r/AutismAustralia

Hello, I'm a 23F with autism (moderate to high support needs/Level 2 to 3), anxiety and intellectual disability and I want to know if the following that I've listed counts as autistic regression. I will put next to them ages that they happened (Age l) and when I realized, discovered &/or started doing them at (Age ll) (You don't have to answer all of them as this post is long. So take as long as you like with it):

- Watching, discovering and playing with weird, niche, outdated, not trending &/or obscure stuff (Age l: 6-now. Age ll: 13-15)

- Intentionally or unintentionally doing stuff and getting away scot free (Age l: 0-now. Age ll: 13-16)

- Breaking &/or resetting personal belongings without realizing that it was wrong & getting away scot free (Age l: 2-now. Age ll: 10-17)

- Not realizing what you did &/or said was wrong, inappropriate, disrespectful and the worst thing ever (Age l: 2-now. Age ll: 12-now)

- Being chronically online without social media and platforms (Age l: 9-now. Age ll: 12-13)

- Being violent & aggressive to yourself & those around you intentionally or unintentionally (Age l: 2-12. Age ll: 11)

- Being angry/having anger issues & lashing out to yourself & those around you (Age l: 4-now. Age ll: 9-22)

- Not being able to work during your years at high school (Age l: 11-18. Age ll: 15-17)

- Having no friends at school as not only did they know who you were & were bullied, excluded, forgotten, not invited, laughed at & found boring & annoying by them (this includes those that were nice to me), but you preferred to & still be a loner. I don't know the word to describe this (Age l: 10-now. Age ll: 17-22)

- Needing help with tying shoes (Age l: 5-12. Age ll: 12-13)

- Needing help with doing you hair up (Age l: 5-22. Age ll: 11-13 to 22-23)

- Needing help with using the toilet (Age l: 1-11. Age ll: 8-11)

- Needing help with using the bath & shower (Age l: 4-12. Age ll: 12-13)

- Needing help with putting on your clothes (Age l: 4-10. Age ll: 10-11)

- Not being able to go on overnight school excursions, sleepovers & invited road trips due to my poor/abysmal motor skills (Age l: 3-18. Age ll: 11-now)

- Needing help & being taught basic tasks (e.g. making beds, vacuuming, washing the dishes, ironing, cooking, cleaning, shaving etc.) (Age l: 5-13. Age ll: 13-now)

- Not picking up on sarcasm & being sarcastic, jokes & inappropriate behavior & humor (Age l: 5-now. Age ll: 10-now)

- Forgetting what you were taught & what was said to you within a second or a day. I'm terrible at math's, spelling, grammar, English, science, geography, social skills...you name it (Age l: 4-now. Age ll: 13-16)

- Forgetting everything (Age l: 4-now. Age ll: 12-16)

- Poor speech, poor vocabulary &/or trouble expressing things (Age l: 4-now. Age ll: 9-16)

- Stalking people & wanting attention from them online & socially (this includes those I went to school with) (Age l: 6-now. Age ll: 15-22)

As you can see, I have the harmful autism stereotype except that I'm a woman (Think Rain Man & What's Eating Gilbert Grape. I know that they're bad & harmful autism representations, but I see myself in the characters from both movies), & everything that I've listed has happened since birth & I go back & forth with it all, but I got worse between the ages of 4-15 & am still worse to this very day sadly. Has it all caused frustration, disappointment, mockery, anger & judgement from my family & relatives past & present? Absolutely as no joke, they've tried desperately to make me not have a lonely isolated screen addicted talentless life past & present, but I've sadly failed them as they constantly bring up all the bad things I did in the past & current when I sometimes try to be positive (I'm negative & I hate it so much) & I have a habit of forgetting & not listening to anyone. Because of everything that I've listed, they presume incompetence about my future due to my history. The worse part about this is my family, relatives & everyone at school often say that I'm "pure, innocent, cute, adorable, inspiring & don't have a single mean bone in my body" whilst knowing the bad side of me, which is frustrating on so many levels. For that reason & for me realizing all the horrible disgusting things that I've done & said later in life, I hate myself, I have trouble accepting myself, I constantly tell myself & get told by my family that I should've been born normal/have a normal functioning brain & should've done more with my life, & I think about bad thoughts about my past & future. Apologies for rambling on here for too long, but I want to know if everything that I've listed here is autistic regression?

My daughter is 5 and just finished her first term at school. She did one year of kindergarten before starting school.
During that year of kindy we really started noticing things. Sound, light and clothing sensitivity are the main issues but as time went on and we did more research we realised there are many more things.
Not understanding sarcasm, very very ridged, stuck to her routines, struggles to regulate herself, sensory seeking, perfectionist, very anxious, won’t initiate friendships, very clingy, very strong right and wrong ethics. Her nephew said to me, she is a different child at home than when she is outside her comfort zone (not a massive flag, I realise that)

We started some private funding OT and that helped but we felt she needed regular sessions and it was getting expensive so decided to bite the bullet and get a diagnosis. At the time she had been in kindy for 10ish months so the kindy educators did a questionaire for the assesment. It came back as she partially met most criteria’s so she was not given a diagnosis.
I remember her first transition day at her school and the teacher spoke to her and us about perfectionism, yet kindy’s questionaire and their attitude was, ‘she is a perfect child, nothing to worry about.’ Only thing they noticed is she didn’t like doing activities that might make her wet or messy, and she struggled with drop offs.

After the phone call with the assesment specialists, I was told to speak to her school and ask them to document any things they notice and come back and they will do a shorter assesment to determine if she fully meets the criteria. They agreed she has autistic traits but don’t want to give her a life long diagnosis especially with her being so young. The psychologist agreed that she masked a lot in her session and the assessor didn’t realise how fatigued she was until it was too late, and by that stage my daughter was done. Another thing she noticed was the lack of reciprocal questioning.

I just struggle becuase I can see how much life is effecting her, and think if we had a diagnosis and got funding she could be getting help. We see it all at home and just don’t understand how these assessor’s couldn’t see it.

Thing I don’t understand is, if children with autism and especially girls mask a lot, how can they get a diagnosis. On top of that, if a lot of ‘issues’ come out at home, how can they get a diagnosis if the assesment requires a school/or other type of care questionaire?

Edit: as parents we had quite a few questionnaires to fill in too and had to answer questions for a couple of hours during the assesment, it just seemed they focused on what kindy said over what we said happened at home.

Is anyone aware of groups or forums for dads that are on the spectrum? My partner has put the family needs above his own for a long time and now the burnout is real. Looking for professional support as well as a community where he may be able to share his challenges and feel less lonely in some of his journey. I can only find support for dads with neurodivergent children, rather than for the dad himself. Particularly given that he is a child of the 80’s much of the support he needed growing up was not known or acknowledged like it is today.