Should aspies change their behaviors or accept them?

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Do you think aspies should learn to control or change their autistic behaviors or should they just accept themselves as they are? I personally think that it's OK to be autistic and who cares if you rock, talk to yourself, or whatever, it's who you are and you should not have to change, who cares what others think!

I think you should try to change some of the more negative things, if you can. I do think that some things I am unable to change but Im trying to find ways to better them, at least. I think its a good idea to focus on the more positive things and develop those.

It's entirely up to you. What do you want in your life? Do you want friends, and a regular job? Or are you happy with being alone most of the time, and working at some odd profession? If you can be an eccentric artist, you can have all the unusual behaviors you want to. Most of us have to strike a happy medium and control those behaviors that upset people.

You can only change things once you've accepted how and who you are, and why you are.

You shouldn't feel that you HAVE to, but I find it useful to act in the way NTs do just to make yourself understood. Remember most NTs don't know much about autism and will misinterpret you if you act in a natural way probably more than we misinterpret them when they act in their natural way.

If you want to interact with French people it is down to you to learn French.

I am trying to change some behaviours. But there are a lot, i dont want to change... Because i like the way i am (except for the things i want to change : the way i speak to people, organisation, sensory issues...)

Good points, I was referring more to the classic autism symptoms but yeah some of the bad ones should try to be worked on. It's just my boyfriend hates his asperger's and even blames himself and god for it at times, I think he blows things way out of proportion. But sometimes I hate being alone and want to be better off socially but at the sametime I really think a person just be themselves aspie and all be fine.

I think it depends on who you are with, the circumstances, and the situation. If I've just been through something that makes me nervous, anxious, or overstimulating then I'm probably going to stim some. If I'm in a meeting trying to get things done, I'm probably not going to rock (it'd be distracting to everyone around me). If I'm with strangers I'll be less likely to stim than with my friends.

Yes, I agree.. if you can help it, you can change it. If you are aware of your traits that could easily turn people off, then you could work on them. Like I knew that my eye contact needed improvement, its still not great but its much better than it ever was because I have worked on it over the years. Even though maintaining good eye contact is still difficult for me, I would rather work on it than appear to be anti-social because I won't look at someone while talking to him or her.

Some elements are easier to change, some elements are more negative, some elements don't compromise who you are. It's these I would change.

I've made a lot of progress in kinda, resisting my autistic tendencies, and I've become a better person because of it. Some people it'd be harder to do, some people wouldn't want to, and some people owuld be pretending or compromising themselves if they did this. It differs from person to person what you should change.

i try to keep things under control mostly but when i'm stressed it can be impossible...i tend to make a little humming sound under my breath and rock some but in public i try to hide it...or go off to the bathroom sometimes until i can calm myself enough

i am not so good at eye contact...looking people in the eyes makes me nervous...so i have learned it's not so bad if i look at their mouths and it helps me understand what they are saying more sometimes...and most people never notice it seems

i still have to look away a lot even then though

i know the whole eye contact thing is part of autism but why? does it make others uncomfortable as heck to look in peoples eyes too? how can it NOT make people uncomfortable???

If it harms others (and I'm talking about actual physical or psychological harm - not just "oh, I'm so shocked that that person dresses/talks/moves like that! How dare they defy my expectations of normalcy!"), then definitely you should work on changing it.

If it could potentially harm your goals, career, social or otherwise, then you should maybe work on learning how to confine those activities as much as possible to a time and a place where it will not impede you in trying to get what you want - or reroute those impulses or behaviors into something more acceptable, or at least something that people are willing to compromise on.

If it's just little oddities that harm no one and one would have to be paying close attention to to even see, then I say why bother? Shallow people who judge others based on minor things are not worth impressing.

I try and modify my public behaviour to the degree that it doesn't cause offence, but no matter what I do I will never appear as 'typical', so I don't even attempt to do that.

That may sound harsh, but when have other people ever modified their behaviour to make me comfortable? Only on very rare occasions. In the vast majority of cases, they just diminish me in public for a spurious ego boost.

Well there's always a need for some give and take...

take me as i am or let me go!

I find myself quite content with the fact I can now understand why I am the way I am and stop beating myself up about it. Yes, learning to accept myself is looking pretty good.