Improving Asperger's traits?

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Hi there

I think there is something weird happening with me...
When I had earlier strong Asperger's, now I am watching myself how many of the symptoms are disappearing..

So..
- I have strong empathy and can put myself into someone else's shoes easily
- I am flexible, can adjust to circumstances immediately and changes are for me like a new possibility, new thing, something interesting, or I just accept them like oh, it just had to be like that.
- I have very strong intuition
- I'm just natural, primal
- I am not shy or socially anxious
- I can easily look people in the eyes and it's like I'm looking into their mind, I can see the difference between shine in the eye and that means for me like they are of an open soul, or not so open people.. so I am often looking in the eyes also because I'm interested what they are like
- I naturally look at people, only sometimes I forget about it
- I always know how I am feeling and I understand others feelings, and can feel how they feel
- I hate routines and am rather spontaneous, like "go with the flow"
- I understand metaphors and idioms well, even write songs...
- I understand jokes, it's rare that I don't get it at all
- I have good self-esteem and self-believing
- I get on well with people similar to me or open, understanding, natural people
- I know how to give and take, and I do it naturally, spontaneously
- I am an open person, communicative, although sometimes on just my specific way, but it is good
- I don't have a particular strong interest, I have many of them which are strong
- I can talk about just anything and can easily adjust to the spoken topic, although I have some favorite topics.
- I love to help people, I am kind and people say that I am sympathetic.
- I can be independent and learn everything just by intuition.. ("ok, so I have to buy it there, and do this there, coz...")
- If I don't know something, I ask about it without any shame or anxiety
- I like to meet new people, although don't like crowds.

Which Aspie features I still have:
- strong sensory sensitivity
- gluten/casein sensitivity
- different body language and not understanding others body language.
- good cognitive traits (talents, etc.)
- misunderstanding the system and typical unwritten rules (sincerely, it makes no sense to me)
- different motor skills (some little motor deficit also)
- thinking in pictures (although I can also communicate with music, feelings and thinking)
- problems with spoken language (worse auditory skills, different intonation and word use when speaking, repeating words or sentences, trouble translating the picture, feeling, music or mind language into words), although I speak well and am talented for foreign languages.
- mood swings
- stimming

Now the question is... I don't have trouble with flexibility and social skills.. it's weird.. for a whole life I had it, but now when I look at how am I like now, it's a different.. I can just be a bit of artistic type of personality... I gained intuition, theory of mind... it's a bit creepy to see that it's now here... and to laugh at jokes in which someone has trouble dealing with changes.. I can't imagine now how it's like to have strong need for routine and order and be out of sync when some change occurs.. to have an outburst, because plan changed.. I mean, I remember how it feels like, but.. I just deal with it... if a minor trouble occurs, I solve it fast, just by forgetting my own plan or something.. no trouble anymore.. I wonder how's that. And when someone describes trouble with flexibility and changes, I often tell "it's like looking into my past self, I can help you, but fortunately, now I am not like that anymore".

I really wonder, is it possible to have strong Asperger's traits through all life, and then suddenly that a change like that occurs?
I am not talking about being cured, I just wonder how it is true that the social symptoms or these of Theory of Mind can disappear.

Any thoughts?
I'm just curious

That's tremendous that you're making improvements and that you're consciously aware of your progress. All these things will serve you well over the rest of your life, and of course being able to more easily and comfortably adapt will go a long way toward being able to have a reasonably normal life. But I will caution you not to get over confident. When you've never been 'normal', it's kind of difficult to be sure when you're behaving 'normally'. Just because you've improved and seem to be fitting in better, doesn't mean others can't still sense something 'different'.

From 18 through about 35, anybody with AS can convince themselves that they're 'cured' or that they've overcome it. One can delude oneself into believing you're fitting in, when all you've done is make a few buddies (usually as odd as yourself) and found a SO or two along the way. The test is your job history. How many jobs are you going through and how often do you get fired?

How you feel you're doing is essentially irrelevant. You will learn some skills along the way. You will start to recognize signals and cues you missed as a child. That's called growing up. The test is how others respond to you - not the people close to you, but society at large. Do strangers accept you readily? Really? Are coworkers rolling their eyes at each other when you leave the room? How can you tell? When you're released from a job, does the boss use phrases like "Out of touch with the rest of the staff", or "We need a better fit" - or do they just tell you they're downsizing and it's not you, when you're the only one they let go?

I don't say these things to shatter your confidence or bring you down - but better to be aware of the potential realities now than crushed by a disappointing surprise later. In my experience, the brain doesn't magically fix itself. AS is (in part) a learning disability, but that doesn't make us incapable of learning - just a bit slower at picking certain things up - and we do learn a lot of the social graces that elude us as kids, we do get better. Whether we're subjected to Behavioral Therapy, or just beaten about the head and shoulders by life itself in the school of hard knocks, we start to pick that stuff up eventually and learn to cope with a lot of our deficiencies along the way. But coping is not cured.

Learning to recognize and even mimic nonverbal cues doesn't necessarily mean we ever master them all. Enjoy the freedom that your new abilities and skills will bring you. But always remember that you will never be one of them, or they will do the reminding for you. And it won't be pleasant.

anasthasia, it sounds like you're going through a growth period and good for you!

you're getting a good interchange going between skills and confidence.

Willard, straight up, on this one I'm not sure you're your usual perceptive self. This economy, this job market, depending on your field, 'normal' people have gone through all kinds of jobs. There is all kinds of injustice regarding jobs. When you think about it, why would a boss ever be anything other than a good coach ? ? Well, they're about ten thousand reasons! starting with someone's colossal ego. I mean, the boss can be a first-rate jerk.

Or what I'm learned in poker, you can go through a bad streak simply because of bad luck, nothing more, as an expected part of natural variance (and this is a big reason I don't recommend poker other than social skills). Even Doyle Brunson has slumps. The antidote is to play slightly more conservative until you regain your confidence. It's all too easy to play uber conservative or wild and reckless.

And sure, some of it might be skills. Okay, one job skill is to learn how not to overexplain. Okay, fine, I can learn to explain briefly. One more skill to check off. But I'm not going to think poorly of myself just because of a couple of crummy jobs.

That's a great skill! And often people are highly receptive (not always, for people are so complex--ourselves fully included!--that nothing always works)

and I love the branching out part, exploring new fields, and often this is how I can keep going with a growth period including over rough spots and set-backs

And I'd be curious what works for you as far as keeping good things going.