Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi! I’m a 19 year old autistic adult who’s almost completed her first year of university. Since turning 19 I’ve had the typical experience of feeling like things ‘shifted’ in my mind, just generally starting to see the world differently which I know is common as you reach young adulthood, and have seen this discussed a lot. However something I don’t see spoken about is how this relates to autistic young adults. As a teenager I had meltdowns every few weeks that involved screaming/crying/self-injurious behaviour/treating others poorly/going non-verbal etc etc. However since coming to university, this has only happened twice and even then they were much less intense as my previous meltdowns. This change was sudden, especially considering that just weeks before actually starting university I had 4 public meltdowns like this across 2 weeks at a summer programme for my now uni. This change makes me worry a lot about the validity of my autism, even though I’ve been diagnosed for almost 2 years now. I was wondering if anyone knows if my experience is common, and expected as one transitions from an autistic teenager to an autistic adult?
think of it this way.... you said it stopped or lessened when you came out of university, a school based environment that forces you to be around others.... you see, you just removed yourself from the cause of the problem, that is all.when i was in high school i was bat *** crazy, the place drove me insane, at home im calm, i stayed home after i left high school and did nothing and this isolation normalised myself. but the issue is and always was being forced to be around massive crowds of other people. if you again insert yourself into a large group of people that are a bit unrowdy and obnoxious like school kids always are, you will find you have these meltdowns again. when left alone or in smaller less rowdy groups it should all be fine.