What would you do if you were me?

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I’ve posted here a few times before, simple replies and vague attempts at helping someone but I’ve spent far more time reading this board and what people have to say or merely searching the internet for information I deemed relevant to my condition.

I’m 30 years old and was diagnosed with Aspergers shortly before my 5th birthday. My reason for being diagnosed at all had more to do with the fact that I also have cerebral palsy, which was presenting in ways that were becoming increasingly obvious. My avoidance of social interaction seemed to my parents more likely to be a hearing problem or an offshoot of my fathers introverted nature.

My parents did not ever allow Aspergers to define who I was, indeed against all attempts by me to achieve the opposite I have learned to be outgoing and friendly. Numerous people would consider me a friend although I myself do not consider more than one person as such. I’ve learned to be who I need to be to get along in the world. Indeed no one would ever suspect that I was anything other than totally normal if somewhat stand offish and aloof at times. Exhaustive physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy have removed any obvious traces of my afflictions and a genius intelligence has allowed me to talk myself out of any situations where I may have slipped without arousing suspicions.

So here is the reason from my little monologue. I only learned about my Aspergers about 2 years ago when my mother let it slip out accidentally during a discussion. I naturally knew of my cerebral palsy, 2 hours a day of torturous physiotherapy for 5 years made this aspect of my affliction all too obvious, but I was never aware of my Aspergers. It explained a great deal, relieved numerous frustrations I’d felt regarding my inability to understand peoples behaviour at times and most of all explained why I lacked the skills to find someone to share my life with. The explanation I was given for not being told was that I would allow my Aspergers to define who I had the potential of becoming. If I knew I lacked conversational skills or allowed myself to avoid social situations with the excuse that it was who I was then I’d stop pushing myself to achieve more. If I’d never had the drive to overcome my social awkwardness and odd behaviour I would never have made it to where I am today. I hold down a high paying job in a difficult and challenging industry. I interact with an office of over 40 people each day and find it easy to speak to all of them. Most may feel it’s a bit odd that I use internet chat and email to deal with virtually every discussion I have but on the occasions where face to face conversation is unavoidable I hold it together well enough to conduct myself accordingly. I even make it a point to eat lunch with as many people as possible and join in the discussions around me, paying specific attention to not flinching when someone touches me. All this is however incredibly hard work and I’m afraid I might begin to pander to my condition rather than fighting it every day. I’m just not sure how much leeway to give myself and if I allow myself some time to recoup my energy will I ever be able to pull myself back to where I am now or will I simply spiral out of control and lose everything I’ve worked so hard to achieve. Can I afford to become anti-social for a while?

What would you do?

I know how you feel, I am somewhat similar in that I was never aware of Aspergers until fairly recently so just assumed I had to get on with life and worked hard to be somewhat 'normal'. But I would get a bit depressed and a down sometimes wondering why it was so hard to keep with everyone else who seemed to do it so easily. When I realised it was Aspergers it was somewhat of a relief, at least now I had an excuse for the odd occaision when I did act weird and people wanted to know why. It also allows me to understand what my limitations are and to avoid them or take better preparation for coping with those circumstances.

I do agree there is a danger of using Aspergers as an excuse for not pushing yourself, but I think that affects those who are aware of it from a younger age, you seem old enough and experienced enough to have realised what you can do and are capable of, so just keep at it as best you can. It did make me 'lazier' at first, but I've kicked myself back into gear for the moment, but happened even when I didn't know. Some days are good and some are bad, just have to deal with it I suppose.

That's not anti-social, just asocial.

I would identify the parts of human interaction that are most painful for you and permit yourself to forego those few things. Or would you have to forgo ALL human interaction in order to do this? While you might see yourself as a success, I think you are also recognizing that part of yourself is a failure, as you live a forced life in the guise of something and someone you are not. If you are so adept at faking it for the sake of success, are you also good at turning it OFF and ON? In which case why not turn it ON for work and turn it OFF once out of your place of employment.

Who would you be, had you not been so heavily polished? What would the rough stone look like?

There have been numerous attempts to suggest that if one tried hard enough, Aspergers can be “overcome”. It’s as if effort will make up for all the deficiencies. You sound pleased with how much you have achieved and relate your achievements to how hard you have worked. However, have you considered that cerebral palsy, a very obvious disability, may be contributing factor to your social acceptance? No one would want to beat up on a disabled guy. It is the rest of us who do not look any different, are intelligent but have almost zero social skills who have the hardest time with Aspergers (I am not suggesting that having cerebral palsy is a piece of cake). It is what makes this condition so special; people think that you are behaving badly.

Most people with Aspergers could probably wing the occasional social event. I for one have no problem maintaining eye contact as I consciously make myself do it. It is when the social event becomes constant that I find myself tiring quickly from the effort that I have to make to “connect”. And that is where problems arise. People start to think that I am odd or difficult as I seem to be distancing myself as much as I can. And that is when they start to think that I am not a “team player”. There is no amount of effort that I can make that will change this aspect of myself. There is only so much bandwidth and nothing that I can do will increase its carrying capacity.

There is nothing wrong with solitude. I have found the time that I have spent by myself far more productive than the time that I have spent with others. Some of you may consider it regressing, I think of it as attaining my natural state.

Is it just the in-person interaction that you find draining or communication in general? If you're OK with talking to others on-screen, do that. Don't detach yourself from the real world too much, because then you may experience a spiral. If you feel yourself slipping, talk to someone and have them help you get back to your normal level.

Whatever you do, keep up the good work. It sounds like you've gone pretty far.

As with someone serious issues finding any work, let alone well paid work, were I dropped in your shoes, I'd pretty much carry on with what you are doing. You seem to have developed well as a person, I mean, I'd figure that aspergers gets less and less obvious as people learn to at least feign social interaction, even if the deeper isues of life with the condition will always remain under the surface. I wonder where I'd be if I hadn't been diagnosed when I was 14, probably worse off then I am now I guess, prison isn't out of the question. I risk using aspergers as an excuse not to do anything hard for me, but then half of my brain is always saying "like it's your fault the world s**ts on you everytime you try to make something out of it" and I just get bitter and close down.
Basically I figure you gotta keep going, if only for those of us who ain't made much of our lives yet. Grit your teeth and smile, and think of the paycheck.

Thank you for the advice and the support from all of you.

The company I work for has brought all the employees from all the offices around the world together for a week long conference. One of the events planned for this conference is a cocktail party and I absolutely hate events like this. Seeing the people I work with in a social situation is very difficult since my only point of reference with them is work. We don’t really share many interests, they seem to have none at all and I know I have a tendency to go on about things I find interesting which encompasses just about everything. As a result I don’t speak to anyone in fear of monopolizing the conversation and stand in the corner watching. Parties for me are a spectator sport.

After reading your comments I decided I could afford to cut out certain things which made me particularly uncomfortable and informed the organizer that I would regrettably be missing her cocktail party due to a prior engagement.

I feel better now.

Wow!

Is that because your parents do not know what AS is?

Here is my opinion of your issue. It's ok if you become anti-social for a while, but as soon as you have something of great importance to focus on, (like school or work,) you should put the pedal to the metal and do it.

People will not mistake you for a robot, or anything.

Nick_14

I feel that social skills for an aspie are a bit like golf skills. If you stop completely for a long time you will get rusty and it will take some practice to get back into the swing of things and you might never be good at it but with some regular practice you can achieve competence.

My option for a cocktail party that is part of a big work conference would be to treat it like work really - it generally isn't taken too well by management if you don't show up but they do appreciate if you let them know in advance you can't make it due to "unavoidable personal commitments".

I'd probably take a friend who likes to talk about the same things as me so I don't get bored or bore anyone else. I might also leave early: go, stay an hour and then leave - this will keep management happy.

You might want to seek out a course on basic conversational skills, ie keeping up with general current affairs and asking questions about the topics that aren't religion or politics, and learning to ask questions that encourage people to open up about what they like - you might be bored but they won't remember you as boring. You may be surprised about what some people like too - maybe the same things as you.

That's awesome advice, thanks.

I read 5 newspapers a day so I'm confident I'm up to date on current affairs. Usually though I have trouble finding people who know much about what's going on around them. People are increasingly withdrawing from the world around them in an attempt to cope with the nastiness in the world.

I volunteer at a military museum repairing and restoring vehicles and aircraft. I can attend endless numbers of social gatherings with the people I know from the museum, I know them and we share interests. I have a basis upon which to have conversations and I feel totally safe. At work I discuss work, I’m good at my job and I know a great deal about it so I feel safe discussing things in this context but unlike the people at the museum who are getting together to discuss their interests, work social events are open to discussions on any subject and I can’t prepare for that.

Engagements and marriage plans, pregnancies and babies seem to be the order of the day for my female colleagues who all are of an age where these discussions are important. The guys discuss sports I wasn’t allowed to play or have no interest in or their girlfriends or wives which I have no basis upon which to form an opinion. I’ve never really had the opportunity to learn the skills required to deal with romantic interactions and avoid these situations more than I avoid cocktail parties. On top of that I also grow tired of people very quickly so I don’t bother to try to become romantically involved because I’ll have grown bored before I accomplish anything. I’ll admit that not every discussion revolves around these subjects but at some stage in every conversation something relating to these subjects will be discussed, it’s inevitable. At this point I feel stupid and inadequate and invariably any conversation I’ll have had up till that point will die quickly leaving me standing there feeling and no doubt looking extremely out of place.

Rest assured that I will be attending numerous other events around this conference, I’ll meet other people from other offices and no doubt most will go back home thinking I’m a bit quiet but very approachable and friendly. Pity he couldn’t make it to the cocktail party I wanted to ask him about the work he did on the DC3 he’s busy restoring, maybe I’ll email him about it when I get back to the office. People may well notice my absence not least of which will be the boss himself who gets on really well with me but I’ll appear less odd by not being there then I would appear were I to attend.

In the mean time I’ll look for more information on conversation skills, I obviously have a lot to learn.

Hey Nick_14

Hmm, it wouldn't be good for you to be seen as right up there on the subject of marriage, engagement parties or pregnancy or even child rearing. You could be sneaky and ask things like what the blokes roles are in these kinds of things, many women are looking for more help with all that, but when it comes down to it they often like to be in charge.

As for sports - I usually know the highlights as per the news, particularily for the local teams - the ones that most of my friends support. I know if the team won or lost and if there were any controversial plays. These are good topics for conversation - though you do have to watch out for people who are fanatical about their team. If I get asked about a particular play I can say I heard about this but I didn't get to see it. Once you get out of school, for most people all the sport they talk about is as spectators - so whether or not you had any skill becomes irrelevant. Though you might find now, you are very good at analysing a game and identifying where a team's winning or losing plays started. You don't even have to watch a whole game to work this out. The way a team plays tends to repeat, they may make the same good play or mistake over and over. If you like patterns, you will find that you can watch a game with a view to analysing it. And then you can input really insightful things like "if Stuart had completed his pass to Clark it would have devastated the opposition, you could see they got all pulled out of position by such an unexpected play - but our team didn't try it again. And Stuart made many brilliant plays but was let down by lack of support from the rest of his team. Smith made such a good play in the third quarter setting up Clark to score that the rest of the team lifted and I think this was the game turning point for us".

So - read the sports pages - just enough that you can keep up with the men in your social crowd.

I've got a few friends (and ex friends) that are really into military machinery - especially historical stuff. One whom I think is very aspie - has his house walls lined with old radio sets, especially WWII radios.

I agree with you Zeno. Alot of the trouble that comes with being Aspie, is most NTs ignorantly assume if you can't see a disability it must not be there. So even if you tell them you have Asperger's Syndrome, they'll just say something childish in response like "You look normal." It's kind of like explaining how air can exsist, without you seeing it, to a 3 year old. Where as Nick 14 has a visible disability, so if he does behave out of sorts it's looked past by others.

nice!

I have this problem twice, Once with being an aspie, then with my dyspraxia.

What I did when finding out was that I researched all I could about it, meditated a lot on the meaning of it, and told my friends to help me learn to live with it.
Also I try to learn as much as possible about NT behaviour by researching simple psychology, social situations, and by asking friends.
I have set out to actually be overly tactile, touching people whenever I have the chance (not inappropriately, of course), and being open about my feelings, not being afraid to share them.
Since they all know my problems, they know I didn't mean to offend anyone if I for example hug someone for too long or say something weird.
It's better to say "I love you" one time too much than one time too few.
And I need to take time-outs. People know this.
At a party or something, I will step out of the room or go for a walk or something.
I spend a lot of time in meditation to clear up my mind.
You should make sure to make time for yourself too.