I have been struggling lately with Aspergers, I feel I have regressed in many fields of operation and I am seeking information that adults can regress. I have read on the net, that regression can be the caused by stress and mistaken for depression in people with autism.
I know regression forms part of the autism model in childhood, but can it also in adulthood ? or is it just stress and lack of coping mechanisms. I feel like everything I knew or trusted is gone ?
...sadly it's something many autistic females find causes bias against us to our detriment. Social expectations are different upon us from an early age, many of us learn social mimicking through cognitive effort and manage to scrape by with huge effort. Unfortunately many diagnosticians are still not appreciating this and are failing to diagnose many females because they don't recognise the presentation.
I scored very high on the vocabulary section on the WAIS and my brain runs at a very fast speed, so I can cognitively work out some things that come naturally to NTs, but it is at very great mental and emotional cost to me and I need to shut myself away afterwards. I have only just realised that I mimicked to get by socially all along, because I also found out I have alexithymia (as well as scoring highly for dissociative disorder) so I didn't even identify it in myself. It's almost like a persona you snap on, and you are so used to doing and it can fool others, but after a while it gets harder to sustain, and it breaks down more and more (much quicker under stress).
When my younger daughter was diagnosed, shortly after I found this information about "high-functioning" (and it's not even a clinical/diagnostic term) so I was very annoyed they put on her report that she is high-functioning, because yes, she is highly verbal and intelligent but is very autistic in many ways and very affected by her traits. So even the clinicians don't get it right (I couldn't resist emailing the diagnostician about this either 
). A great example of how words and terminology comes into popular use by default, even clinically.
I think one of the things that bugs me the very most, is that although AS is an invisible disability for all with it, the more you are able to adopt a social mask the harder it is to get awareness of or acceptance of your needs. We're almost shooting ourselves in the foot. You aren't coping inside and can be in full panic mode but you feel unable to say a word due to the social pressure of the environment you find yourself in. And as I am now 'regressing' like openheart, I feel less and less inclined/able to wear the social mask because my meltdowns are bubbling just below the surface the whole time and one little stressful thing can make me react. And because people don't know you are autistic they can assume you are just some overreacting nutter.
...sadly it's something many autistic females find causes bias against us to our detriment. Social expectations are different upon us from an early age, many of us learn social mimicking through cognitive effort and manage to scrape by with huge effort. Unfortunately many diagnosticians are still not appreciating this and are failing to diagnose many females because they don't recognise the presentation.
I scored very high on the vocabulary section on the WAIS and my brain runs at a very fast speed, so I can cognitively work out some things that come naturally to NTs, but it is at very great mental and emotional cost to me and I need to shut myself away afterwards. I have only just realised that I mimicked to get by socially all along, because I also found out I have alexithymia (as well as scoring highly for dissociative disorder) so I didn't even identify it in myself. It's almost like a persona you snap on, and you are so used to doing and it can fool others, but after a while it gets harder to sustain, and it breaks down more and more (much quicker under stress).
When my younger daughter was diagnosed, shortly after I found this information about "high-functioning" (and it's not even a clinical/diagnostic term) so I was very annoyed they put on her report that she is high-functioning, because yes, she is highly verbal and intelligent but is very autistic in many ways and very affected by her traits. So even the clinicians don't get it right (I couldn't resist emailing the diagnostician about this either ). A great example of how words and terminology comes into popular use by default, even clinically.
I think one of the things that bugs me the very most, is that although AS is an invisible disability for all with it, the more you are able to adopt a social mask the harder it is to get awareness of or acceptance of your needs. We're almost shooting ourselves in the foot. You aren't coping inside and can be in full panic mode but you feel unable to say a word due to the social pressure of the environment you find yourself in. And as I am now 'regressing' like openheart, I feel less and less inclined/able to wear the social mask because my meltdowns are bubbling just below the surface the whole time and one little stressful thing can make me react. And because people don't know you are autistic they can assume you are just some overreacting nutter.
