has any aspie become normal?

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If you want to be better accepted by society, I can suggest.

First, learn to dress appropriately. How you look makes a big difference in how NTs perceive you.

Spend a little time each day (15 to 30 minutes) learning about your world--read the local newspaper--you won't be as clueless in social gatherings. If you just have time for three pages, I'd suggest the Front Page, the Editorial Page, and the first Sports page.

Find a special interest that isn't too obscure, like gardening, or a popular sports team (where you live). Learn to shut up before you bore your audience.

That's me out then.

Well.......apart from the sports page (may as well admit it, I hate the mortal sight of national sport).....I suppose I do tend to check out BBC News pretty regularly.....so I know (e.g.) that Whitney Houston is dead....but most news bores me silly or just depresses me. Wake me up when the socialists start winning again.

Good one......though I so often notice things that other people miss, so I would have to be on my guard against specialising into obscurity WITHIN the popular subject.

Now you're talking....so to speak. I've got it down to about 3 sentences after a lifetime of trying........so I know a useful improvement is possible if you're determined enough. Look out for the problem that follows though........you start to edge towards a normal to-and-fro conversation.....expounding a monologue is much easier.....your brain has to work quite dynamically to hold its own for the to-and-fro thing.....every time they speak, you have to adjust your thoughts to the new direction.......it's hard work, but deeply rewarding when it works.

I think that's common for people on the spectrum to do, we imitate a central figure or person in our life to fulfill the gaps in our own identity or to appear more socially outward, however I don't think it is true confidence as I find that it is a facade.

Yes we tend to run "scripts" rather than act in a truly spontaneous, immediate way, though the scripts can be so well-practised that it would be hard to see the difference from the outside. Though I've sensed a certain "fake" feel about some things that Aspies have said to me, which has made me feel wary of them.........I don't think it's really much to worry about, because the people concerned are pretty honest and don't otherwise seem like the deceiving type somehow, the way they blurt out stuff that gives away their true feelings, however embarrassing, without thinking......it's hard to imagine somebody who does that is likely to make any sustained effort to fool me, and it's even harder to imagine them getting away with it for long. I guess running scripts is a kind of deception, pretending to be somebody else, but I don't see Aspies have much choice, unless they find some extremely inclusive and understanding friends, and as long as they're only trying to convey the truth, it doesn't matter if they need to copy somebody else's interpersonal style to do it. And at least we usually have a harder time with guilt if we do go and lie, compared to some NTs who seem to think that BS makes the world go round, and would need to be tortured before they'd come clean.

My symptoms have become less severe through the years, yes. I believe that most of the underlying traits of aspergers syndrome are caused by the fact that children with aspergers syndrome develop social skills much later than others. This explains the fact that people with aspergers internalize, and find intense hobbies or interests to take them to another world were they can understand and be liked. Although most people who read on aspergers syndrome understand this.

My point is that people with aspergers become masters of entertaining themselves without people's help and it can be difficult to break away from that, who wants to spend massive amounts of energy talking to people when they can just spend a little energy on introspection and enjoy even more thought provoking ideas.

Another thing that sticks for me is my tendency to get overstimulated, perhaps it will decrease with age when I become used to everything life can throw at me, but it still is fairly easy to get overwhelmed. Though there are a lot of ways to cope with it, for me I just pretend the future, past, and my thoughts don't exist, and focus on the present moment only.

The thing that did improve for me is I can read almost all social cues, and I know how to not offend people without putting much thought into it, I generally understand what most people want and why they do what they do (sometimes better than they themselves). My voice is less monotone, and I have some body language. This might come from being around my mother who uses massive amounts of both, or from just watching really energetic good performers on youtube for many years. My anxiety is slowly going away, and I accept it for what it is, a part of me that is separate from my logical mind, a part of me that is more primitive, and I just have to bear it when I do new things. I can handle anxiety so much better than before, I used to close up and freeze, or let myself just fall apart. Now I slowly take my time getting my actions or words out. And I think it's teaching my primitive mind to not be so anxious about everything.

Yep - my cousin seemed very Aspie when he was a child and a teenager, his mum was very worried and she often came round to talk to my mum about it, obviously because my mum had me who was on the spectrum and so knew a lot about it. My cousin just had a lot of symptoms of AS, and I always thought he was a bit different from other kids, and I got on well with him. He had a normal upbringing, and he had an older sister who was fine (she was only 2 years older than him).

Now he's nearly 21, and seems to be pretty NT to me: he goes to pubs on Friday and Saturday nights with friends, and seems to get along all right with NTs in his peers and even has an NT girlfriend. If he was Aspie, he would be spending every week-end night alone in his room, and not have friends in his peers. I'm Aspie and I spend every week-end night alone in my room, and I don't get along with NTs in my peers unless they're signifficantly shy or aren't NTs (have some other psychological disorder or AS). Even if I'm asked to go out on week-ends, I would clam up and say no because I can't get along in that type of environment.

Or maybe I'm just doomed to be so socially fearful and other people who could be possible Aspies seem to still have this desire to fit into the NT world, and they seem to get along fine.


By the way - there is no such thing has a ''normal person'', but I know what you mean.

I think many of us have no choice but to be socially fearful, because we know how it can so easily go wrong when we accept these invitations........I still fear going to any social events where I don't know anybody well......I can't move quickly and confidently enough to get people to engage with me, and I end up sitting about on my own pretending I'm content, pretending I wouldn't love to make friends, pretending I'm not lonely. Even if I go with a friend, I fear that either they'll go and socialise and leave me with nobody, or that I'll stick to them like glue and stop both of us from making any social inroads.

There are a lot of bastards out there, and if I lower my standards, then at best they'll just waste my time and make me feel even more suspicious of the human race. We're choosy for good reasons. If anybody calls me antisocial for that, I'll try to remind them that it hurts me a lot more than it hurts them....all they have to deal with is the absence of one rather quiet person who won't really add anything to their pleasure......I have to deal with the absence of the whole event and all the social opportunities it could have offered me.

My only advice is to see it as having high standards for the quality of people you're happy to socialise with. There are billions of people out there, so even if I shun the company of 99% of them, I'm not committing social suicide. I know for a fact that there are decent, inclusive people out there who have the patience to treat me right. So I don't think I'm doomed to be alone forever. I just think I'll be lonely for quite a long time, but in the end I'll get where I want to be. There's nothing wrong with wanting a small number of carefully-selected friends. It is NOT being doomed to a lifetime of loneliness. Friends can be made without getting immersed in high-octane raves, and at least the friends that are made in quiet places are a lot less likely to want to drag me off to noisy parties etc.

They say that it's impossible for an Aspie to become NT but I'm not so sure.

Before my daughter was finally diagnosed with autism, I considered whether I could be autistic. Even though it seemed ridiculous, there are some things that I had that were unusual (as a young child). I could read at the age of 3, I daydreamed so much that they placed me (for a week) in a remedial class (then they discovered that I wasn't backward!) I have a slight stim when I'm sitting (I sway slightly- a bit like Orthodox Jews who are praying). I "felt" like I was viewing the world through a goldfish bowl before the age of 7 and then that suddenly changed. As a young child I didn't understand sarcasm (but I learnt to understand it somewhere along the line).

I've been thinking about the connection between brain and body recently- I started the ambidextrous thread, and I'm wondering whether phyiscal exercise can 're-mould' the brain and alleviate AS symptoms. I still daydream, and I still stim but less than before. On Aspie tests, I score NT. I'm really sure that I'm NT but because of my childhood, I can identify with Aspies.

To me, being an Aspie is normal.

If you think that it's entirely normal then you are trivializing the situation.

One thing that all the autistic partners of women I know have in common is the exhaustion at having to function in an NT world.
It shouldn't be normal to be so chronically tired.

As you age more and more coping strategies are required to get by as the expectations also get higher, you can't escape even if you look significantly younger.

I don't want to make you feel bad about it, just saying. Consider it as a race with time and do as much as you can to straighten up things. Sometimes I wish I knew long before about ASDs so that I could have made provisions long long ago, especially concerning romantic relationships. Otherwise, don't be so hard on yourself, there are limits, and people with those expectations should know about it.

Me too. I was totally in the dark about loads of relationship stuff, and handled most of the problems like a jackass. I muddled through somehow, but it's only since the DX that I've had much confidence in my learning. After that, a lot of things were clearer and I was able to see how my experiences fitted the Aspie pattern.........I'd always been interested in psychology, so these days I read a lot of sociological advice to complete my picture of how people tick.

I feel that's a very helpful thing for an Aspie - if you want to feel anything like as socially competent as the NTs, study human sociology and compare it with your own observations of people, try using your knowledge to do good socially, until you're so well-informed about human nature and so used to applying your expertise that you can float with confidence in a reasonably small, benign group. If you study it well, you'll be surprised how your social skills can surpass those of the average person. I can read between the lines of what people say and do sometimes, and although I don't like to draw absolute conclusions from a couple of observations, I've often been right, and I'm amazed at all the strong feelings people have that they don't normally reveal. People get blocked by pride and fear just like I do.

I think it's like a black person bleaching their skin so they don't look too black... it might get them more accepted, but wouldn't it be better to be accepted as a black person than as a fake white one?

This, and I also agree with Callista.

Half the battle is looking normal. One thing that helped me loads was keeping my hygiene up to par and then wearing preppy clothes. The preppy clothes are just random bits I got from Salvation Army, for usually like 50c a shirt or something, so it didn't cost anymore than my clothes used to cost, actually it cost significantly less. But since I did that, things socially got a lot lot better for me.

As far as socially, it depends. As you get older, people get weirder, if that makes any sense. Yesterday for example, I met a weird NT. It's not like only people with Aspergers can be weird. But, as you get older, you can make older friends who'll be a bit more accepting of you, and just after high school people become a bit more their true selves, until they finally become senior citizens and will just do and say whatever they want, haha. Socially, it's hard really, as the solution for most of my problems throughout life is just "try stupid hard and hope something works" but I feel like the punishment for failing an experiment cooking or working on a car is nothing compared to the punishment for failing socially. So you gotta go out of your comfort zone socially, to a point, to learn, but at the same time, you still do have to realize your limitations. For me, I went WAY out of my comfort zone socially, I just denied my NVLD diagnosis for a few years after being diagnosed, but then as I started failing a ton socially, that's when I read about it, retook the tests, and yeah. So don't take the extreme of trying to hang out with people like everyday like I did, but also don't just become a shutin who plays videogames 18 hours a day either. As far as getting practice socially, for me, random people. Like, participate in small talk when it comes to you, or initiate it, just at random public places. The good thing is like, in public like that, you'll usually not see whoever you're talking to again, so if you mess up, it's just like "oh well." Whereas at school, you gotta see them again. I've even managed to make good friends just striking up conversations at convenience stores and whatever.

But yeah, as for the other weaknesses, the best way I feel to conquer a weakness is just in your own time, strive to get better at it. Like my NVLD makes me sort of uncoordinated at athletics, and I don't think I have genetically gifted strength or anything. So in school, on most team sports, etc, I didn't do well, but now that I'm doing an individual sport (figure skating) and can just practice how I want on my own, I do pretty well, it takes me a bit longer sorta to learn stuff, but I still do it anyway. But the main thing is like, when you wanna learn stuff like that, I can't do it if there's pressure on me to perform, if that makes sense. But no pressure, do pretty well. But, for your lacking skills, that's probably how you have to tackle them, in a similar manner.

The harder things are like, the monotone voice, I get picked on for that a lot even now. Vocal processing, I always have to ask people to repeat themselves. Those are the kinda things that are significantly harder to change, it's not like just wearing new clothes or something. But, as a silver lining, men aren't supposed to have emotions, so it's cool. One acquaintance I was talking to on the phone said "Dude, you sound like you're Arnold Schwarzenegger or something." I think as a guy, it's not so much your like specific features that matter so much, but just more whether you're
"manly" or not. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranulph_Fiennes Like my friend after watching a Top Gear interview with that guy, remarked that he was very monotone. I of course didn't notice,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNiSzlS-wTE but here's an interview with him. Obviously a very cool guy regardless. But, to put it in perspective, are you planning to be on TV? Why do you need TV communications class? It sucks you're failing the class, it's embarassing, etc, but it's sorta entirely useless of a class. To some extent, you just gotta wait and get older I guess, then you can be more free to do what you want, and by extension, what you're good at.

Eh, I wish I could be more helpful, but I need to find ways to solve my own weaknesses, too.

Agreed!