Adult regression

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Has anyone experienced a significant regression in skills/overall functioning as an adult? I ask because... I have, several times. I fight as hard as I can to get skills back (driving, speaking, etc), then I lose them again and often even worse. I am far more autistic as an adult (yesterday the label I got was "moderate autism") than I was 5 or 10 years ago. I am 23.

I have seen a regression of late, maybe not to the severity that you have seen in yourself, but certainly it's an issue for me too.

Being unemployed for over three years now I am getting very little social contact outside of seeing my boyfriend daily so my social skills are seriously regressing, and being unemployed along the various issues that causes on every level of my life means my mental health is suffering - less social interaction + depression/stress = regression. I fought damn hard to get where I am now, it's all the more depressing seeing myself regressing when I am unable to do anything to stop it happening.

My therapist says adult regression is impossible...

I'd say your therapist is wrong.

Fact is asperger's and autism don't go away, we can learn ways of living in such a way that we can get by, we can learn social skills through behavioural therapies, but fact is we're still the same deep down so we may well revert back to our normal behaviours, and in times of stress I'm sure most members would also say the 'symptoms' of AS/ASD get worse so can override all our good behaviour.

I find myself having more meltdowns/shutdowns and more stimming as of late.

I've had significant cognitive losses, which have lead to losing a lot of former skills, but I don't know if it's the same as what you mean.

I have definitely heard of autistic adults losing skills like driving & speaking, though. (but I haven't lost those) So, it's not impossible. I'm trying to remember anything I can link to, but am not remembering, ATM. Will post later if I remember any.

Oh, there is this link, but I don't know if it's exactly what you need, though:

http://www.autistics.org/library/more-autistic.html

It does go to the point that adult autistic regression is possible.

Burnout is definitely possible. And you might lose access to some skills when that happens.

this is called burnout by most autistic people, here is an article about it. http://www.autistics.org/library/more-autistic.html Reducing stress, healthy food, and exercise should help a lot.

Have you been screened for depression?

I eat quite well and exercise daily, thank you.

But as for reducing stress? It's impossible. I have to live in this world, and that is immsensely stressful.

Thank you for posting this, many of the sections are true for me, this has been very useful...I'm sure it'll also be useful in trying to explain to people why I used to work in call centres where as now I can't even answer a phone, lol.

I don't have depression. I'm quite happy, actually.

Living with autism is very stressful; and going through burnouts and regression can and do happen (your therapist is wrong on this issue.)

I'm just starting to recover from a sever period of shutdown and regression which has been going on for the past 2 years. I have lost a lot of skills that I have worked very hard to develop. In the past two years I have lost ten years worth of progress, and it is all due to severe shutdown and regression which was caused by just too much everyday work/social/sensory stress for too long.

There are good years and bad years. Don't focus on what you've lost; just do what you need to do to feel stable, and you will begin to recover.

Thanks for posting that link.

Sometimes I do regress.

I think a long term shutdown and sensory overload caused me to regress. I've been less able to take care of myself and only rarely will you witness what the old me was like.