You all bore me

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hey wait a minute, behaving correctly or neurotypically? See I disagree with the notion that having a disorder like autism and thus not functioning like a neurotypical is the same thing as 'not behaving correctly'. I mean from my perspective neurotypicals don't 'behave correctly.' I mean for instance they make eye contact with new people........to me that's creepy.

Anyways I have to wonder what the point would be in working so hard to pretend to be normal.......if it's so exhausting, well not to mention I kinda fail at it......people always know there is something 'off' about me.

It's just as [or even more] likely that those who do "grow out of it" didn't actually have it to begin with.

The symptoms aren't cognitive based; how you mentally deal with them is, but not the symptoms themselves.

Actually no, we don't outgrow it. I turn 53 this month. If I was going to outgrow it, I would have by now. Many of us learn to cover for periods of time -- build an alternate persona for the workplace -- but then risk burnout if we don't get enough solitary downtime.

Brain wiring can be visible with the correct equipment -- google Temple Grandin and the brain scans done on her. Sensory issues can also be measured, should anyone care to do so.

No, I don't think that's necessarily true. It really depends on many factors. It can quite easily go the other way, in a relative sense. Remember that AS is classed as a pervasive developmental disorder. There is always progress, but the rest of the world isn't standing still. Social development among NTs doesn't stop either, and it proceeds at a much more rapid pace. So that the person with AS, upon reaching age 50, might be able to relate to peers ... in the manner of a 30 year old relating to them. Passable, with much effort, and a good deal of luck in terms of severity, life experiences, and comorbids that may develop along the way. But never equivalent, and quite possibly, never really even passable, relative to the standards of peers.

Last edited by edgewaters on 17 Jul 2012, 7:31 am, edited 2 times in total.

I was going to put "behaving correctly" but forgot the quotation marks. Remember I was comparing those to job interviews, interviews for inexperienced nervous people particularly. You gotta learn all the correct answers beforehand and remember them. And just like interviews, I don't really see the point, don't those people realize you're reciting from your "interview secrets" book? But apparently those answers do get people jobs, so they're the "correct ones".

I could not wear any shirts that were button-down for years. I hated the way the buttons felt against my skin. I could always feel them. Polo shirts were the worst, since I also hated the fabric. My ultimate nightmare was when my mother bought about a half-dozen of them at the department store when I was four.
If the seam of my sock was not aligned, I would raise hell until my father(who dressed me until I was six) put my shoe on right.
To this day, I will not wear fleece.




I know what to say more in social situations. I've memorized the "script", so to speak. It's like Basic Programing.

READY
10 IF 'x', Say 'y' ELSE make funny face
20 IF 'z', GOTO 10
RUN





I guess maybe you can call my social skills a form of coping.

I'm 42 and people online tend to guess my age as around mid-late 20s.

I think Tony Attwood refers to it as residual Aspergers. I can't say that the person 'outgrows' it but rather a person who at one point received a diagnosis, no longer meets the criteria to qualify for a full diagnosis later in life. I know of a few people who have had this.

I'm totally not meaning to sound sarcastic (apparently, my mention of the next-generation brain comes across as sarcastic or cynical to some people but I think of it as a good metaphor that is easy to understand):

The idea of growing out of something by working hard, being granted fitting chances in life and not being particularly impaired to start with seems legit to me. However, I'm one such person who cannot acquire these abilities to a normal extent these because even the brain capacity of this very ambitious and high IQ individual (me) isn't enough for that.

In theory, I could read non-verbal cues and could even read them in time (I can basically read them because I learnt a lot of them by heart), I could display accurately timed and precise non-verbal cues myself (I have normal control over my facial and other muscles and already use facial expressions on purpose sometimes), I could refrain from getting overloaded by processing the massive amount of stimuli (including non-verbal cues) that I notice while others fail to notice consciously (evidence suggests that I already analyse and consciously sort through a lot more information than the average person without being instantly overloaded) if only I didn't have a human brain but something else instead that allows way more parallels mental and neurological processes.

If I could do all that (had something crazy such as an inhumane next-generation brain) or if I was less impaired by the ASD (if I was less autistic and closer to the spectrum of "normality"), I would likely lose my diagnosis through daily long hours of hard work indeed.

This would be because the criteria used is based on the study of YOUNG males.

The reason women of any age have trouble getting a diagnosis is because they use the same criteria based on young MALES.

What is sorely needed is for some eager researcher to study how this shows in women and how it continues to impact our lives as we get older.

I think what the OP describes is probably attainable for somebody who didn't actually have AS but had been brought up by Aspie parents, or if one parent had AS and the other was fairly introverted. That way, they'd have a lot of apparent Aspie traits, not as a result of the offspring's brain wiring (hardware) but because of the style of nurturance (software). But with an actual Aspie child, there would be some persistent difficulties that would probably never go away, such as multi-tasking, switching from the detail to the overview, etc. An Aspie can develop coping strategies and perhaps get people to make adjustments, and thus limit the damage their condition will do to them, but only in the sense that a lame man could get a state-of-the-art wheelchair.......he could do a lot of the things that non-disabled people can do, but he would still be disabled.

It's interesting me because when I'm in a curebie mood, I often encourage myself with the notion that I might not be true AS but simply have learned the symptoms from Dad. Introversy runs in the family and there's a wealth of social stuff out there that they know nothing of. More and more as I grew up, (undiagnosed until recently) I felt there were severe limits on what my family could teach me, that there were people out there who were streets ahead of anything Mum and Dad had ever dreamed of, and that if I was ever to amount to anything, the answers were out there and not in the restricted, stereotyped outlook and lifestyle of my kinfolk.

But in my case, I keep getting evidence that it's not always just a matter of noticing the faulty behaviour and correcting it. The other day I completed a task which I'd (naturally) immersed myself in quite deeply, and although I felt it wise to move onto something else, I couldn't help going back over what I'd done, for no practical reason.......just musing over the thing, wasting an hour or two before my brain was ready to move on. I was reminded of the idea that Aspie special interests and obsessions have an almost erotic quality about them.....in those terms, I guess I left a decent interval before taking on a new lover.

I think the only realistic approach is to consider every trait or impairment as something that may or may not be fixable, and then set about the task of looking at them one by one and finding out which is which. It's confounded by the fact that Aspies can often emulate NTs very convincingly for a limited time.....an obsessional curebie could get NT results by overdriving their brain through the wrong channels, but will ultimately have to stop or the brain will overheat or otherwise pack up. So don't imagine you're cured just because you've just walked into a pub and started up a conversation with a group of strangers. I did that when I was 26, and really thought I'd become an extravert. But the experiment hadn't changed my basic traits one jot. 33 years later I'm just as scared of starting up conversations with strangers as I've always been......just that back then, I had the motivation to try and prove something. It's very similar to being masterful.......if I'm really motivated and plan it and pluck up the courage to do it, I can sort of do it, but NOT at the drop of a hat, not as a part of my inherent nature.

I do not think it is possible to truly "outgrow" the condition. As one gets older, they may learn new ways to conceal the more obvious mannerisms, usually through indoctrination of societal norms. As a child, it's naturally more difficult to read into (especially nonverbal) cues to act a certain way (that look that says "stop talking about your interests; it's boring me" or "quit shaking your leg" among others). Sometimes adults can comprehend these cues and sometimes not. If it was something you could "age out of," there'd be not much need for a diagnosis.

We really need somehow to actually get the idea across that autism is more than social difficulties. Especially within the Asperger's subtype.

As for things like sensory sensitivities. Again, some people habituate over time and others of us don't. Current theories and research suggest its dependent on our autonomic nervous systems. I don't know what executive functioning challenges end up having to do with.

(As for "you can grow out of it", what I've heard is about 20% of people can become subclinical. Still, 80% of us can't. This is not us being lazy.)

I skimmed, so I apologize if I repeat something.

I think "growing out of it" and "learning to deal with/ hide it" are being mixed up here. You can grow out of a phase like wanting to use a bottle to drink your milk from, you can learn how to deal with/ hide a disorder SOMETIMES.

Why everyone thinks asperger's is JUST social is beyond me, but even then, just because you learn social rules and the likes doesn't mean you automatically know them like an NT. Just like you could go to China not knowing a single word and 20 years down the line be completely fluent... You're still constantly working to convert and translate EVERYTHING, where people born and raised there come by it naturally.

Desensitization also only works SOMETIMES, and you're still not cured from it usually, you're just less affected by it- You learn to cope It's a very rare thing to hear someone ends up liking a previous sensory issue, kudos to you for doing so, but it's unfair and extremely ignorant and uneducated to say it's a matter of wanting to do it or not for everyone. I've been working on my sensitivities to light, sound, smell, and touch my whole life, I've been working on my issues with certain textures and tactile sensations (like sticky things) etc. They haven't changed, in fact, they may have gotten worse with age. It's not because I haven't tried, it's not because I stopped trying, it's simply because that's something I can't "learn." Maybe for you they were all psychological, but that's not the case for everyone. Sensory processing disorder is NOT psychological.

Asperger's IS autism. It DOES have to do with the brain, and it DOES have a negative impact on people. Maybe you should do some more research. You said your whole family was diagnosed and you were not. Maybe you never had it and you just grew up socially awkward because of your family and their understandind of the social world around them. Maybe you have ADHD, which is quite similar and has often been misdiagnosed as asperger's.

Being normal for NORMAL people who weren't ever diagnosed is less difficult than an abnormal one. Before claiming this again, remember Asperger's isn't just social, it's a lot more, and then reconsider thinking about something you've longed to learn but simply can't grasp, then tell yourself it's because you don't want it enough, see how that feels.

Agreed.

Whilst some learn to manage their symptoms, they don't grow out of them. They may just respond better to situations, etc.

For me personally, I have more needs now Autism-wise than I did when I was younger.

Or perhaps they only think they 'grew out of it'.

This is a thought - maybe, contrary to their statements of 'growing out of it', the OP shows autistic traits - such as lacking Theory of Mind skills - not being able to put themselves in the shoes of others (in this case, others with Asperger's), not being able to understand the perspective of someone else on the spectrum - not able to understand that someone with AS can have difficulty with acting as a NT.

Another thing is, from the nature of autism, it can be difficult for someone with it to realize how well (or how poorly) they're doing emulating NT behavior. Many of us think we're a lot better at socializing than we are. This could easily apply to the OP.