has any aspie become normal?

Post Reply New Topic

I think some things can get better, but an Aspie can never go 100% neurotypical, I had extreme sound sensitivity as a child which I grew out of. I would cry for like an hour after hearing the emergency broadcast system testing sound, but around the time I entered Kindergarten I could stand it.
And before I started anti anxiety medication (Lexapro and Abilify) I was often too nervous to buy food or anything else for myself and usually had my parents do it. I would sometimes go without food in school and college on days I was really intimidated by the lunch ladies. Now I do so with relative ease, and even do the grocery shopping for my slightly handicapped mother. I am also bipolar so Your Results May Vary.

There's no such thing as 100% NT (I think)
Everyone has some autistic characteristics even if it's only sometimes.

I personally think that what probably helps people to become less Aspie is a combination of lots of things. Having routine, but not too tight a routine, so that you can practice flexibility. Beginning by avoiding things that really bother you, as Magic Toenail mentioned, but gradually exposing yourself to things you have a problem with, tll they cease to be a problem.
Not avoiding all physical exercise, but finding something that you enjoy and can practice comfortably like 1000 knives suggested.

And having a supportive person who has your best interests at heart helps. My daughter used to behave like an aristocratic middle-aged woman when she was only 6. I wondered at the time what I should do about it. I decided to leave that behaviour as it was, because it might ruin her self confidence if I confronted her with how odd it was, (she honestly believed that she came across well to other people.) A couple of years later I explained to her how unattractive her arrogant demeanor was to other people. At 8 she could understand what I meant, and stopped doing it almost immediately, without it effecting her self-esteem.

I think that it's a great idea to read a small portion of the paper.

It also gives you subject matter to talk about with other people, if you ever get chatting. My Aspie partner loves small talk. He was born in a small village, and he's used to striking up conversations with strangers. I used to cringe when he did it, but I was amazed to find that people actually like being approached.

At the moment my partner's special interest is anything to do with the Apple Mac. I find it a boring subject. There's going to be a Mac Store opening near us soon. There are people taking photo's of it and putting them on line. Those people must be obsessed too. I joked about people doing the same with a new Macdonalds or whatever. Why would the opening of a new store be so rivetting!!???
I'd prefer a newspaper anyday. Look at this whole Whitney Houston thing, you don't need to have heard a single song to be able to ponder the pressures of being famous bla bla bla...often there are universal themes.

Here's my take on the "facade"--Think of it not as pretending to be NT, but more as speaking a second language. It's not your native tongue; you'll never be as good at it as an NT. But the NTs don't speak Aspie, and they'll misunderstand what you're trying to say if you don't say things in their "language".

Your goal is not to imitate NT behavior and fool them into thinking that you are NT. Your goal should be to communicate effectively with NTs, so that they can understand you. There are many ways to do that including things like learning to look in their direction without being distracted by eye contact, to learning how to explain to someone that you don't do too well in a conversation with more than one other person. You learn how to navigate the NT world, you're fine. You don't have to pretend to be NT to do that. Strategies differ from person to person--but in my experience, "looking normal" is never optimal. It leads to less effective communication than could otherwise be.

The nail that sticks out gets hammered down, sure; but if you don't have any nails sticking out of a wall, you can never hang anything interesting on it, and you'll be stuck with a blank, boring wall. We ought to work to convince people that you don't have to get out the hammer right away when you see a nail sticking out.

Point being: Society needs people who are different. If we refuse to be ourselves and try to push ourselves toward the average, we'll be unable to contribute our unique thinking styles to the general pool of possible ways of thinking and solving problems that allows a society the flexibility to adapt and to create new ideas. Diversity makes a group stronger.

A condensed list of tips is here:

http://www.businessinsider.com/machiave ... 011-5?op=1

I have more of a desire to be myself, than a desire to be normal. I don't care for that word. However, if that's what you want than I wish you luck.

OP: its an incredibly long thing to explain but two things to your question:

1) you can and will improve for the rest of your life
2) no, you'll probably never fully get there.

I had the notion in my early 20's that I could 'mind over matter' everything about it, toughen myself up by simply being a strong enough motivational bully toward myself, model whatever I liked from other NT's behavior that seemed macho in the right ways to me, even telling myself that there was an NT version of the real me waiting to be expressed, that it was nothing more than a communication style issue and that all I had to do was get there. Sadly it didn't work out and the more I tried to be an absolute NT it not only mentally fatigued me but the efforts and diligence I put in never really got easier. As I overextended my efforts I started falling apart in other areas, still looked like crap because of that after a while, and it wasn't even progress that I could keep for myself once I made it.

The way I would explain changes made to yourself that your genetics simply won't allow you to keep - its like an elastic wall. The farther you push off of your effortless turf the more effort you need every waking moment of the day to keep that layer of functioning up. The good news is that you can find some coping skill shortcuts to do these things without the effort but, fundamentally changing a lot of 'image' things, how you move, how you speak dramatically - probably won't happen. If you're a geek or a nerd and come off that way you can tone it down a little and seem a bit more rounded to people but, overall, you'll still be what you were.

If you've got things you hate about yourself right now, work on them for sure and set goals as much as you can, however do that to try and test yourself and be able to tell the difference between what you can change about yourself and what you can't. The last part is critical because if you're essentially fighting a brick or cement wall (ie. something unchangeable) it'll run you ragged and generally will cause more problems than simply leaving it alone and trying to find a different path that will work.