Knowledge isn't empowering?

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Do you ever feel like you did better with your "weakness" (social skills and having relationships in my case) BEFORE you were fully aware of your issues? I thought I would start doing better once I started addressing my issues and trying to fix them, but I'm starting to feel like I did better with friends when I had no idea about them.

I can't personally comment about this, but to utter a well-coined phrase, ignorance is bliss.

I don't think I did better before. I just didn't realize how things were.

I'm second guessing myself a lot more. Maybe you're trying to fix things but don't know enough how to fix them? That's how I feel. I know must be doing it wrong but I don't know how to fix it. I wish there were practice classes or something. I can actually do small talk, but I can't push forward to anything more. That bothers me more now that I know my issues. But there's no going back to ignorance.

Yes, that is a sign that you're learning. An unfortunate side effect, but a known phenomenon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2 ... ger_effect

So the better you get at something, the more you realize you have to learn, and the worse you think you are at it. But your actual skill level is steadily improving.

Experts--those who are much better than most people at a skill--can usually judge their skill levels more accurately.

I wonder if this is part of the reason why social anxiety is so much more common in relatively socially skilled autistics.

No, I did much worse and had to work on myself a long time with a lot of help from a very few friends before I could pass for normal. I wasn't dx'd until my 40s and by then acting the way I do now is just habit. I just thought I was selfish/eccentric/crazy/weird, etc. from time to time about some things. After I found out what was wrong with me it was an "aha moment" and explained stuff to me about myself. I've been fine socially for a long time before that, but this just helps me understand why I'm the way I am about some things. I've had to find my own way to relate to people and it seems to work out ok for the most part and when it doesn't I usually don't care.

Finding out what you do wrong socially is the easy part of it. Learning to do things differently and then actually doing them that way is the hard part. But it gets easier and easier the more you practice and eventually, after a few years, it becomes second nature. I couldn't fake shy now if I tried. I lost the shyness and awkwardness but I'm still not always appropriate and still sometimes don't see that until much later.

An embarrassing realization, that all those years you thought you were passing for fairly normal, all the NTs in the room were smirking at each other behind your back.

I just have to roll my eyes at the Aspergians who become convinced that they've "cured themselves" of their autism and are perfectly "normal" now. Yeah, you'd like to think so, wouldn't you? Problem is, you can't see yourself the way others see you - it's part of the disorder, that we have a hard time imagining what others are thinking or how they view things that's different from how we see them.

(and you can't take the word of your friends, because they're so used to being around you, they've gotten used to the quirks that make strangers see you as odd - besides, the very fact that you've developed a friendship with someone is a fairly good indicator that they may be somewhere on the spectrum themselves, or have some other neurological miswiring)

Sadly, it works the other way, too - neurotypicals usually cannot fathom our point of view no matter how well we articulate it. That's the very thing that makes one feel like you don't belong to this planet, or it's culture(s). You think you're speaking the same language and yet no one can understand a thing you're saying.

I agree with OnPorpoise, Callista, OliveOilMom and with Willard. (I always agree with Willard.)

Further proof of the Dunning–Kruger effect: I actually thought that I was the one among my peers who was especially gifted at reading people and the one with the high emotional intelligence. I even thought that when others took offense at me, it was because of their own psychological issues and immaturity.

Boy, was I wrong.

Then I had an intervention of sorts and hit rock bottom. Then I got my diagnosis.

It was quite shocking to me. But now I know my reality. I am emotionally immature and terrible at reading people. I'm getting some CBT to help me learn how to behave in an NT world. It's essential for me in my profession. I'll never be "normal." But now I know my truth.

It's been very hard, but also very freeing.

Well, when I said pass for normal, I meant as normal as possible but still a little off. I just know what my weaknesses are now and I not only acknowledge them, stay on the lookout for them, but warn people about them.

a lot of problems tend to stem from normalisation of behaviour.

What is normal for AS people is actually normal for AS people. When AS people try to act in a non-AS way, this can cause problems for some.

Don't pathologize your behaviour- it is, after all, normal for you. Learn where you differ and adapt but don't try and act to a version of normal that isn't you….you can only keep that routine up for so long until you start needing meds or a lawyer.

know yourself, know what you do and please don't tell yourself it is wrong……it is AS.