I have 'recovered'!

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I know there will be great scepticism about this, but I have virtually fully 'recovered' from ASD. I had a nervous breakdown at the end of my twenties (I'm now 43); the culmination of massive, embarassing, failures in almost every aspect of my life. At the age of 40 I found out I had ASD. However, I now realize that I'd been improving steadily throughout my thirties, and I've continued to improve, at an even more accelerated rate, over the past 3 years.

At age 30:

- I had abysmal common sense. I was constantly screwing things up.

- My social skills were awful.

- I had odd obsessions.

Today:

- I have a normal level of common sense.

- My social skills are excellent. I met a lady on a train the other day, and had a 2 hour conversation with her. I was completely relaxed, and 'knew' exactly what to say, i.e. like a NT. 15 years ago I couldn't have maintained a 2 minute conversation - with anyone!

- I have no strange obsessions; just normal interests.

- Plus, my anxiety and sensitivity to light and noise have practically evaporated (just very slight light sensitivity remaining).

It's literally like a certain, previously dormant, part of my brain has been switched on. I don't even lack confidence, despite being behind most other people of my age in general life experience!

Contrary to what most people believe ASD CAN improve:

- Temple Grandin says her ASD has continued to improve throughout her adulthood.

- I've spoken, by email, to Dr. Nancy Minshew at the University of Pittsburgh. She's been studying ASD, exclusively, for 25 years. She told me that she's witnessed significanant improvement in some adult patients.

- This study demonstrates that improvement is possible, particularly in intelligent individuals who's condition is relatively mild (though still disabling):

http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/10149.aspx

So how did I improve? I don't know for sure; it was probably just a matter of time. I know some people don't like to think of ASD as 'brain damage', but I do believe our brains were damaged somewhat in the womb. Just as stroke victims with brain damage can often recover function after several years, I believe the brains of individuals with ASD can 'heal' with time, providing the 'damage' isn't too great. Additionally, I spent most of my thirties reading, surfing the net and studying for a degree ( a 5-year course). I probably spent 8+ hours each day, almost every day, for 10 years, stimulating my brain with information that was interesting AND useful (as opposed to school/work, which were boring, and my previous obsessions, which were repetitive and useless). I'm certain this constant mental stimulation must have helped, i.e. like physical therapy helps stroke victims.

I know some people like to think of their ASD as a quirk, rather than a disability, and if you do fair enough. In my case, though, it was a disabilty as it prevented me from successfully functioning as a 'normal' adult. My dramatic improvement has given me a new lease of life, and I hope it's given some of you something positive to chew on.

I think it just depends on circumstances. If you're prepared to put yourself out there and make the effort to learn social skills I definitely think it's possible to improve. The only thing is that it's an absolute collision course on the way. I wasn't diagnosed until relatively recently and in some ways there are advantages to growing up undiagnosed because you're forced into a position where you have to learn to adapt to survive. You can't just expect people to understand you because you have AS, you have to try to work towards improving. I learned quite a lot during those kinda phases although I've found that some of the underlying issues of AS, particularly hypersensitivity to smell, touch, taste, motion, noise, in my case are pretty much incurable. I also still find conversation absolutely excruciating! But it's true that I'm nowhere near as bad at it as I was when I was 17!

But this is the irony: I did put myself 'out there' for the first 30 years of my life, and I was a social disaster. My 'improvement' during years 1-30 was precisely zero, despite interacting with large numbers of people every day (I was never a loner as a child; just a tolerated oddball).

During my thirties, though, I was much less social (though not a recluse), yet my ASD improved substantially!

Wow, that's really great, Alien. I can't imagine being able to pull off all of those NT traits successfully.

I could maybe don that type of behavior for a little while, but it would have to be a special interest and I would know that it would subside.

I like my odd obsessions.

Maybe that's part of the solution to your problems, in the sense that before you might have been trying too hard. People can smell desperation and it turns them off. In your 30s you stopped being desperate and thus became easier for people to connect with. As a result you had better interactions (though fewer) and picked up things that you couldn't learn before.

I've heard the same is true for people who want a partner. When you really want a mate your desperation turns any potential suitors off. Then when you've stopped trying, someone finds you attractive again and you hook up. Then you start oozing confidence and now that you're spoken for all kinds of people show an interest.

Who knows? My problem used to be the ability to be "normal" in interaction. I can pull it off now, but I rarely go beyond being acquaintances. And unfortunately, when I do make friends, it turns out I don't get much out of it after all. My brain's wired wrong, it doesn't produce any satisfaction from social banter.

It's really funny you should say that, but actually I think that trying too hard was EXACTLY how I gave myself away.

I find that if I just keep quiet and let other people get on with their lives around me they will eventually leave me alone after a while whereas if I try too hard to make friends with people it's still a recipe for disaster. I find that I can tolerate brief social exchanges with people so long as it is BRIEF.

More prolonged social exchanges can only be tolerated whilst I'm heavily intoxicated!

It's really funny you should say that, but actually I think that trying too hard was EXACTLY how I gave myself away.

I find that if I just keep quiet and let other people get on with their lives around me they will eventually leave me alone after a while whereas if I try too hard to make friends with people it's still a recipe for disaster. I find that I can tolerate brief social exchanges with people so long as it is BRIEF.

More prolonged social exchanges can only be tolerated whilst I'm heavily intoxicated!

I have greatly improved my social skills using the Mystery Method which was designed to help men pick up women, not treat autism. I don't feel as though my Aspergers has gone away at all. I just think I understand more about how other people think at an intellectual , and constant practice has dulled my anxiety in the same way as constantly riding a horse would make you less afraid of falling from one.

I will possibly never know how different my life might have been if I had been diagnosed long ago, or even at all, but yes, I suspect not knowing until later in life can be better for at least some of us.

Improvement is not recovery. You don't 'will' your brain to heal from physical damage or genetic mutation. I grant you that we are not incapable of learning social skills over time, but AS is not all about social skills, and at our best, we are never going to have the natural fluid dexterity in those areas that the neurotypical have. Believe whatever you like about yourself, but please don't spread that "I'm CURED! I just wanted it really, really bad and it HAPPENED!" nonsense around, it's not realistic, or productive in any way. Might as well claim a faith healer on television healed you for a ten dollar donation to The Church of the Sacred Bleeding Heart of Jesus. Your believing it don't make it so.

happymusic - thx

LipstickKiller - Good point, but it's not just my social skills that have improved; it's common sense, obsessions, noise sensitivity, etc.

Willard - I don't know why you're so aggressive, but anyway. As I say, various renowned experts say that ASD can improve significantly, so if I'm wrong so are they. I didn't 'will' myself better as I didn't know I had ASD until I was 40. I spent 10 years reading/surfing/studying after a massive breakdown. Then, at 40, I was diagnosed with ASD, and I realized how much I'd improved since I was 30. We know that stroke patients recover (fully in some cases); no-one disputes that. Like a stroke, ASD is a form of brain damage, so it's not implausible that 'damaged' brains can heal, whatever causes the damage, providing the damage isn't too severe.

I think I'm probably going to get like that as I get older. I'm not the same person I was 10 years ago, 6 years ago or even 2 years ago.

I am not brain damaged. There is no 'cure'. I am OK with social situations but it took a lot of adaptation for me to get there. But just because I go about solving problems in a different way than other people does not mean I am brain damaged.

Experts are people too so they can be wrong (and quite frequently are). And saying experts believe there can be significant improvement of ASD symptoms does not mean ASD can be 'cured'

This. What the OP did was learn skills that compensated for the autism, probably putting him in the non-diagnosable, neurologically autistic group. It happens to lots of people, including some people on WP. Just because you're no longer impaired doesn't mean you've magically changed to neurotypical, y'know.

"Recovery" is a silly word anyhow; you were never typical to begin with, so what's there to recover from? It's like recovering from being left-handed or female or gay or whatever--just doesn't make sense. When you use "recovery" properly, you're using it to say, "I had an illness/condition that changed my healthy state to an unhealthy one; and I have since returned to my original healthy state." For example, recovery from the flu; or recovery from depression; or recovery from a broken ankle. (Although with depression and other recurrent disorders such as cancer, schizophrenia, or epilepsy, the technical term is "remission"--that is, being symptom-free. Sometimes remission lasts a lifetime, but the condition can always come back thanks to its recurrent nature.)

In any case, that's a silly word to use for autism, because autism was how you were born, not something that changed afterward. What you did--and what many of us have done, or will in the future do--is to come to a level, developmentally, where you were capable of learning enough to compensate for the difference between your skill levels and what society expects of the average person. Once that's done, you can't be diagnosed anymore; but your brain's still wired up the same way it always was, and your cognitive style's still different.

It's a great accomplishment; don't get me wrong about that. It involved learning a lot of difficult stuff, though it likely also involved some sheer luck just to get to the point where you had the capacity to learn it. It is not, however, particularly remarkable for an autistic person to lose a diagnosis, though it's somewhat unusual for someone to do it so late in life as their forties (it's much more common in the preteen years). Well, at least, "not particularly remarkable" if you take the amazing, complex, fascinating human brain itself as your baseline, because if you didn't do that, you'd have to say that anything at all that you did with your brain was really, really amazing--because the human brain really is that amazing.

Anyway, now that I'm done lecturing you on your terminology, congratulations. Old dog, meet new tricks--you're one of the many who prove that people do not stop learning at age five, or twelve, or eighteen, or even thirty. As long as you're alive, you learn. Educators and other professionals give up on autistics way too often because they think that old autistics can't learn new tricks. Well, they can!

Since when is ASD brain damage? If you read around the forum a bit you will see that many of the members with ASD have family members on the spectrum. In fact, many parents got their diagnosis after their children did. I don't think brain damage is hereditary. This is a difference in wiring. I think to suggest that if people just "try harder" it will make them all better is the very problem we face from NTs who don't want to understand us.

I am with Willard, who is not aggressive- just extremely blunt. I think you are living in a fairy tale. You improved through experience- great. Many of us have "faked" being NT enough to know it only works for a limited amount of time. I really do hope you continue to have success. I am not ill-wishing you. I just want to caution you that you cannot go around claiming you havea "cure". It is irresponsible.