Non-responsive behavior.

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Recently (this past month), I've been ignoring my mother now and again at no fault of her own when she initiates conversation with me, i.e., I recognize that she's talking to me but I fail to respond as I go about my business. Before three, I was like this to other children, as well as in early primary school to teachers often enough to make them suspect I had hearing trouble (I didn't and don't).

The thing is, I have far greater insight now as an adult, self-awareness if you will, and it kinda scares me when I realize I neglected to respond to my mother, and you can see where this fear leads.

Anyone else with autism/Asperger's have a similar experience, i.e., regressing to how one was when they were little, or experiencing a resurgence of symptoms that have long been dormant?

I have only been diagnosed for 6 months now, but already recognize why I now do so many things.

I also often just cut off from listening to others, I find its usually something that had triggered me to do this, you have to find the trigger to control your actions.

But still even knowing about my triggers and know when its happening, sometimes when I have what I call dark moods find very hard to control, so just tell people around me need some space, time alone - as long as others do not pressure me I usually snap out of these moods quite quickly.

I do not always understand why some things happen, but have learned that my symptoms' are in fact a part of who I am and have stop trying to change my differences.

Maybe your frustrated because others do not understand you as you would like them to, and its your way of letting them know, always a reason for what and why we do things...

As for "regressing", or acting like you used to earlier, I THINK that is true of me, but maybe it is just that I recognize it more, etc...

I am pickier with food. Truth be known, I would be DEAD, or in the wild hunting, if I kept with my instincts. Doesn't ANYONE take food seriously anymore? They are LUCKY that I am not a health inspector!

I seem to be more sensitive to sound/light, but that might be because I notice it more. I have ALWAYS covered my ears with stupid PA systems, or alarms.

I seem to be stimming more.

As for the ignoring people when they are talking, etc...? I've done that! I don't mean even on purpose! It is like I notice a film, and am too involved to react! Of course, sometimes I seem to not notice. At least 3 times in the past 20 years people have laughed that they were obvious and tried to get my attention, but I was OBLIVIOUS and going about doing the task at hand.

BTW, I don't have any vision or hearing problems either. OK, RECENTLY, my vision has deteriorated but, even without glasses, I see movement and recognize people fine.

asplanet,

The thing is, I want to respond; I'm not grumpy nor am I moody, nor is my environment any more stressful. I hear the words, but it's as if they're...nothing; my response is held in by an invisible wall. 2ukenkerl explained a way I feel when I'm intently focusing on an interest or what have you (it's different to this); this is more of a...detached from the environment and stuck in my mind type thingy.

I remember the same feeling when I was little as the teachers spoke to me and I neglected to respond to them (grade 2 or so). I improved immensely in my aloofness to people from grade three onwards.

I'm starting to experience the same feeling; I read that individuals with autistic disorder can "regress" in early adulthood, and improve later on in midlife; I seem to be following the same pattern.

Bad, good, bad and bad.

Hope you won't think I'm stalking you if I respond! I think it's because you speak clearly enough that I can usually think of something to say back.

To me it doesn't seem like regression because you're aware of it. Most likely, as a toddler you were genuinely constantly oblivious. I think it's more that the brain likes to have time to itself and makes itself its priority. I do this all the time, only with me nobody notices because on the rare occasion that someone addresses me I always compute a correct answer. It gets harder to do if it's in a less "polite company" situation, where conversations are less predictable and more intimate. Therefore I don't have any such conversations if I can avoid it.
If I didn't have so much to cover up I probably wouldn't have to avoid them, however, because they don't bewilder me like they did when I was younger. As a teenager I thought I didn't exist, I didn't understand that people talk to each other in order to tell each other things until I was twenty. And I haven't started trying it until now, fifteen years later. But I always knew how things should look, still do.

There are advantages and disadvantages to manifesting yourself clearly.

ill do that sometimes but it's because i'll think they're talking to someone else... even maybe just to themself.

Danielismyname, this just so happens to occur with myself as well.

I never quite recognized it, or any of the other things that I do, until several people including a girl whose brother has high-functioning autism (all asked at different times, in different situations), asked me if I was autistic, and I did a bit of research on it and came across symptoms, and have seen unresponsiveness listed many a time.

I believe that I did this on and off when I was young, but had stopped around 6th to 8th grade, and it started again around high school.

Yes, this happens quite often. My brothers called me "foghead" as a kid due to my inability to respond. It causes trouble everywhere because I often cannot think to respond or people think I'm not listening to them. I hate it when I know I'm supposed to say "excuse me" and leave a conversation, but I sometimes can't get the words out and just wind up leaving. I can be practically speechless, which is obviously why I picked up music so early and stayed with it.

It concerns me a great deal too. Am I more autistic than I think or has the years of not getting any help made my condition hopeless? I am in mid-life and I haven't improved much. A little. I'm worse in some ways because I've accepted this as part of who I am. It takes entirely too much energy and concentration on some days to engage with the world. That's why I'm a little jealous of younger aspies who have insight into their condition. They may be able to learn to compensate through force of habit over the course of years and reduce this tendency towards unresponsiveness.

I'm non-responsive often. But don't you think that is sort of normal for us?
I wouldn't consider someone to be regressing because of this.
I would just say that you are going through a 'burn-out' phase, in succession
to monotony to everday situations. You still focus on what you want to, and are those
focuses mature for your age? That's regression.

"Burn-out" might be the correct term (I feel like I've been doing more, but I haven't really), or better, periods of perceived progression and perceived regression. My symptoms come and go for no apparent reason, especially in the past few years; symptoms I haven't had since I was a little fella. Irisrises might be correct, but I don't feel like I'm intently focusing on something, it actually feels like I'm oblivious externally, but I can see the external environment from a vantage point where I cannot reciprocate the talking. Irisrises, I've been in a similar situation, with shall we say less than "ideal" company, I ignored said company for the fact that I couldn't be bothered making the effort to think of a response; especially one that didn't involve derogatory terms. Said company left quickly (my mother was there at the time, and she chuckled to herself when she saw that I didn't reply to them).

I really don't know how I can explain the sensation of wanting to respond but being unable to acknowledge the individual, I just walked away thinking the response but knowing it's not leaving my mind. In retrospect, as a child, I thought exactly the same way. There's not much difference to me now compared to how I was when I was six, the only difference is that I care how I appear to others, i.e., I don't wish to appear "rude" to people, and I'm aware of many social conventions now through observing humanity for a long time. Mimicking, trial and error, baptism of fire and what have you.

Averick, non-responsive behavior is one of the most common signs in children with autism (up there with not talking), children with Asperger's can exhibit this behavior too (a quick perusal of the 'net told me so). I was non-responsive to most people when little (barring my mother for the most part, it's why I slipped through the autistic cracks when I was little; later on when I developed, I was seen as the quiet loner who preferred to do things by himself--which isn't a "disorder" at all, there's nothing wrong with keeping to oneself).

etre_creatif, that pattern is somewhat similar to mine; as a child, grade 1, 2, 2 [again] and 3, I improved for several years up until grade 9, then I started going downhill again till I arrived here.

MeshGearFox, thanks for your reply (I'll reply in-depth later on as you bring up some good points, I'm typed out).

Sedaka, I've done that too; in this case however, I know that the individual in question was talking to me.

Yeah, I can really understand that. And then sometimes I'm just not certain of what I should say back, or if it is an appropriate response to what has been said or asked of myself, and I can't get myself to say anything. This usually ends up with me just walking away from the person, as does not being able to say what I want.

Yes! I notice lately ive regressed a lot more, and i dont know why. When i was little i would growl or grunt because i was non-verbal, now im doing that all over again, its like my brains like ok im giving up, im going to hawaii, have fun, its like wtf, where u going, i neeeed u haha.

I came across this article http://www.autistics.org/library/more-autistic.html
the other day on autistics.org that I think may be of some help.

age1600, ha, you're funny (I didn't growl/grunt when little, I just didn't talk till I was 5); you describe it well enough, it's like I'm going on holiday, a holiday within myself.

serenity, thanks for the article, there's many interesting points in it.

Here's a quote from the article I found that explains the pattern of autism in many:

I have my days where I am fully responsive. I also have my days where I have limited respose to others.

For me, things can become so overwhelming that it's almost like my brain is failing to comprehend what is being said. I can hear the words, but they don't mean anything, so I just continue with whatever I was doing.
It's not like I am ignoring the person, sometimes I do want to respond but I just don't.

I was sometimes non-responsive as I toddler. I could talk, I guess I just didn't want to at the time or needed a rest from it.

I don't think I am regressing as I have always been like this, responsive one day and barely responsive in another day. I don't know why though.

Hey there Danielismyname,

You put things so clearly; it is a pleasure to read your posts. Is the sensation you experience like depersonalisation?

I've also experienced a sense of being locked down, frozen or something, unable to respond even mentally. The withdrawal can seem involuntary and uncontrollable. I know I'm freezing up but can't stop it. Almost dreamlike.

I still experience episodes like this quite often but have noticed that it is often associated with times where energy reserves are being compromised. It helps to take stock, take time out and just let it pass. Can't do much else about it but I have learned that if I ignore the early signs it only gets worse.

The psychiatrist just laughs at me when I explain this - not unkindly - because he knows the patterns and stresses that make it worse and my frustration at 'regressing' - It is more amusement at my denial - once I'm out of it I tend to deny that it is as a consequence of my neurological makeup and then have to be re-reminded again, again and again. I can see this pattern - from here and now - but I know there will probably come another time when I'll get in the poo again. So frustrating.