What do you think could happen?

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5 years ago i was a lot more normal but when i found out i might have AS when I get to 17 according to my brother that is when my behaviour got worse.

Obviously as well i have lot more pressure to deal with as an adult and maybe the stress is making the aspergers worse. I am saying this because last night my dad said to me "Your getting more ecentric as you get older"

So great in 5 years time i am going to end up being an oddball social outcast

I think the problems do sometimes get worse as the world begins to dump more and more adult expectations onto the list. Out goes clarlty. In comes the need to read body language or to know the right response to complex social stuff.

On the other hand, your bro might have just gone and undermined your confidence, and if you take it too seriously, you could make it a self-fulfilling prophesy. I don't think there's any special age when everything goes wrong. Just that the step-up in expectations can sometimes be sudden - e.g. going to a new school. I went through a bad dip when I was about 11 - seems to be linked to puberty (the sexual imperative is a massive social challenge) and changing schools. But hey, I survived, and I didn't even know I had AS. There was a lot of failure and humiliation but it never got me down for long, I was always back with another wacky plan to get a girlfriend or something.

Main thing is, Aspies are learning animals, we usually make a lot of mistakes when we're starting out, but we learn from them and slowly we grow.

Yeah i know socalising is VERY hard for me.

This might help you--

"Help! I seem to be getting more autistic!"

You should scroll down to the "learning you are autistic" section, but it's quite likely that other parts of the article will be relevant as well.

I intensified my autistic traits upon diagnosis, myself; most of it was letting myself do things that I wanted to do but knew were "socially unacceptable". However, though I looked more autistic, I also became more functional--no longer spending a lot of energy on looking normal was letting me get more things done.

I am sorry but why would i want to appear more autistic? People are not going to want to associate with me if i behave like that and I will end up with no friends.

I know they say "Be yourself" but when it comes to having aspergers sometimes you just have to fake being normal because acting "yourself" is a death sentence. I guess it depends what your goals are in life and you have to be someone your not if you want to have friends and good relationships. If you don't give a s**t about that then by all means let your autisim shine through.

Self fulfilling prophecy. You think you are x, y, z, so you subconsciously begin to act more in line with the qualities of x, y, z.

I went through a short phase of being 'more' autistic after my self identification.



I've never been killed for behaving in an autistic manner (so far). So not necessarily.



What 'you' are is is variable. You are not the same 'you' that you were at birth, or at 10 years old. There is no fixed 'you'. 'You' is mutable. I don't know about 'you', but 'I' like to take control of who or what 'I' am to the full extent 'I' am able to give myself the most satisfying life experience 'I' can. That's not not being myself, that's changing myself for the benefit of myself and others.

All that i am saying is that if i want to keep my friends and not be lonely i need to conform overwise i will be an outcast.

aspergers really is a living hell sometimes

Can be.

You have to identify what you can change to make things better.

You will have to observe some social rules if you don't want to be lonely. You can still be you and work within that framework. I can follow most social rules without losing the essence of myself.

It's a bold way to go, and not everybody goes that way. You'd likely annoy some folks by allowing yourself to be yourself, but sometimes it's a good thing to repel those who are still judgemental or prejudiced enough to believe that any unusual behaviour is a sign of inferiority. It creates more space in your life for meeting with the right kind of human beings. Who needs people around them who are going to be down on them for just being harmlessly eccentric? It could be more of a problem in the world of work, where you can get walled up alive with the employer's random selection of co-workers. But with an official DX, it's a lot less likely to get you into trouble.

For a long time I've tended to see the world as a having few people in it - the ones who would like me pretty much as I am. The others to me are just animated bits of meat who get in the way. I don't say I never adjust my behaviour, but I'm damned if I'm going to burn myself out making judgemental types fall in love with a false projection of me.

Some Aspies work hard at "fitting in," others prefer to stand their ground and to see if they can be loved for what they are. I suppose for most of us it's a compromise.

there is that nagging self doubt voice in my head saying to me "You have aspergers you can never change"

I don't want to be an ecentric person i just want to be down to earth. The problem is the more you think about it the worse it gets.

What do you mean as well by 'harmlessly ecentric'?

You can believe the voice in your head, or challenge it. Subject any claims made in there to a rigorous investigation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eccentrici ... ehavior%29

Basically it's just doing anything that mainstream society doesn't do, or vice versa.

In particular,
Psychologist Dr. David Weeks mentions people with a mental illness "suffer" from their behavior while eccentrics are quite happy.[6][7] He even states eccentrics are less prone to mental illness than everyone else

I don't see it as being the same as being down to earth. In fact I think mainstream people are often further out in space than I am. I see eccentricity as a higher state of being, unfettered by the restrictions of straight society. As long as it's harmless. The world would be a drab place without nonconformists.

Mind you, don't get me wrong. I'm still full of anxiety about winning the approval of people, and if I were in a room of people who showed that they disapproved of me, I'd feel hurt, even though I think they're all worrthless bits of animated meat who need to learn a bit of tolerance. The "be yourself" thing is more of an ideal with me.

Hmmmmm well i don't feel happy being ecentric so maybe its more of a mental illness thing in my case.

Well, that's a valid way to go. There are other people here who prefer to "fit in" rather than join the eccentrics. But I've no idea how to do that.....there was a time when I'd have tried, but I guess for me it was too hard, and I've been proud of my difference for so long now that I don't know any other way but to start with the assumption that I'm basically OK as I am.

I do think I handle stress differently. I think life gets more complicated. I have more things to keep together and the pressure to keep them together increases. The consequences of freaking out, checking out, or not functioning would get me in big trouble.

But social issues are still a huge problem for me and they do affect all areas. I interact with family, work people, neighborhood people and my life is much better when the interaction is smooth. I don't think I am more autistic but I am more honest; better able to discern what is 'required' and what is 'optional'. I do opt out of more 'optional' things because I need most of my energy for the 'required'. When my life wasn't this complicated, filled with real responsibilites I think I appeared much less tense in casual situations. I just don't have the desire to 'pretend' as much anymore because I'm already spreading myself as thin as I can go.

So I think I am not as afraid to show who I am ... I have AS and I struggle ... in optional interaction.