Post diagnosis - symptoms worse?

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This is kind of hard to explain.

I feel as though since my diagnoses and on my journey of accepting and understanding my AS, that I am going through a stage where my symptoms appear to be worse.

I believe it could be due to the fact that for the first time in my life I am "giving myself a break" and have stopped pushing myself to have to block everything out to be like the NTs and am just breathing a huge sigh of relief to finally just be the AS self that is me.

I am now feeling though, however, that since I have turned off the "block it out" part of me, that my symptoms have become louder. Noisy environments are even more deafening than before, my social skills seems to be worse, mainly because I wish not to interact as much because I am tired of the consequences of it, etc, since I now understand so much more about it. Before all I used to do was just block everything out and push on because I thought there was just something about me that I needed to "fix" but that I was still like everyone else, and was always so annoyed at myself for the burnout I would suffer from it all.

Has anyone else experienced this?

No..... ever since I was diagnosed years ago, I have gotten better to a degree. But worse in some aspects, technically. So my answer is 'yes and no'.

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Thanks for your answer. And what you said would be applicable to me also - some things have become better. I am just surprised that some things have become worse, and am wondering if anyone can relate to it being connected with removing the extreme "block it out" energy (which only caused greater burnout because I wasn't actually blocking anything out at all, it was instead perhaps more an unconscious route rather than a conscious one. In saying that, it still affected me greatly, but now it has gone UP a notch!) that they may have previously used before knowing about their AS.
It is hard to explain

Well I got diagnosed when I was 14 and I was really upset about it and reading that it was related to autism and 70% of people with autism have intellectual impairments and reading things like "autism takes away those qualities that truly make us human , language and empathy" made me hate the diagnosis and fervently deny that I had it. I know these things aren't quite true ....but these were the first sort of things I read about autism and I believed them and they freaked me out. At this time I tried realy hard to get rid of all of my symptoms, for example researching nonverbal communication and practising my facial expressions and making the right amount of eye contact , making myself go with my one friend out with her friends to noisy crowded social things that I didn't want to go to, ect.

Then 5 years ago I decided to stop being an idiot and decided to learn more about autism and I studied psychology and began reading books about AS and ASD's and discovered this site and since then my symptoms have appeared to get worse....so I relate to your post, OP. For instance I decided it was okay to be overwhelmed in noisy crowded places and I didn't have to go to bars or parties etc if I didn't want to even if my friend (I tend to have one same-sex friend at a time and then sometimes tag along with her friends) invited me to go. So I spend a lot more time on my own now and I think sometimes that my social skills are deteriorating through lack of practice (although it's kind of hard to compare bcs I'd always offended people inadvertently anyway) but social situations are more stressful now because they are much more few and far between . I definitely feel happier than I did before 5 years ago when I accepted the diagnosis though.

This is something that I've seen to some extent myself since figuring it out.

I don't really know why, so I'm just guessing here, but basically I've come up with two reasons for it. One is like you said - it's taken some of the pressure to be "normal" off, and there's less desire or feelings like it is necessary to hide my differences. The other reason is that I think finding out has given me greater self-awareness. For a period of 6 months, I spent countless hours reading, making notes, thinking, etc. about myself, who I am, and how this could maybe explain some of that. During that, I feel like I became more aware of not just why I felt/acted differently, but also of when and how these differences arose. I had always known I was different, but reading about Asperger's and reading about the symptoms opened my eyes to exactly what those differences are. Until I knew, I wasn't fully aware of the specific issues and symptoms. Knowing what to look for makes it much easier to see, and so a heightened awareness resulted.

Yeah, that's exactly what happened to me.
Instead of creating unrealistically high standards and pushing myself all the time, I accepted my limitations to the point my expectations of myself became non-existent.
Neither approach was helpful. With the former I set standards that I could never achieve and was always falling short of, and with the latter I gave up on doing even the most basic things because I was constantly aware of how disabled I am and trying just seemed like a joke in the face of such an all-pervasive handicap.

Now I've reached a happier medium, and hope to continue to do so. It's about not having it at the forefront of your consciousness the whole time, but accepting it enough to do the right thing for yourself and not beat yourself up over any given limitations.
But if you can do something, do it, if you can feel normal for a while or for ages, do it and embrace it.
Just find your balance.

Hope that helps. I get what you're saying

Agree with Canaspie as well, it's like now I have names and heightened understanding of all these things I was doing before and what was going on; and that demystifies and enlightens the situation, but it can also make me very much aware of what I am doing wrong, especially socially.

Thanks for all your answers everyone, much appreciated

Unfortunately, I don't have a formal diagnosis. However, I do relate with what you are going through. When I first confirmed it as best as I could with the information I had available to me in online tests as well as interviewing people in my life like my parents and friends (one whose son is on the spectrum and another is a Dx'd aspie/ADHD hybrid) and reviewing my school history, I was devastated. Shortly after that though I came to accept that it was probably true. At that point I did find that I had either adapted autistic traits that I had never before had or that, maybe I had rediscovered things I had suppressed. However, in time some of that went away as I reached my equilibrium point.

As of now, my life has not improved much from figuring this out. At least I have been able to figure out some of the reasons why it has been such a failure and why I have dealt with such strong emotions all of my life. I now can see when I am making typical aspie-like social mistakes and work to correct them on the fly instead of in my head days and weeks later. I may still be a Sheldon Cooper at times, but at least now I know enough to apologize for it and try to make amends. Hopefully things will improve in the next few months as I continue to complete projects and eliminate many of my sources of stress so that I can think clearly and finish college this spring.

For me, the biggest gain of my dx was understanding. Both myself and others. A huge leap forward, indeed. Since I let myself to be more the real me, some symptoms got worse, but the single most negative side of the dx for me was even lower self-esteem than ever before. I really had to work hard on it and suffered a great deal before I got back to the level I used to be before the dx. I needed help from therapists, too.

Now I feel some symptoms are still a bit on the down side (sensory sensitivities), but they have always been, so no big issue here. On the positive side, I have much better control over myself and a definitely higher self-esteem than before the dx. I'm more confident, too. Also, I can accept myself much more.

All the above things don't happen at once, you have to give them time to settle down. In the meantime, it's advisable to seek for help with the process. All-in-all, I think getting diagnosed is inevitable for those who are really diagnosable (meaning, they need help). The sooner, the better. In my case it was a bit late, but better later than never.

I'm not yet diagnosed, but since putting a lot of things together and realising autism/AS was the most likely, I think I've started to appear more autistic. I've started not worrying so much about coming across as strange to people. I flap my hands more in public which is something I'd always suppressed. I've started being a bit more honest with people about my anxiety, and so have let my guard down a bit.

My anxiety has got worse over the past few months, but I think that's due to changes in my life. The way I deal with anxiety has become more conscious and deliberate and therefore better, since looking into coping strategies for autism. I hope that diagnosis will help me further with this.

It's normal to seem "more autistic" for a short period of time post-diagnosis. Usually it has to do with hiding it less automatically. And then after you settle into that, you end up settling into hiding it less but having figured out proper coping skills.

This article might prove to be useful: Help! I seem to be becoming more autistic!

Specifically, the sections on "deliberately adopting new strategies", "dropping a facade or rebellion against a taught behavior pattern", "learning you are autistic or perservating on autism" and "looking for a losting self" might be helpful for somebody in a similar situation.

I wouldn't say that they became worse for me. There was a difference though. I think it is more a matter of recognizing how I feel when, for instance, having to have a conversation with someone, as being related to AS where before it was just "this is awkward, I feel uncomfortable, I want to stop talking to this person and leave now". It's still like that but I have a better understanding of why I have always felt that way around people now.

A larger difference came from the OCD diagnosis. I've been doing CBT with a therapist for it and have gone through some large emotional swings during. Freak out while trying to cut back on checking/repeating/excessive hygiene, try to cut back on too much too soon, really overdo it one day to "make up" for the days I did less. It was rocky at first but getting better now. Therapist has helped me to realize that, while I may not consider any one particular obsessive thought or compulsive behaviour to be negatively affecting my life, the combination of ALL of them comes together to create a high level of stress that is with me constantly. It's a big deal to me to realize that. Before therapy I would look at each thing individually and say, bah! what's the big deal if I check my alarm clock 10 times before I go to bed? File it away as "not a 'real' problem" and carry on. But now realize I have several things going on like that throughout the day every day always and it piles up. Anxiety, depression, self harm, the works.