Can one grow out of Asperger's / autism?

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I was never weird as a kid, just extremely quiet except with family.

I was quietly weird as a teenager, but not to others, because I hid everything about myself and was grateful to them for tolerating the minute particles of personality that sometimes leaked through.

I was quietly weird in my twenties, but nobody noticed, because I was very isolated and I've never had any problems with health or hygiene or self-preservation or any of the typical stumble blocks.

I'm quietly weird now, but although it's sometimes considered disturbing it's mostly considered strength of character.

When I notice something needs doing I learn how to do it. Not the big things, like career development and so on, that would require too many factors to take into consideration. But the small things I learn, I always have.

An autistic brain does not sit like a wet blanket over the "real" brain underneath. It finds its own ways of adapting to the outside world, sometimes similar to typical people's ways of adapting, sometimes more unique.

I wouldn't completely discount it. Some of the symptoms might be do to the interaction of the brain type with the influence of "common social factors". Basically, something can pervade society so much that almost everyone has to deal with it, and then psychology will have a hard time noticing this factor when looking for causes for symptoms. But even if its "common" that doesn't mean you can't shield yourself from its impact if you figure out how. Our society neglects teaching certain things because most people have instincts for them, and then fails miserably in teaching people with AS these things. I've seen the methods used and it seems like they never do what would obviously work best, show people with AS how to systemize human social interaction and to think strategically about human social interaction. Seems like all social education for ASDs is based around trying to make the person "polite" more than trying to actually show the person how to understand social interaction in a way that can be applied towards fullfilling the individual's own goals and ends.

Since my main special interest is social science that's helped me a lot with being able to apply logic and strategy to human relationships, although I'm still seen as awkward and understand the interactions of large social groups better than person-to-person interaction, and in either case understand it better in theory or in preparation than in a fluid situation.

I've already been able to see just how "alleviated" Asperger's is becoming for me.

I can systemize out the right body language. It sounds complicated, but really the only thing you need to learn is "confident" demeanor. I see no socially advantageous purpose for portraying any other kind of demeanor. You might also want to learn how to "alter" the demeanor to show yourself as "confident and intimidating" or "confident and open" or "confident flirting" and learning the opposite forms of demeanors in order to avoid portraying those can be useful to. It's good to know what "submission" looks like in order to avoid ever portraying submission.

Generally its more important to know how to portray yourself than it is to know how others are portraying themselves. The latter is important but in reality it's important in so far as it relates to how to portray yourself in response. So my advice is to begin figuring out how to portray yourself and then learn what others are portraying as needed in order to do that.

Here's what I predict will still be left over no matter how improved I get:
1. I'll always be intensely interested in the social sciences and to a lesser extent drugs.
2. I'm always going to sometimes randomly slip into daydreaming, thinking about ideas, or get lost thinking about something I see and find interesting.
3. Might always screw up some of the definitions of things people say. As logical as I get in this time doesn't allow enough time to sit and ponder what a person meant by X.

#1 is what makes me me. #2 I enjoy anyways. #3 is just kind of comical.

No, but the question is, can the autism grow out of you?

Think about it.

Definitely. I have. Not totally. But I should have been diagnosed 3 decades ago,
not closer to 3 months.

Since I was diagnosed at that point I have been piecing my past life back
together explaining to myself why things have turned out the way they have.

It's allright. things are making a bit more sense now.

But yeah, you live and learn. Can only speak for myself. Diagnosis or no
diagnosis. I feel for people further down the path that maybe don't have
that 'insight'. It is not their fault. That is why I believe they should be
supported as much as possible. I'm willing to lend a helping hand.

Then again in this age of 'New Mcarthyism' they will probably make it illegal.
To even think about it.

Can you see which way it's all going?

Still, it's a beautiful afternoon where I am.
Good afternoon to all of you!

Hey, Aspergers Syndrome I'm pretty sure is when you just learn slower than others in relation to social things. What do you mean life long? It is not like some affliction. If your symptoms last forever, that means you are just not learning. To learn social skills you should just look at the light reflected off of people's bodies and pay attention to the changes over time. If you are unable to learn doing this maybe there is another problem (poor eyesight, stupid, etc.). Aspergers learns slower. It is not a visual problem. It is a social disability. Other people aren't born with an ability to read people's faces and emotions. It is learned! At a much faster rate than with people with Aspergers. Sorry if I am wrong on anything. I'm just tired of people not understanding almost everything. I believe that the human mind is too intelligent to the point where our emotions and actions and our whole lives are not resulting from outside stimuli anymore. They are now resulting from the thoughts that come when the stimuli is present. Meaning that much of your life and your "personality" (w/e the hell that is) is actually just in your thoughts. I am currently trying to figure out if I have aspergers as well. But I am sort of growing out of it. Or "learning".

I'm glad I didn't grow out of mine.

Yes, and my cousin is living proof. He's the same age as me, so I grew up with him, and his mum has always been concerned of his behaviour throughout his whole childhood, and he's always seemed a bit different to me aswell, compared to all the other children I knew. His sister has always been OK and just like any other typically developing child, but this boy has always had trouble with mixing and making friends at school when he was small, and he never, ever interacted with anybody when he was invited to parties. He was even too shy to eat, and I've always been shy but I always ate at parties. He would just sit there still as a statue, not making eye contact with anybody and not saying a word and not even participating in any activities, while all the other kids did, even if they were a bit shy or didn't know anybody, they still would eat or do some acitivity. Even I did, and I was always shy and not good at mixing with other children. And when he got older, he noticed details very well. When we watched things like The Simpsons, he would notice something what even I didn't, and rewind it back and show me something what I never noticed, and I was always like, ''oh right.'' And he has always been obsessed with electronic stuff, and he would collect all sort of electronic stuff, and was his ''special interest'' he had as a child. He's into computers and video games now, and is always mentioning them on Facebook. Even if he didn't have true AS, I reckon he did have traits of it, maybe PPD-NOS or whatever it is, even his mum used to say that.

But the reason why I think he's grown out of it is because he has NT friends who are his age and he's been friends with them for 3 or 4 years now, and he goes out to London for the day with them, and I see pictures of him with his mates on Facebook. And he enjoys socialising, and my brother says he's chatty and social in the bar, and he seems to have an ordinary social life and conforms well and gives into peer pressure. I want to be like this but I'm no good at it and can't seem to give into peer pressure no matter how hard I try to fit in, and I can't seem to keep friends of my age unless they aren't NTs, and so I just wonder if he's outgrown his traits.

For myself, I can look back and see times in my life when I've been more Aspie than others, so it seems to fluctuate. Also, as I grew up, I learned to mimic NT behavior in order to cover up my AS. So no, it doesn't go away, but you learn to cope with it, and I have tried to work with the positive aspects and find outlets for my abilities & special interests.

Can one grow out of being asian?

lol I don't think its something one outgrows...and I must say things were easier when I was a kid because now I still have a lot of issues I had then and even more now actually, but now I am more expected to figure out what I'm doing in life which I am not doing such a great job at.

The Autism/Asperger diagnosis includes the section: "The disturbance causes clinically significant impairments in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning." So you can outgrow the diagnosis by finding or learning better ways to cope, but if you're Aspie then your brain is still not functioning in an NT way.

I think you could in a way, it would be easier if you didn't have asperger's and instead just had asperger like symptoms developed in your youth as behaviors you developed as coping strategies for living in way that isn't really natural for you. It's pretty hard, but you to put yourself in situations that will help you unlearn your behaviors that fit asperger traits. Basically, you'd just be desensitizing yourself. You also must figure out what the root of your problems are. For me, it was the family that raised me.

I never grew out of my Aspergers but as I got older I did learn to cope a bit better. In fact, I've recently told friends about my Asperger's and they are surprised and tell me they never would have guessed. I've gotten pretty good at playing the part I suppose. It's still a struggle though. I still hate large crowds and looking someone in the eye is still a problem. But I get by pretty well.

you don't grow out of asperger syndrom, ever, but you learn to hide the symptoms better, maybe learn better copying skills and social skills. by training and experience, you might even get a better grip on reading people's facial expression and understanding hidden meanings in what they say. shyness can get much better in adulthood and so does self expression.
depression and anxiety are something you might want to talk to with a professional in that area. it's no shame going to a psychiatrist, or even talking it over with a family member or someone else you trust.

I dont think one can every "outgrow" but develop effective coping strategies after a lot of hardwork, yes.

See when you say outgrow, it sounds like the Aspergers symptoms just go away on its own without intensive training or hard work on ones part. I don't believe you can every outgrow Aspergers and if you do, it might be likely you never had it to begin with.