try and help.

I've become more self-aware, knowledgeable, astute, etc... as I've grown older, so theoretically I should be able to cope better. Problem is my emotional problems have only gotten worse with age. I have much less enthusiasm about "adult life" in general and that in-and-of-itself makes everything more daunting. I just don't care about the stuff everyone is supposed to care about and I realize I can't make myself care. Really, the only way I can cope with the utter meaninglessness and drudgery of my life is to get lost in one of my own interests. When I'm too stressed out or depressed to even get into anything I'm really sunk for a while. I've also become more obsessive with more OCD tendencies. When there's something bothering me it gets stuck in my brain for ages if I'm too depressed to replace the thought with anything else.

I just consider myself really lucky to have made it through Freshman year without failing.

Recently, I think I have been getting worse.

I had been fine, and even enjoying uni up till mid semester 2 of year 2. then everything started to change.
4th September 2010, 4.35am: a magnitude 7.1 earthquake hits Canterbury, rudely awakening everyone, including me.
The rest of that semester went reasonably well except for maths, which was probably a result of an extra 2 weeks of "holiday" due to the earthquake and aftershocks. I was so happy when the semester finished, but then my Grandad, who was sick, died. I went on the CYO tour, which was nice. the rest of the summer holidays went fine, and I managed to get a job in January working at the uni library sorting and shelving the books that were deshelved during the earthquake. I finished at the end of the week before uni started. Monday, 21st February: uni starts. I shelved a few books that day too.
Tuesday, 22nd February 2011: second day back to uni, and looking forward to the courses I was doing.
12.51pm: a magnitude 6.3 earthquake hits under the Port Hills on the south side of Christchurch. Everyone is sent away. I bike home past gridlocked traffic. when I get home, I find my street is covered in Liquefaction. then I start hearing the stories. The spire of the Christchurch Cathedral, where I play the CYO concerts in, has collapsed. lots of historic brick buildings have collapsed, two buses are crushed, two reasonably modern concrete buildings have collapsed. Confirmed fatalities, hundreds missing, more than 100 thought trapped in a collapsed building.
all this while there are aftershocks every few minutes, including several large ones. The power and water is out, and we can't use the toilet.
after a few days, the magnitude was really starting to be realised. The death toll exceeds 100, hundreds of buildings are destroyed, and hundreds more will require demolition, and a 23 floor building is on a lean and in danger of collapse,.
The final death toll is 181 people. Thankfully, I don't know anyone killed personally.
several weeks later after hundreds of aftershocks, uni starts again with lectures in tents. Already, I was less enthusiastic about the courses I chose.
Over the next few months, there are several large aftershocks, each time causing me more stress, and making the courses less enjoyable.
with just a few weeks left, my grades were falling, and I was wanting to just give up, but I thought that I was so close to the end, that I might as well finish. by this time I was isolating myself more and more, and I found it very difficult to motivate myself to do anything.
13th June, the Monday after lectures finished: a big earthquake happens, magnitude 5.6, causing more damage, and more liquefaction in eastern Christchurch. A bit more than an hour later, a much bigger 6.3 happens. this one was scary. the aftershocks happen over the next few days, and the exams are postponed. I got almost no study done simply because it was difficult to concentrate for any length of time. By then I had decided I was going to try find a job, but go back to uni if I couldn't
The next Monday and Tuesday, I had my exams, which were not enjoyable. on that Tuesday evening, there was a 5.4, but very close and very violent. the take home exam was left a bit late, and I finished as much as I possibly could.
By now, I just didn't want to do anything, and I spent most of my time at my computer in my room.
I am currently looking for work in the hope that it will give me some regularity in my life. I really just don't know what to do any more, and I don't really want to do anything either.
I have become rather obsessed with Minecraft at the moment, and at the moment, that seems to be the best way to deal with the stress.
overall, this has basically caused me to almost completely shut myself off from the outside world, which is social awkwardness/shyness taken to the extreme, so yes, it is very possible to get worse, although I hope I can somehow get a bit better again.