Do Aspies get worse with age?

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Hmm...I seem to be getting better over the years - in terms of social communication but in terms of organizational and time management skills not so much...

Well, your social skills maybe catching up to NTs, but there is still an entire range of other issues to deal with. And the stress of dealing with them all can get to be a bit much when you get older. From my experience anyway.

I'm smiling at this because you are only 19. Hang on to your optimism, kid, you're gonna need it.

Yes.

I've wondered the same but officially:no.

What I think it mat be for some and especially NTs who see to became more autistic with age is an anxiety disorder setting in.
most of the anxiety disorders appear in early adulthood after the (prefrontal cortex?) has fully matured, as well as OCD in some cases which is an anxiety disorder and which I think I may have along with the already diagnosed ADHD but I'm not label whoring.

So when you combine that with traits you already had in childhood it does seem like AS getting worse but probably isn't.

I'm right with you on that. I do think most of us improve from childhood through the years, but there seems to come a point at which the stress from putting on faces becomes very tiring, and can even affect physical health.

I do think there can come a point at which a lot of us just throw up our hands and say, "Enough! I've only got so much time left on this earth, and I'm tired of not being myself."

This can lead to what I like to refer to as an "as*hole" stage. I use that term fondly, because I go through it from time to time. I'm now learning to find the balance between letting myself "go" and not letting it affect others negatively. It's a tricky skill to learn.

I think asperger's may seem to get worse in some people in the same way all "defects" can get worse in people as they age. Someone who feels like they have to listen to other people, be respectful at work, and try to work on social skills to make friends when they are young may either fail and become bitter and give up over time or may succeed, get an accepting circle of friends/get married, and attain a position of authority or retire at which point they no longer feel the need to monitor their behavior and as a result, seem to have autism more severly.
eh... "I'm old and have lived a long time. I am done putting up with your crap. You can put up with mine now." NTs and Aspies alike do this, I think.

^^^^^ Is this fact, or a clever ruse? Why don't you have the green tag yet?

*Is very suspicious*

Well, my sensory issues have definitely gotten worse with age. I used to be abled to go to clubs etc, but can't anymore. Or then it's just that I don't live in a fog all the time like I used to, and now feel my sensory reactions better.

My experience is that the "incidents" have more and accumulating impact as one ages. I say that because I only learned of my AS at about age 60, but the damage it had done is enormous. I now have been diagnosed, but I'm having trouble getting proper counseling for the AS, although I am receiving therapy for depression for the 4th time. I won't say anymore, lest it be censored.

well said.

(on another note… if this is really you saying this and meaning it... you should be able to understand what i asked you the other day… )

Im almost 48 and everyday I feel less and less connected to the world.
I do not understand the majority of people in that they are what is commonly known as two faced, jealous, catty, etc you know the drill.
I do not understand them and cannot relate to them. I always had a degree of difficulty with others, and I THANK GOD for the decent people I have met in life. They give me hope for this world lol.
Normally I would just deal with others on a very superficial level when needed.
However, for reasons I will not go into, for the last 10-12 years I have been dealing with a ton of stress, with the last 2 years stepping it up a ton in the ways of stress.

I have noticed lately that I am having a hard time finding my words, where I once had a virtual dictionary at my disposal. My memory, while it was never stellar, is even worse. I'm in a constant state of anxiety. I have never handled change well. I have always needed my day planned out with few changes occuring throughout the day,but feel like my world is spinning very fast around me lately.
I'm dealing with a lot of new people and their difficulties in my life and do not seem to be handling it well.
It all seems to be overwhelming to me and I would like to know if anyone has ideas on how I could cope better as well as whether anyone can tell me if things will normalize when the stress reduces.
I feel lost. No, I'm not depressed. I am stressed, confused, and have no real sense of direction right now. Thank you in advance.

Hiya Petitefeet5 welcome to our neat little club the golden rule says to be to others what you would have them be to you. the ones that matter will respond positively towards your kindness. as dr. seuss says, "be who you are, and say what you feel - because those who mind don’t matter - and those who matter don’t mind.”

i never had much of a sense of direction, either, through life or otherwise. i was just stumbling from day to day with no effective goal-orientation. surviving but not living. when i was around your age, everything came to a head also, when i was caring for my late parents who both found their health deserting them at just about the same time. at the same time i was stuck in an uncivil service job that was akin to being trapped in a bottle with a bunch of scorpions. so i had no respite either at home or at work. that concentrated and unrelenting kind of stress will kill. my health numbers were like that of a 70+ year old man, or 25 years older than i was at the time. i suffered from CRS syndrome up the yinyang, i couldn't remember worth beans. i had tremendous freefloating anxiety and nightmares every night. i don't know how much longer i coulda lasted at that point. but when my parents passed away, i got laid off from my uncivil service job [and with what my parents left me] i could move to the woods away from "civilization" i found my health improving greatly within a few months.
the only thing i could think of, was that it would only be good if you could find a way to change the scenery in your life, i was luckier than most i suppose, but there comes a time when one has to step outside their comfort zone and uproot themselves and migrate elsewhere, to give the new background a chance to resonate with you. granted, my uprooting cost me a lot, i went from lower middle class down to lower working class, so it cost me lots of money but i am so much more [psychically] comfortable despite the poverty.
i wish you all good luck and am praying for you.

Thank you so much I could not agree more.

I disagree with Tony Attwood. I think it depends on the person when I got my diagnosis the phychologist told me that my Asperger will be less evident with age.

Not having a good writing day today, but I've also had the brain-turns-to-mush-due-to-excessive-stress-for-too-long thing happen. It's interesting/amazing/gobsmacking to have seen how many people here have had that happen in the same particular way (CRS/verbal memory loss).

I've been looking up stuff on Google Scholar and it turns out that excessive stress hormones for too long damages the hippocampus, which is involved with memory. So, it makes sense that stress ==> memory problems. Studies done with people with PTSD (runaway stress reaction) and tumors that cause excessive secretion of stress hormones end up with the same impairment in verbal memory. So, were talking major stress levels here for that to happen (or else ASD folk have a lower threshold for such damage).

On the upside, the damage appears to be reversible, as the hippocampus normally grows new neurons if your stress level is low/normal enough.

I don't have much advice as I dumbly plowed on until I ended up wrecked and (luckily) on SSDI. It's too bad that there isn't a device that you could aim at a person and objectively measure their stress levels. It seems like there's probably a lot of ASD folk suffering from huge stress.