Learned Behavior of Aspie Adults

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I am 34 and, like alot of folks here, have just(figured out, discovered, come to the conclusion) I am an Aspie. My godson is diagnosed PDD/NOS and with him just about to be a teenager I wanted to learn more about what was in store for him and in doing so have found out quite a bit about myself.
I just took this test (Won't let me post the site cause I am a newbie, but I am sure people know the one I am talking about), the comments in the thread seemed to be quite postive so I am going to believe in the results.
Aspie 147/200
NT 64/200
My question is...
Many of the questions involved situations that I have taught myself to deal with, for lack of a better description.
Shaking hands, I once read a book and it said always give a firm but not over powering handshake. So I do
Looking people in the eye, I do because you should do that when talking to people and it tends to bother some people so I like to do that sometimes.
Meeting new people, I like meeting people but mostly because they may have something to teach me or something interesting to say.

I guess my quandry is I know I have taught myself these things but I cant say besides the eye contact thing, I avoided or felt akward about them in the past. Some of these learned behaviors are so much apart of me now, I can't remember not being that way. IS this common among adults who were never diagnosed earlier in life? Will this make a diagnosis more difficult?
Will it really matter?

On a side note, any advice from younger folks on what being a teen aspie is like. My godson will be 12 this year and I honestly do not want him to go through the things I have, even though I know he will but I know I would have liked someone to have understood somewhat what was going on with me when I was that young.

Thanks

See, in my case, I wasn't diagnosed 'til I was already out of high school- and THEN, I didn't fully understand what AS really was, until I read up on it after my girlfriend and I kissed for the first time...and AT THE TIME, it really didn't feel that intense. Believe me- coming here explained all that.

Reason I'm mentioning all this is because, much like yourself, I wasn't diagnosed till much later in life, either. HOWEVER............ I can very easily remember not doing most of these things- those memories are burned into me. I still don't make much eye contact, I just do everything else- but believe me, I can't FORGET what it was like before I learned certain things. Life was so different back then.

i'm much younger, but with all the drugs (rx'd, not recreational) that i've been fed, i have memory issues.
result? i know objectively that i had certain problems, but i don't remember the acquisition of skills.

that said, who remembers what it was like to be unable to read?
i'm not sure that it's aspie to forget what it was like.


i know i learned a lot because if i wanted to have any kind of peace - even five minutes of it - i had to pass enough for my mom. i learned quickly, especially when the threats of boarding school and foster care came in (and i'm adopted, so the latter really bothered me).

i was dx'd in feb, btw. growing up i had all kinds of diagnoses, but it took meeting my biological sister and then another five years till -she- got diagnosed, till i thought there might be something to it.

There is a curse....a curse that applies to all, be it AS or NT...

While you know of all the problems you faced as a teenager, you can talk until you're blue in the face, but they will take solace in the fact that...

You were never as young as they are now
You couldn't possibly understand what they're going through
and you couldn't possibly have anything in common with them...I mean, that's wack, that someone who's like...old...could possibly have anything in common with me...I mean, they're so out of touch...

been there, done that. And finally, if they do realize you were right, they just get angrier...

take heart, it happens to us all.

Anyone with the ability to learn and care will adapt, no matter what they're adapting to.

They say people with ASDs innately adapt and hide things; I don't know about that in my case, as I didn't care if someone pointed out that I curled my hands up, I walked around with my head down, I didn't talk to people [who asked me why I didn't talk to them], etcetera; people making fun of me didn't bother me in what I did, it bothered me that I couldn't understand why people pointed out things. It's easy to tease everyone when you get down to it, and I don't know why one would do such.

I've always had an impairment in nonverbal communication, I'm no different now compared to when I was younger; no one noted anything about such, except for a few "authority" figures who asked me to look at them.

Innate severity probably has a greater say in how someone adapts/hides/acts than pure intellect. Pure intellect helps with remembering the "right" replies, and behavior through pattern recognition and rote memory, or in mimicking others.

I learned quite a few things...some of them I'm so used to doing that I don't really have to think about it anymore...others feel so unnatural trying to do them that I just don't, even though I know I'm supposed to.

As for teen years, I'd say I learned to take everything anyone says with a grain of salt...um, kind of regret not sticking with things...dropping out of band was a stupid idea, and I really, really regret not taking more accelerated classes. I was afraid they'd be too hard, but the regular classes were way too danged easy. I ended up being bored out of my mind and "forgetting" to do homework, which means I was just barely passing by getting perfect test scores.

I regret being too chicken to get a job in my teens, kind of screws you up being in your 20s trying to get a job without any work experience.

Wish I would've gotten into more after-school things, like drama.

Hmm, not sure if this is really a good tip or not, but there were definitely plenty of times where I should've kept my mouth shut

Probably the best advice I have was something I learned myself, but was very poetically put in Harold and Kumar Go to Whitecastle: don't let it get to you when idiots try to give you a hard time.

I think probably what helped me most was my ability to laugh at myself...either they'd laugh with me, or they'd be disappointed that I didn't take the bait and they'd just go away.