Has discovering AS / NLD improved your human interactions?

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That's wonderful, acacia. I'm glad to see more light at the end of your tunnel than we saw a while back in your interview thread. You deserve and sure will have better relationships with everyone.

Because I was diagnosed, I've been able to receive social skills training, which helps a lot. So, I've seen a definite improvement.

No, but that's because I use to drink to be social. Now living a sober life has changed my persona and the drive to only be social but random in relationships..

On one hand, sobriety has helped close ones become closer to me. But there are those moments when I see people together and think to myself...I could use a drink. Before you know it, I'd be sitting at a club or bar interacting as fast as I make fair weathered friends and lovers. Half my life revolved around drinking and being in relationships. Not so much these days..

In any given case, I'd have to ask how one defines relationships: Lovers, family members, co-workers, friends, people, etc.

yes, all of those and even neighbors, friends of friends, etc. etc.

I would agree that maybe a more specific definition would help. My husband and others tell me I've changed a lot (improved) but I don't experience my relationships as having improved because I don't have more and closer friends, etc.

Since I started on the quest for social skills as a part of discovering I have AS, that was to improve "secondary" relationships -- with coworkers, friends, associates. That hasn't improved. But m primary relationships have improved. Family report my interactions with them have improved. When it comes to anyone out there in public, I don't get admiring glances when I walk into rooms or cast spells over audiences.

Then they differ on a degree when it comes to relationships including behavior etc.

When I discovered Asperger's, it was as though I had met myself for the first time; and I think that "meeting" has made it possible for me to relax a little more around people. And so I think that this new-found ability to relax a little more has changed my interactions with some of the people I know.

This applies to me very much! I'm now open with folks I know that I'm pretty clueless in some areas and to give me a heads-up when I miss certain cues. I am more relaxed now about aspects of my personality that I know are never going to change. I consider that what motivates me doesn't motivate others and I actually ask people questions about this now (and wow--they interpret this as interest!) I am less likely to blab on about my special interests without *real* encouragement, so less likely to send people screaming from the room. Probably more things I'm not remembering. I had a real aha moment when I found out and am just sorry it took almost 60 years.

Hard to say, I did make some more friends after a diagnosis, but that may not mean I've had improved human interactions.

That's almost exactly what I was going to say.

yes and no, no because the traits are still there but also yes because I have found some like minded aspie friends I can share my experiences with and we get eachother. Most of my friends are NT though

I voted, "Question irrelevant for me, but I enjoy voting in polls" because that was the closest, but... my real answer... maybe some... a lot with one person who I think also has some autistic/AS traits. I understand him more. Which relates to a change the question doesn't cover. I understand me more. Also, I did a lot of changing, getting along with others better, improved social life -- wait that wording implies that I had a social life before, which I didn't -- even before really understanding that I have autistic traits.

i think i am the same as before really.

although one thing that has shifted considerably is that i am no longer "TRYING' so desperately at times to make sense of human interactions. I am more at peace and i have a deeper acceptance that it is fine being me and that interactions beyond one on one for me are stressful, annoying and i am flummoxed by them. So i am tailoring my life to my needs....


less trying and f*****g up = more happiness = more painting = more hermitsville = more apparent eccentricity to the outside world = couldn't give a toss.

i voted worse.
finding out about aspergers made me a very very very shy person and as i got older it seems to get worse.
and now i really dont care about fitting in with people or talking i tried so much when i was in elementary & middle school i just gave up in high school cuz people dont care about me there.
idk its really hard to explain for me i just know it has worsen cuz i used to have alot of friends when i was little and now i dont i only have 1 good friend.

Yes and No, which is not helpful!

I've improved some aspects of my basic functioning. Eye contact, for example. I was totally unaware of this. If Aspergers had never been mentioned, just maintaining the level eye contact that I believe to be expected does seem to make people less wary of my presence.

When I first became aware of AS, I became *more* self-conscious and less socially able. I was programming myself to believe that because I had this *awful* syndrome, everybody would instantly see how weird I am and dislike me. That carried on for a few years and caused many problems. This is the sense that discovering AS made me worse.

However, now my approach has changed and is more similar to what Millie writes. I don't try so hard to be anyting 'other' than what I am. It's unrealistic to asssume *everybody* will like me and unrealistic to assume *everybody* will dislike me. However, now I can see that the self-conscious, nervous wreck that I believed was inevitable for an AS sufferer, would be almost impossible to be around.

In terms of results, I can't say I've won anyone over yet. But this is long term and it's not easy to change the habits of a lifetime. At least making new friends is a possibility now, whereas it was totally impossible with the mindset I've had for 4 or 5 years now. Recently I've had people at work wander over just to chat with me, that did not happen 2 years ago. I've also had total strangers at checkouts, in shops etc, chat and laugh with me. That didn't happen either, so I believe something must have changed.

So the main 2 things for me are: changed eye contact and not judging myself too harshly for being who I am!

It definitely has changed the way I look back at my life. I am no longer "the under-achiever who was so bad at math, she couldn't finish college". Or "the space case with selective hearing". Or "Narcissist". And all the other labels that have followed me my whole life.

I wonder what my life would be like had I been diagnosed as a kid. Then again, there's no point in knowing - so why think about it?

The Dx has changed the way my husband and I communicate. I used to get so mad at him because I couldn't understand his flowery, jargon-laden, Southern, yakkity yak, non-stop BS and he'd get mad at me because of the selective hearing.

We have also diagnosed him as an aspie - so there are a lot of quirks on his side that I now tolerate much better!