AS and Puberty

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I read a lot of posts about how people seem to be 'less' (for a lack of a better word) autistic seeming as they grow older. For me, it was the opposite. Around the age of 13 I started to fall apart, and that's when it was really noticeable that something was different about me. I'm not sure why, but I suspect that it had a lot to do with the fact that social rules become much more complex around that time, and I just couldn't keep up. I became quite depressed, and my anxiety (which kicked off really obvious stimming behaviors, as well as being more rigid, and obsessive) went through the roof.

Did anyone else seem to show more obvious AS symptoms during puberty?

yes i did, and it was strange because when i was younger everything seemed fine maybe it was just becuase i didnt notice it then and now i have forgotten about it. also when you stay in classes with the same people for a long time its easier to fit in, having classes with different people each year makes it a lot harder.

what i noticed is that i was moving to the outside of groups more and more with each year and each new class and finally i was like a spectator there were a couple of people that i could get along with well but the last school year before i got diagnosed i had only one new person in that class that i could actually have a good conversation with that wouldnt end in three minutes there was another but i had known him for a long time already.

its supposed to be very common for aspies to breakdown in puberty,

the thing that people seem less autistic wont happen alot during puberty but in the years after that when we finally start figuring out the things that others knew from the start.

so it goes up and when you reach puberty it goes downhill and then up again.

13... that's about the time that life gets really, really hard for most kids (the "junior high" age). Having AS I believe makes it even more difficult. That year in school was probably the darkest year of my life.

I don't know that symptoms got any worse, but I certainly stuck out a lot more. Any social skills I acquired in elementary school went into hiding. I went back into my own shelter and stayed there for a couple of years (I had one friend I can remember, but that's about it). Then I think I learned to re-adapt, and things gradually got better through high school.

Yes, that was my experience. In addition, many of my traits are becoming increasingly prominent with age.

In hindsight, I can be sure. I do know my life became a living hell when puberty started. Probably for the same reasons you noted.

However, as an adult, things got easier.

I think it's a combination of being around more mature people and not the idiotic teenagers who made me miserable and slowly learning and adapting to a NT world.

Same for me but whn I was akid the routin andthe order intellegence were there te social rules just went boom come 13 so yes I was the same when I was 15 I saw a documentry on AS and I was jus like oh m god that is me in all areas, did the research became my new iterest and now I am here

I believe it's the stress of dealing with people (and I use that term generously) around that age as well as the stress of the changes going on in one's body.

And yes, it does get easier as an adult, I would imagine, for those that did not intentionally associate with older and more mature people in their younger years.

For me AS only hit hard in my early teens, just before puberty. I'm now fifty one and I can assure you that some things do get a little easier with time, although asking a woman out is still harder than calculating SQRT (PI) using Roman numerals.

Vanilla Slice

I actually started to fit in more after I hit puberty, because that's the time I got into music. I wasn't any less "different" - but it turned out that I was really good at music, so people tended to cut me some slack. As a special interest, music totally took over my life - probably more so than any other special interest I've ever had.

So in that respect, my AS traits became more pronounced - but because it was in a way that everyone saw as beneficial, I was accepted more.

I heard puberty can do strange things to us. I started having anxiety during puberty. I used to not have anxiety over changes and stuff and then it started when I was maybe 12. I started losing friends and by the time I was 12, I had none in school. All I had were the little kids to play with in my neighborhood. I started to get left behind when I was 10 because kids in my grade were starting to tell me to go away. Then things got better when we moved to Montana.

Wow, I could have written this post! I too believe that my quirks were accepted because I was a musician and we are cut a lot more slack. As a result, I think I didn't really ever have a "severe" reaction to the NT world.

The only difference is that I was a muscian for as long as I can remember, not just after puberty. I'm now starting to wonder if my AS traits are more pronounced since finding out about AS, but I suspect they are not; I'm just more aware of them.

Oh man puberty is HELL

That was when all my problems became obvious and my AS started to screw me up. When you're a kid, other kids don't mind so much if you're weird and eccentricity is just seen as cute. When you're 13 though, the other kids don't appreciate it so much and start leaving you out and taking the piss outta you. My AS becoming noticeable from 13 onwards caused my social anxiety disorder and depression. And IMO probably had a lot to do with the OCD I have now.

The psych who diagnosed me said adolescence is the worst time for aspies. It gets worse around then and then starts to get easier once you're in your 30s

14 years of age at High school is when my reality and view of life was turned upside down. Always thought girls were little princesses and I would find love, hold hands and kiss. Unfortunately I received some unwanted attention by girls who wanted to experiment with their bodies etc. The thought of sexual interaction was terifying and spoilt my adolescent years. Had the emotional maturity of a 11 year old did not help me. Could not figure out the social dance or appropriate behaviour. Eventually I became frustrated, stressed and would lash out at people. Tried to mimick the boys who were socially advanced and well liked.

I was the subject of malicious gossip by people who thought they knew my intentions and eventually skipped school roaming the local canals with stray dogs.

I believe you can improve as you get older if you do not have stressful/distressing events. Social interaction and obsessive behaviours have caused me much stress and I look forward to life's end, not suicidal, just tired and worn out trying to fit in and understand people.

That's kind of what happened to me. My anxiety eventually got so bad that I refused to even go back to school toward the end of my freshman year. I became exactly what you had described, just a spectator. Even my own group of "friends" pretty much ignored me. I realize that part of the reason was that I was so depressed that being around me wasn't always fun.



I think that some of my symptoms did get worse, because of anxiety. The more anxious I get the more obsessive that I get, and the more rigid I get, in a desperate attempt to control my environment.

I don't think you, or I lost any social skills. The game changed, and no one updated us on the new rules. I remember the first time that I knew for sure that I didn't understand these rules. I had just turned 15, and I was waiting in the hall to go back to class after lunch along with the rest of the students. I was sitting alone, and just watching people. I zoned in on 2 people talking close by. I noticed that there seemed to be some sort of social dance going on between the two of them. One would move one way, the other would move another, but it was in sync. It wasn't until I was about 28 that I figured out that that dance was body language, and facial expressions. I never knew that people were always sending out all this nonverbal code. The only thing that I knew all those years was that I didn't seem to know the steps to the social dance other people were doing, and it appeared that I was the only one that didn't.



It's really good that you found out early on, though. I think if I had known what was going on with me I wouldn't have been so lost on it all. I was convinced that I had to have schizophrenia, even though mental health professionals assured me that I didn't. I did get a few other misdiagnoses at that time, though.



My life has greatly improved since being an adult. You couldn't pay me enough to ever go back to being a kid. When you're an adult you get to choose (to an extent) who, and what that you want to expose yourself to. The consequences are greater as an adult, but at least I'm free to choose my own path. It took me years to recover from the abuse I endured from family, and therapists during my adolescence.

I've seen that AS/autistic symptoms are the WORST in early childhood.

But, people with AS/autism tend to be the LEAST happy in middle/early high school.

It's not like their symptoms magically regressed to a pre-school level, but it has more to do with the peers around them developing complex social heirarchies that didn't exist back in elementary school. There is also much more pressure to "fit in" and "be popular". Most people with AS that I know just didn't care in elementary school, because they had more fun playing by themselves. But the pressure became greater, and the teasing became sneakier, so they started to care more about making friends and were heavily discouraged when they didn't work out. Which can cause increased anxiety and even depression.

But it is true that most people become less outwardly autistic as they get older. I haven't met a person who honestly got worse with time.

I think my stimming stopped for awhile when I was a teenager, probably because everyone thought it was so weird.
It became hard for me to talk to people at the age of 13 because we started to talk about other people instead of pretending we were playing pirates or something. I hated gossip and took no part, because some girls made up things about me. Me not understanding the sarcasm overreacted and vowed never to take part in gossip, so I became more quiet even though I would hang around people.
I was kind of in denial about my social issues. As long I was hanging around with people I was social. Then I woke up when I was 22.
These days I stim more, am more focused on my special interests, need routine and don't care about socialising. It's like I'm a pre-adolescent again.
When I was 14 I talked more and wanted to be more social. Then I found out I wasn't good at it so I stopped. So I guess you can say I went less autistic in my teens years to more autistic in my early 20's.