Getting Worse With Age?

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I hear the word "metldown" being mentioned alot in here.
But what does it really mean in practice with a person ?
I don't think i've ever experienced anything like that myself.
Any info anyone ?

Worse with age? Rather the opposite, actually. The longer I've been living, the more practice I've had with my social skills.

Eg, without making reference to AS, I was talking with one of the veteran members of my department and I made a comment about how I felt my people skills needed some work. She said that she's seen substantial improvement in the two years she's known me, and feels that there's not much to work on anymore...

(So now I've mastered "work social skills", perhaps I should move on to the non-work variety, and try to get out more.)

Some things get better and some things get worse; I don't think the "autism" gets worse. Anxiety and persecution complexes build up but you also learn things that help out a lot.

I also want to know.

A "melt-down" is a slang expression for extreme emotional or mental distress caused by sensory
overload, too many issues to process at one time, too much social confusion, & etc...
A person experiencing a meltdown can either have a wild or extreme outburst or just simply
shut down and withdraw from all social or interpersonal contact.

I myself have experienced meltdowns when I was younger. When I was five years old I was
taken out of school and not enrolled again until the following year because of my outbursts
and shutdowns.
Today I can avoid the people, things, and situations that can cause this to happen.
As for autism getting worse with age? I don't think it the AS that is getting worse,
I am just turning into a creaky and crusty old fart.

During Christmas I kept breaking down and crying uncontrollably, basically I just felt really distressed. The reasons being I had just found out I had AS, my dog died and I had exams coming up. It felt like everything was swirling around in my head and I jsut felt really confused about everything. Were these "episodes" meltdowns?

Sorry for you all that few your own autism getting worse due to time. My one is getting better each day, in such a way that I can say I am much more aspie now than I was at the past!! !

I think I was at my worst in junior high. High school was quite good for me. College wasn't so good. However, from the age of 30 onward, life has been great.

I seemed to improve during my younger years. But in my fifties now and my physique is breaking down at an alarming rate (apparently some autism related issues) and I have much pain, and the disabilities are getting me down.

I find that when stressed I am far more autie and after a few stressful days, I have been full of clumsiness and echolalia and such today.

Hell yes I am getting worse with age!

Don't worry about your health....
I'll go away.

It was the worst when I was at ages 19-21. I had just broken up with my first girlfriend, and I had terrible coping skills for two years after that.

Tim

Whilst living on a Trim Fit diet and keeping a Men’s Health exercise regime may actually exacerbate rather than improve a person’s health if there are underlying medical conditions that have not been treated, what I am pointing out is that there are certain special psychosomatic effects of autism that hitherto have not been much explored. Take myself as an example. I am confident that I neither have a congenital heart disease nor are there any physical maladies that explain the periodic “arrhythmias”. Numerous EKGs and examinations have produced nothing except the widespread suspicion that I am the worst kind of hypochondriac – having been trained in medicine, my delusions about physical malaise could potentially be very detailed and lucid; not to mention incredibly frustrating for any medical practitioner to try and solve. And yet I find that the effects, though transitory, are real.

It is probably true to say that what I experience is psychosomatic, but it is psychosomatic in that the problem originates in the brain and not the mind. The difference is that the brain could trigger a series of neural cascades while in a meltdown mode, via the autonomic nervous system for instance, that could increase my blood pressure and heart rate and degrade my immune system. In other words, it is not just some unmet psychological need or worrying about the size of my penis that causes me to feel ill. As evidenced by numerous posts by others who report experiencing odd physical symptoms that defy detection, there is some reason to say that autism does manifest itself physically too; albeit in its own unique way.

Perhaps it was taking it too far to say that autism worsens with age. Now that I have the freedom to choose how I want to live without all the exigent pressures of having to meet examination schedules or any other kind of deadlines, I can probably say that I have never been happier. But the happiness of age is not the happiness of youth. I treasure simpler things, like a good night’s sleep, like not being in running mind of meltdown mode, like the birds that fly and chatter in the garden, or just the silence of a reading room in a library. Gone are the rah-rah moments that mark the passage of adolescence and with it, all the gut wrenching effects of defeat and disgrace. Happiness now is a steady course on calm waters with the sun hanging low on the horizon and a cool breeze to my back.

What it might be is that I am more aware of what autism really means to me as I observe in the quiet of the day the unfolding drama of my mind. I know what I do not want, cannot have, and must not be given. The sense of loss is palpable, but so is the feeling of relief that I no longer have to be a square peg in a round hole – the only way to fit is to sacrifice bits of myself that I do not want to let go.

But there is a difference in the experience of autism when the brain stops growing and during the years when it is developing. The running mind problem only really came to the fore when I was past twenty. And until I chanced upon this board, I thought that I was being consumed by demonic hate that raged at its own futility. Unsubstantiated though it may be, the belief that the slideshow in my head is a product of some physical anomaly in my brain has been extremely important with my coming to terms with autism. Indeed, I can now step back and say to myself, let it run, it will end on its own. It is still uncomfortable, but at least I have stopped raging at the inferno that burns within me.

Zeno

Your funky ticker
was she a racer
flipper or flopper
a chest thumper
neck pounder
breath taker
of a paroxysmal nature

So frequency of meltdowns strongly depends on frequency of social contacts. We must measure meltdown/trigger of meltdown ratio, it’s quite hard.

ya. When I was very Young, I was really cute.
I grew a little and was a little different.
I grew more and was unusual.
For a while I was considered funny "That's just Jo"
Later I was considered eccentric ....'the shrink says"your eccentric like me" ' (scary thought)
In the military I was strange... then weird "she really doesn't belong here."

That's what I seem to look like to other people.

Oh now that i understand what meltdowns are.
I used to have those with incredible rage when i was young.
Than as i got older i shut down and i couldn't properly talk to people.
But i only got those when i got treated like s**t, and blamed for stuff i didn't do.
Glad i'l be gone from that workspace soon though, and work for people who appreciate me.