Anyone out there whose autism/aspergers is getting worse?

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My 13 year old son is an aspie who was diagnosed whn he was 11. At that time, he had some anger issues, rigid patterns and poor social skills. His problems were there, but were manageable. Now, two years later, he seems to be getting worse. In some ways he is getting more infantile and expecting me, his mom, to do more for him. He is a smart, clever kid, but he has regressed to throwing tantrums, like he's in preschool. Is he regressing? Has anyone had this happen to them? I am an aspie too, self-diagnosed. I thought that the behaviors that are caused by aspergers/autism could be improved or modified by therapy, but I didn't think that I person could regress into a more autistic state, whcih is what this is like. Could this be an example of "shutting down"?

My standard link for these questions:
http://www.autistics.org/library/more-autistic.html

"Regression" is kind of a vague term. I don't think it means very much. If you mean, "losing access to skills," then yes. That happens to us. It happened to me when I had depression; I became unable to properly take care of myself--didn't take showers very often, couldn't keep my room neat, couldn't drag myself out of bed, spent a lot of time simply staring at the wall. Not saying your kid's depressed; just that when I ended up with a higher stress level in general, I lost access to some of the stuff I'd been able to do.

For example: You play the piano, you're good at playing the piano, you like it. That's a skill you've learned. Now, suddenly, you get the flu, you can't find your glasses so everything's blurry, and you've hurt your hand so that when you press the keys you're clumsy and it hurts. Can you still play the piano? Yes and no. That's kinda the stress-based explanation.

Puberty is stressful. Wouldn't be surprising if your boy has some extra stress coming from somewhere. School starts to really suck for some people at that age, for one thing. Physical stuff, too; constant soreness if you're growing fast, monthly cycles if you're a girl. Epilepsy tends to get worse then for some people, if they have it already. Social expectations are getting pretty ridiculous. Your day's more chaotic; most places at school they jerk you from classroom to classroom until you're about going crazy from the constant relocating.

I had tantrums 'til about 17, and only stopped because I started hurting myself instead. Bad choice, but easier to hide. Meh. I've learned to deal with it since, and don't often do either. I usually go into either "freeze" or "cry like a baby" mode now during overload.

Don't think this is happening with your boy because from what you say, he's in distress, but... funny thing... I actually look more autistic when I'm most productive and competent. The repetitive movements that look so odd help me think, and I sometimes withdraw from socializing when I'm focusing on some other important skill, like learning how to make a healthy lunch for myself every day (managed that this year) or getting decent grades at school (ditto). You kind of allocate your resources where they'll do the most good.

Most things take more effort for me than they do for most people, and when some of the effort has to be spent on dealing with stress or new problem, then yeah, you're going to have less to cope, and you might end up with tantrums.

How's your communication with your boy? Maybe he has some insight into what is different now, or what annoys/stresses him out the most?

I am.

The article that Callista posted is great. It helped me a lot when I was noticing this.

Dont know if this is that same as what you are seeing but since I have become aware of Asperger's Ive become more allergic to smalltalk. Ive also developed "special interests" because I realise that, well, I can. So maybe therapy can make Aspie traits stronger.

also there are the added emotions of going through the teenage years

Junior high is a particularly stressing time period for most kids. The social game becomes a lot more important around this age group as kids hit puberty and become more aware of their differences. For an Aspie, it can be even worse, as they already have poor social skills and now must adapt to a rapidly evolving social game with brand new rules. By high school, a lot of the kids have settled down and come up with their own identities, but this period of rapid change can be very bad for Aspies.

I wasn't too bad in high school as far as regressing went..I did do things that made people laugh at me. During the past 10 months recently, it felt like I was regressing.I stopped socializing as much, was withdrawn, focused on my special interests more, and was stimming a fair bit more than I usually did. I had a sort of online meltdown on Free Dominion.Alot of this was triggered by someone who I thought was my friend when one of his other friends started sending me nasty messages and him thinking I was creepy due to my AS traits.He doesnt know I have AS.With work, I am sort of improving, but alot of times it still seems like I have regressed.

throughout my life, I have gone from one extreme to another. I have had excellent positions at respected corporations and kept a beautiful apartment and little red sports car. I have lived on rooftops and in garden sheds. I have sparechanged on the streets and tossed a couple bucks into others cups along the way. I think that we go in and out of functioning depending on how we are handling things, but are quite fluid at how it is going at any given time.

The idea put forth about knowing how to play the piano, but not being able to do it at the moment is very real to me. thank you for that image. it helps.

Merle

Thank you everyone for the feedback and help. I too appreciate Callista's analogy with playing the piano. And now that I think about it, I have had a couple of similar periods in my life where I feel like my ability to cope has virtually slipped away.

Yes, my son is hating middle school because he's been bullied pretty much constantly for the past year. He is overweight and has only one so-called friend at school. Most of his friends are on-line buddies from his favorite game, Runescape. He got attacked a couple of times at school by a pair of really big kids, and he is big too but no fighter. The last month of school he called me every other day at lunch time, claiming that he was sick. He would call me from the school office because he does not have a cell phone. I would come and get him, we'd talk, he would eat lunch at home, then have to go to the bathroom. Then he would ask me to wipe him. Then he would go back to school for the rest of the day. This request that I wipe him is hard to understand. It feels like he wants to be a little kid again. Developmentally he can do it. He probably is depressed. It just breaks my heart to know that he is being bullied on top of everything else.

I have felt my condition had gotten worse in my teens because things I used to stand I couldn't stand anymore and I developed OCD about cleaning when I was nine and suffered it for many years until the end of high school. I got more sensitive to touch when I was 12 and I got more anxiety. I think this all had to do with hormones and puberty. I heard puberty can do strange things to kids on the spectrum and I think it's due to hormones changing. Temple wrote in her book how she developed an anxiety disorder in her early teens and she didn't get treatment for it till she was in her early 30's. She got put on medication for it. I knew someone on the spectrum and my mom said he was a sweet boy when we met him but then his hormones changed and he got violent. With me, I got more emotional and more tender hearted, it was real easy to get my feelings hurt and it was harder for me to move on. Back when I was a little kid, I was able to move on the next day because it be a new day and I act like nothing happened to me the day before. I was very forgiven and always gave people another chance but that led them to hurt me again and again and I never seemed to learn to not trust them ever again. Also I got more impulsive at age ten so that's when my mom started to medicate me. Every kid changes during puberty due to hormones but it's worse for us on the spectrum.