I'm interested to hear if anyone else has noticed the same sorts of things about their Aspie/HFA traits as I have. No need to read the rest of the post in any depth, what I am basically asking is whether you have noticed any of your Aspie/HFA traits fading, when they faded, and when your Aspie traits were at their peak???
As a kid I spoke and walked significantly late. I went through phases of hand-flapping and of rolling my eyeballs compulsively, but those were mostly gone by the time I was a teenager, as I was constantly being picked up on it and told to stop by my parents and teachers. So there are a couple of HFA traits that were gone by the time I was about 13. I kept up the eye stimming though, because it was less noticeable and people assumed it was squinting related to being short sighted.
But most of my traits were at their peak when I was in my mid to late teens. Sensory issues like sensitivity to noise (particularly when trying to sleep) and smell (I found that tropical fruits like papaya and mango, and also coffee, were totally repugnant and even the slightest whiff made me feel physically ill). I completely lost the sensitivity to those smells by the time I was in my early 20s. I still find noises distracting but generally my sensitivity to noises and my related sleep issues became a lot less severe around the same time.
My gross motor skills when I was in high school were abysmal. I worked really hard on my physical fitness and I was very strong. I practiced basketball for hours every week, doing endless drills by myself, but was always outplayed by guys who were a foot shorter than me and who never practiced. I got roped into playing in a basketball comp about 10 years after high school and I still sucked, but I was at least useful and about 10 times better than I was in high school, and I could even jump higher even though by that stage I was fat and out of shape. So I guess that the dyspraxia had faded somewhat. Not that you could tell if you watched me try to dance or ice skate.
My ability to memorise slabs of text, poems, formulas etc was at its peak in my late teens as well, as was my ability to do really fast/complex mental arithmetic. I can still memorise stuff and do mental arithmetic, but not nearly as effortlessly as I could when I was that age.
Improvements in my social skills have been more gradual, more in line with learning them as I went along rather than having a trait suddenly fade out of existence. My social skills are not as bad as they were but still lousy, although my confidence is better and I don't care as much any more.
I got depressed a lot as a child and as a teenager and I think I went through a phase where I was borderline bipolar (feeling of unexplained euphoria between bouts of depression), although that may have been all the adolescent hormones swishing around in my system. I get down a bit at times still but I wouldn't even call it depression for the most part.
My non-existent sense of direction still doesn't exist, but now I am in the habit of making strong mental notes of landmarks when I need to remember how to find something or how to get somewhere or (more importantly) how to get home again when I go for a walk or something. So at least I am not getting lost as much. I know that this is not a typical trait but I do know that some other HFA/Aspie types have similar issues.
As a kid I spoke and walked significantly late. I went through phases of hand-flapping and of rolling my eyeballs compulsively, but those were mostly gone by the time I was a teenager, as I was constantly being picked up on it and told to stop by my parents and teachers. So there are a couple of HFA traits that were gone by the time I was about 13. I kept up the eye stimming though, because it was less noticeable and people assumed it was squinting related to being short sighted.
But most of my traits were at their peak when I was in my mid to late teens. Sensory issues like sensitivity to noise (particularly when trying to sleep) and smell (I found that tropical fruits like papaya and mango, and also coffee, were totally repugnant and even the slightest whiff made me feel physically ill). I completely lost the sensitivity to those smells by the time I was in my early 20s. I still find noises distracting but generally my sensitivity to noises and my related sleep issues became a lot less severe around the same time.
My gross motor skills when I was in high school were abysmal. I worked really hard on my physical fitness and I was very strong. I practiced basketball for hours every week, doing endless drills by myself, but was always outplayed by guys who were a foot shorter than me and who never practiced. I got roped into playing in a basketball comp about 10 years after high school and I still sucked, but I was at least useful and about 10 times better than I was in high school, and I could even jump higher even though by that stage I was fat and out of shape. So I guess that the dyspraxia had faded somewhat. Not that you could tell if you watched me try to dance or ice skate.
My ability to memorise slabs of text, poems, formulas etc was at its peak in my late teens as well, as was my ability to do really fast/complex mental arithmetic. I can still memorise stuff and do mental arithmetic, but not nearly as effortlessly as I could when I was that age.
Improvements in my social skills have been more gradual, more in line with learning them as I went along rather than having a trait suddenly fade out of existence. My social skills are not as bad as they were but still lousy, although my confidence is better and I don't care as much any more.
I got depressed a lot as a child and as a teenager and I think I went through a phase where I was borderline bipolar (feeling of unexplained euphoria between bouts of depression), although that may have been all the adolescent hormones swishing around in my system. I get down a bit at times still but I wouldn't even call it depression for the most part.
My non-existent sense of direction still doesn't exist, but now I am in the habit of making strong mental notes of landmarks when I need to remember how to find something or how to get somewhere or (more importantly) how to get home again when I go for a walk or something. So at least I am not getting lost as much. I know that this is not a typical trait but I do know that some other HFA/Aspie types have similar issues.
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