Anyone Else Outgrowing Asperger's?

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I am. It probably has a lot to do with my observational nature, I've absorbed so much raw social interaction and read enough about it that it feels as if I'm beginning to out grow AS. If I'm outgrowing because I'm really losing AS and not just adapting, I wonder if that means I'll also lose all the advantages of AS? Then again, when juxtaposed with everything else I have, I can't really say if I have many advantages that come only from AS. It makes me think, which is something that I'm not losing. I suppose if my thought patterns aren't changing at all, that I'm just adapting far better than everyone else. See, for me, much of what is worked hard for to achieve socially by most with AS is starting to come naturally to me. No real explanation, but the social puzzle is being solved. I wish I could share my answers, but it's just beginning to become natural. If AS is truly a PDD, then I may just be developing faster and/or farther than most others with it. I don't know really, I'm not a shrink. I'm me, and that's truly the only answer I need.

I'm over it.

Since the brain is always changing, it is reasonable to expect that a neurological condition like AS may change in how it manifests and how pronounced over the years.

At any rate, I'm not convinced I'm outgrowing my AS and I'm in my mid-30's. I exercise my Aspie strengths to much for them to slip away from me, if that's even possible. I get better at coping with other things, but I don't see that really diminishing my AS. Also, I care less about the crap that bothered me whe I was 16 or 25, so my anxiety over some things is more or less gone. It's just life is getting better, rather than me "getting over" AS.

I'm coming close... and I'm only 18. While I am coming closer I still have a lot of problems, but who doesn't? I just need to master relationships really.

I have a lot of things that others don't... even NT's.

I used to think I had overcome all my social obstacles but then I gradually started to feel my social anxieties overcoming me again. I don't think you ever really outgrow AS, but it affects you less... probably you'll start to become more interested in the socializing (as you become 'obsessed' with it) but will later relapse a bit.

I've certainly learned a lot of social skills over the years, enough for most people to go "Huh?" when I say I have AS, yet I will always have an AS brain, I will always have my neurological sensitivities, and my ways of thinking that are not neurotypical. I have learned to adapt to the world, and the more I learn about AS and myself, the better I'm able to adapt. As we speak I'm wearing noise-cancelling headphones so I can be in the same room with two people, one of whom I'm highly annoyed by. I wouldn't have known to do this a year ago.

Well, my social skills have definitely improved to the point where if I try hard enough, I can come off as an NT. Small talk comes naturally to me and is even enjoyable for me. And I generally have no problem grapsing expressions, sarcasm, and things like that. However, I'm still not all the way there socially. Plus, I continue to perseverate over a number of things, including things I have perseverated over since my childhood, and I'm still sensitive to sounds and whatnot.

On a less positive note, I feel like I left some of my "aspie strengths" behind when I started college.

I posted almost this exact same thing a couple months ago, and I've realized a few things since then. Like almost every personality trait, AS is permanent. If someone is born with a condition that makes them speak too loudly in coversations, they can train themselves to stop, but they will always be predisposed to talk too loud. I've trained myself not to outwardly show any signs of AS, and it works pretty well, most of the time. But when I get into stressful situations, it can resurface at times. Also, I still overanalyze things and tend to move from one obsession to another. I'm not sure how I'd go about changing these inward signs of AS (probably have to rewire my entire brain) and they don't really cause that many problems, so I don't bother with them. For Sarcastic_Name and anyone else that feels they have "outgrown" or "conquered" AS- have you stopped noticing ANY signs of it, or have you just trained yourself not to outwardly display them?

Another interesting thing I've noticed is that the more I think I know about social interaction, the more I realize I don't know. Two years ago I would have told you that I was getting a pretty good handle on things and that I was extremely close to breaking out of my shell. Eighteen months ago I would have said the same thing. Same story for six months ago. And I still think the same way today, even though a year from now I'll probably laugh about how socially inept and clueless I was back in January 2005. To make an analogy, every time I think I've scaled the mountain, I realize there's an even bigger one behind it that I just couldn't see from the foot of the last mountain.

Keep up the good work, just don't get ahead of yourself.

People tell me that i am becoming weirder and weirder.

Sarcastic, I've felt that way off and on for years, continuously hit newer roadblocks that I hadn't seen (just because they were higher level than what I'd reached yet), and as things stand over the last 5 or 6 years I've constantly changed the way feel, see, and understand the term 'aspergers'.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. Part of that too is your peer group and how it's moving and maturing - for me a lot of those mountains have been keeping my progress up-to-date rather than letting that 2/3-3/4 of chronological age rule reclaim me (which seems to happen on its own if I let go or get complaissant).

You don't simply "outgrow" it. If you have, you've never really had it to begin with.

You learn to live with it, and cope with the real world, and how the world works so you can adapt.

Alot of people wouldn't believe it if I told them what I was like when I was a kid.

I have had the same realization: I don't actually know as much about social interaction as I thought I did. For me, however, it's a realization in the other direction -- not that I keep learning more and getting better, but that I keep realizing that the things I thought I knew and the things I thought I was very good at are not in fact that way.

The past two years have brought a continually deepening understanding of ways I "tick" that I didn't even realize. I understand myself much better, now that I'm reading the right user manual .

Sometimes it may seem like the acquired skills are so deeply ingrained that you are "becoming NT", but there will always be a difference. As NTs grow up they acquire social skills mostly through osmosis, and then apply those skills subconsciously. We acquire skills through observation and reasoning, and then apply them consciously. Through practise the skills may become more reflexive and require less deliberation, but they will always be subject to our cognitive state. The difference becomes more obvious (for me) when I'm heavily stressed, feeling a strong emotion, drinking, or excessively tired. In all four cases there isn't enough spare brain-power to maintain the NT-like facade and the normally hidden autistic traits come shining through.
I get that a lot, particularly from people who only know me casually. I mostly manage to confine my rocking/flapping/spinning to when I'm home, so most people wouldn't think I did it at all, let alone that it was much more prevalent when I was younger. I'm glad I out-grew the head-banging phase, as I really wouldn't want to do that again even if it WAS only at home.

Like everyone else here, I’ve learned more about interaction with other people by observing it. However, it does require active effort. After a while, I do get mentally tired from maintaining such an effort. I needed the entire Christmas break to unwind and relax. I’ve thought about trying something like meditation to relax – does anyone here know anything about that?
I’m not sure about how successful I actually am at mimicking NT behaviour, and I do wonder whether I’ve successfully passed myself off as NT. I’ve still not mastered social situations and tend to avoid these. Work situations are easier to manage – everyone is being paid to do a job, and as long as personal quirks don’t get in the way of that, everything is fine.

you cant outgrow aspergers you have it forever but your symtoms start to get easier to deal with when you go through your adolesent peropd (puperty) which is what I'm going through at the moment