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Skill Regression upon Diagnosis

Katie Bowen (commodified) on Instagram: "It’s been a wild ride, but a lot of good has come from it. (Even if I am now clumsier, easier to overstimulate/overwhelm, and less socially aware than before!✨) #latediagnosedautistic #autisminwomen #formergiftedkid #makinglemonadeoutoflemons #undiagnosedautism #cptsd #busybrained #habitualinstigator"

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CtZvYQlA4-5/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

22K likes, 80 comments - shopvsthevoid on June 12, 2023: "It’s been a wild ride, but a lot of good has come from it. (Even if I am now clumsier, easier ..."

Katie Bowen (commodified) on Instagram: "It’s been a wild ride, but a lot of good has come from it.
(Even if I am now clumsier, easier to overstimulate/overwhelm, and less socially aware than before!✨)

#latediagnosedautistic #autisminwomen #formergiftedkid #makinglemonadeoutoflemons #undiagnosedautism #cptsd #busybrained #habitualinstigator"

Link to an Instagram reel Audio "I will grow under any conditions" Text "Me before I unmasked, working myself to what looks like irreversible ASD burnout"

Audio "I'm allergic to tap water" Text "Me after unmasking and learning how real skill regression is"

10 comments

avirse

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"Skill regression" is such an awful term. It would be like taking a severe workaholic who is getting stress ulcers, having them develop a proper work-life balance, and calling that "productivity regression".

MadgePickles

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Totally. What do you think we should call it?

avirse

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I don't know. "Functional rebalancing" would be more accurate, but kind of clunky. I can't think of anything more pithy.

GlitchyDigiBun

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Baselining is pretty much just that. You work your ass off for 6 weeks and then you're super unproductive for a week to get back to baseline.

MadgePickles

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Since realizing I'm autistic I have had a few big areas of skill regression that have really concerned me. Mainly sensory sensitivity leading to overstimulation, and just total exhaustion after any kind of social activity leading to a deep sense of need to be alone for a long time, like many many days in order to recover.

I think about this a lot about what it means because I used to mask everything so much that I could go all school semester passing as a normal human, just quirky. Then during break I would get sick and fall apart like my body was just waiting for permission to take a break.

Summers were always a time of much deeper depression and I think about it now as burnout. But I always pulled myself back together to perform the requisite behaviors.

Now I have given myself permission to give myself accommodations with regards to sensory overload and recovery after socializing, I recognize it better and understand more what I'm feeling. But that makes it seem like it's there * more *

JollyGreen_sasquatch

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For me I am wondering if/realizing it may be Frequency illusion, partly from reflecting more. I do agree that reading what other people experience and understanding/listening to what I and my body need makes it seem like it is worse/more for me.

MadgePickles

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I'm sure that's definitely part of it!

kapx132

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Sketchpad01

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I don't know either, but from context clues I think it's what happens when you find out masking is harmful to you, and you try to stop it. Some people do this by losing social skills and regressing into a less social person. Probably also other things but I'm no expert.

DataVortex

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If I'm not wrong it also refers to when you develop skills that are 100% bound to a mask that you use for a specific place or environment (for example at work), but then when you unmask, or when you don't "wear" that mask for a long time and lose connection with it, you also lose access to those skills.

It sucks so much.

Sketchpad01

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Oh boy, I'm so excited