Losing Aspie tendencies when using certain drugs

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A little more specificity would have been nice.

I'm guessing it's not weed.... Whereas it does help me stay sane...it certainly doesn't help my social skills... except in talking to stoned people.

I've never had anything but a mild amphetamine hype on E... so I'm guessing thats not it either.

Coke was dismissed rather prematurely there...
I'd put that down as the most likely candidate... crystalline confidence.
My few experiences with cocaine gave me the confidence to interact with people I normally wouldn't approach. As much social lubrication as alcohol but with less impairment of judgement. (I detest the person I become when drunk)

I'm also guessing Fnord would have had me locked up long ago as being a danger to myself...

That approach seems a tad despotic to me.

Actually I was talking about weed in my original post.

Just to reiterate I am not condoning it's use, certainly not long term as there are quite negative and potentially damaging side effects in my opinion, and once the effect wares off there is often a steep downer effect.

My point was more that when on it, there was obviously some overriding of certain parts of my brain. The parts to do with over-analyzing, controlling, excessive worrying, being on high alert, overly-defensive. I think for most NT people these parts of the brain are usually not activated except in situations of real crisis or emergency where they are actually helpful but in every day modern they are very unhelpful.

I dont have any answers here and am not a brain surgeon or neurologist but it made me think that the ability and instincts to act in a very NT way and genuinely enjoy social interaction in a natural and relaxed way was inside me but is somehow blocked by these overly developed controlling parts of my brain.

I also take on board some feedback that when you are high you may think you are behaving 'normally and socially' but other may not perceive you in that way. This is true. But I think my point still stands that I felt happy, relaxed and genuinely enjoyed being around people and interacting with them on various levels and that this is the 'ideal' human state as I think we are designed to be social beings. If there was someway of inhibiting that part of the brain I think it could help a lot of people lead a more fulfilling life.

Oh.

One time I took the Zyprexa of a schizophrenic person to prove it was OK, and to get him to get on his meds. I had a bad reaction and passed out in a movie theater lobby, but the next day I did feel something different, more empathic towards people, more able to carry on a conversation...

Most of those side-effects I have WITHOUT using it. When I have done, I generally get more confident and excited.

Co codamol is really good. I took it when I had pneumonia, and it was the first time I slept solidly for more than 4 hours in my whole life. I only really noticed it when I stopped taking it. You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

Do you really think you are more social when high? Have you tried to interact with the same people while they are high and you are not? I tend to find people who are inebriated on anything to be annoying. I guess if I was all looped up like them I could socialize with them easier. I don't think I would really be more social though...just inebriated.

Er... this is a tangent a bit but...

Universally?

Feelings are in part due to the viewpoint you're coming at a situation with, and if you change some of how you view the world, changes in feelings often follow.

For instance, I used to have a lot of fairly well-justified terror about standing up to authority figures (I'd been in situations where that could kill you), but at one point I chose to file a complaint against a case manager rather than allow myself to be institutionalized or endangered (the two choices he was offering me), and I became less afraid of authority figures.

I also systematically trained myself out of severe arachnophobia, to the point where, instead of being so afraid of spiders that I would avoid being near or looking at any place I had ever seen one, I was later able to touch them and photograph them for fun without fear, and even came to regard them as beautiful. There are still a few situations in which I fear them, but those situations are so rare as to almost never occur, and the fear is nowhere in the same category of terror that I had when I feared them.

If I believed that I could not change my feelings, I would still be in the grip of a huge number of utterly irrational phobias. I would not blame most people in most situations for their feelings, but at the same time I think, sometimes with a lot of work and sometimes with a little, it is usually possible to change the feelings you normally have about a situation.

More on topic, yes I've been seen as (as in, objectively, by other people -- it surprised and amused me a bit to hear the comments) more normal on certain illicit drugs (way less normal on others), but for me it hasn't been worth the cost of having my basic perceptions altered in ways that left me more open to certain thinking errors (mostly thinking errors that are not actually abnormal, but that I normally have fewer of than I did on drugs). I escaped those without any measurable brain damage, but did not escape prescribed neuroleptics nearly so lucky. (Thus, I think the line between legal and illegal is pretty arbitrary in many cases, many of the legal ones are at least as scary as many of the illegal ones, and of course some drugs are legal in medical contexts and in no others, etc.)

Other people, I don't care what they put into their bodies, legal or illegal, as long as they're not harming people with it. I get irritated when rampant alcoholic destructiveness seems more legitimized than mellow stoned people (yes I know not all stoned people are mellow, but most of us who are that way -- me included -- learn that pretty fast and stop taking it). But for myself, I'll stick to whatever legal drugs I need medically, and no more or less than that, my curiosity was sated a long time ago and illegal ones don't have anything I want or need. (And I'd make a horrible drug addict, whenever I've had medically-prescribed versions of "hard" drugs, like Ritalin or Vicodin, I've (in the case of stimulants) become anxious rather than "high", and (in the case of opiates) experienced what most people consider a "high" as pain, confusion, and nausea. In both cases I've also had pretty serious and unpleasant medical side-effects. It makes me wonder how much of the psychological "addictiveness" of these drugs, depends heavily on the biology of the person taking them.)

I'll take up the tangent...

I think it is universal. I am terrified to the gills of spiders; while I cannot change that, I can adopt different reaction and become adept at being aware of that fear without letting it overwhelm me. Over time, my reaction has changed - but I still get freaked out by them. I think your point is valid, but I see it as a progressive development - by choosing what to do, we change the scenario. We cannot simply implement change of our feelings through will, but through action... that's a really good point you brought up, actually. You chose a path of action, and through experience you changed - but would you have been able to achieve that change without having decided to do something about how you felt in the first place? Food for thought...

Agree that the difference between legal and illegal drugs exists primarily on paper, since almost any substance can be used for detrimental or negative purposes. My experience with most non-pharmaceutical substance was unsatisfactory, disorienting, unpleasant or ultimately discordant with my life. Doesn't mean I would take the experience back, though I might make some different decisions - but it is in the past, and all I can do is use those experiences to my advantage.


M.