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azbluesgal
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28 Sep 2010, 4:40 pm

ScottyN wrote:
The OP needs to know that AS is a developmental disorder which you are born with. You cannot be outgoing and sociable as a younger person and "develop" AS symptoms as you reach a certain age. It does not work that way.

maybe the OP was just intelligent or compliant enough to "pass" until puberty. I agree with Another Alien about his theories on ASD/ADD - whatever.....it's just a label.... it does not solve the "problem"... come on you know what i mean.....THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM THAT EVERYONE IGNORES.. :oops: :roll: I was so sheltered back in Temple Grandin's day that being a little "weird" as a kid was not noticed, especially in a small rural environment. The problem is now, and we are all here to help one another, not impose any set of social constructs. Besides, in my humble baby boomer opinion, the world in general sucks a lot more than since I was a kid. It's not getting easier to deal with stuff in this economy, but I try to send out some good vibes when I am out and about. peace, Zig



munky101
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28 Sep 2010, 10:58 pm

I understand where your coming from. I am 36 now and only after my son was diagnosed did my mother share that his behaviors were identical to mine at his age, did I even think about the possibility that I might be on the spectrum. in the 70's they were quick to call it ADD or ADHD if you were intelligent and/or extroverted socially. I have always been social but never have I been very good at it. my only real social successes were when I was in the Army and discovered how large quantities of southern comfort calmed the world around me down to were I felt half way comfortable. In retrospect I now understand this "social comfort" I felt was merely the sedative effects of alcohol. I am finding now, in my 30's, that since I am living the "family man" lifestyle and I am not the party boy anymore, I feel more and more uncomfortable around groups and crowds.



azbluesgal
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29 Sep 2010, 10:39 am

yeah, alcohol worked for me for many years. then it became really problematic. i know this makes NO sense to anyone but I have lost 50 lbs on hcg in the last year and it has completely reset my metabolism AND some of my brain functions after decades of abusing myself with "self medication". I have been "working out" for the last few months, even with a bad fall off my bike - and I feel physically like a teenager (most of the time). My symptoms - fight or flight, irritability, impatience..ect
at least I understand the neurology behind them and can "adjust" as needed. But Social Interaction without booze inside me is very different around people who are drinking. i'm going on a cruise in two weeks, and it's going to be VERY interesting. Zig



Friskeygirl
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29 Sep 2010, 11:34 am

I have heard of late onset twatspergers, not to say that this is the OP issue, its best to have a proper diagnosis as
aspergers is not like developing an autoimmune disease when your in your 30's. I think alot of people who start their
out lives normally are just victims of the age we live in, socially isolated agoraphobic cubical dwellers, it may seem
similar to having some of our symptoms, but its just not the same as being born with it, seems like ASD's are the
hypochondriac's choice condition for self diagnoses.



azbluesgal
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29 Sep 2010, 3:00 pm

hey just because i wasn't diagnosed because i'm in Grandin's generation does NOT mean that my childhood was "normal". And maybe being on Grandin's end of the spectrum, being the youngest with a stay at home registered nurse mother "socialized me" to attend school. But I've always been "different" since I was in grammar school, and high school was sheer hell both socially and academically. Please don't discount me just because I was NOT born after 1990. lol.... it really is an eye opener for me that aspects of my diagnosed ADD as an adult DO have very specific aspergers "characteristics". Zig



MalcolmsMom
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23 Jan 2011, 7:56 pm

RomanceAnonimo wrote:

The ability to effectively 'replicate' human behavior can be a factor for those that want to socially interact. The drain on mental energy makes it an important consideration to make on the part of the Asperger's person in regard to the extent to which they want to socialize, work, go in public, etc., because in exchange of exerting large amounts of mental energy on that behalf, there is often a pattern of becoming physically energy sapped, sometimes even physically ill.


This is a fascinating statement. In a nutshell, it is why my work/professional life has been such a mess.



twistyhead
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24 Jan 2011, 10:17 pm

Seeing as alcohol coping has been mentioned… does anyone go to AA… I have for 8 years. However I do not go as often as I used to and am having difficulty. I always had difficulty but was less aware of it, however after my diagnosis of ADHD and then Asperger’s Syndrome I am having even more difficulty as I do not get as much out of it, I cannot talk about AS. I did after all use alcohol as a coping mechanism. Has anyone else run into this problem and any suggestions. I take a sketchbook with me and sketch when I am in meetings, usually no one troubles me over that but one dude did last time and I ignored him but it did upset me. He was quite strange and was worked up over it. If he does it again I will completely shout him out.
Although I was diagnosed at age 58 in January of 2009 I never was normal, even though I used Facades to cope or fit in. I thought I was fitting in but I was always thought of as odd at best. So my best attempts at using Facades never worked anyway. I was just deluding myself, what else could I do anyway.



azbluesgal
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25 Jan 2011, 4:36 am

i am not sure what you mean by "Facades"... yeah, I am totally familiar with AA. :roll: my fascination and dependence on alcohol as a "coping mechanism" has a LONG history. But the big thing for me, is I FINALLY quit for good after 40+ years and NOT thru "WILL POWER" method that AA uses. i can't explain it fully here. but if you would like to PM me, maybe I could explain it to you. I am the happiest I have been in 50 years, because I finally put down my eating disorder too (my first addiction). OH also, I am "normal" body weight for the first time in 50 years, and don't have to worry about what I eat anymore.



Stevo1965
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19 Nov 2011, 12:03 am

I was a "little professor" which allowed me to fly under the radar through much of childhood. Many people took this to be an "outgoing personality."

With the higher expectations of social sophistication reaching and passing puberty, that no longer worked.

And then, with the complexities of adult life, it really didn't work.

So, although it may seem like a "late onset" what was really happening was falling further and further behind in an NT world.



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20 Nov 2011, 5:32 am

Quote:
No child knocks on doors to hang with older people.


Nonsense. When I was a child, I loved visiting my next door neighbours, who were then in their 70s. I loved talking to them and hearing their stories of what life was like when they were growing up.



Mummy_of_Peanut
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22 Nov 2011, 8:45 am

Until I was around 7yrs old, I was just as you describe your younger self. I was extroverted to the extreme. I then became very shy and was like that until about 6 years ago. I was never any bother to anyone (my parents still say I was a perfect child) and I performed well at school, so no-one saw any need to have me assessed for anything. I now believe that I was under the radar.

My almost 6yr old daughter is also extremely extroverted. When we go to a museum or park, she'll go up to other people and join in. She appears to forget she's with us. But, she also has obvious behavioural concerns and concentration difficulties (I had the concentration problem too, but no-one recognised it). Had it not been for the issues, I think I would be oblivious to the possibility of AS in either of us. She's on the waiting list for autism assessment. I don't know if she'll become shy and withdrawn at some stage (that's my dread). At the moment, she doesn't appear to care what others think of her. It might be that she's lower functioning than I ever was (although she's also highly intelligent), or, more likely, she just has the right attitude.

When I read about AS and realised that kids with ASDs are not all introverted, shy or loners, it suddenly dawned on me that AS was a very strong possibility. The extreme extroversion is actually quite significant. Perhaps, you're a little like us and became aware of your differences later than I did. I realised I was being made fun of and treated poorly. I'm pretty certain that's how my confidence became knocked and I withdrew into myself. In other words, if you do have AS, you've always had it.


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22 Nov 2011, 4:39 pm

For me, as a kid, I never got diagnosed with anything. I think people vaguely thought I was weird, but as a kid, I didn't care. A lot was probably the fact I went to a Christian school, my entire grade was 20 people, so I'd only ever see 20 other kids ever in all of elementary school. So, even if people thought I was weird, people were sorta forced to play with me. As a kid, I always loved talking to adults, I loved being around adults. The other thing, too, though, no kids lived in my street, and I'd only play with kids for 1/2 hour at recess at school, and they'd be again, those same kids. And as far as the rest of my NVLD, I had problems with math as a kid, but again, due to Christian school, the teachers worked with me well, since they're motivated to since my parents were basically paying their salary. But yeah, being brought up like that, yeah, people thought I was weird or whatever, but because I was capable, it didn't really matter. The big issues came up in public school, really, in public school, I kinda lost my moral compass compared to Christian school, as in Christian school, even if the kids were mean to me or whatever, the teachers would be nice to me, as they thought I was like, Godly I guess.

One thing I remember when I was a kid, I walked funny. Like, nobody's brought it up now, as far as I know, but I distinctly remember my sister's physical therapist or something giving me a lecture about how bad I walked. That, and teachers dissed my posture, too. The posture I can speculate was the "low muscle tone" thing. But, I remember one guy at a vitamin shop ended up giving me a lesson to improve my posture and walking, too, and he showed me that I should walk with a broomstick on my shoulders or something. I took slightly longer learning to ride a bike, too, BUT at the same time, I really wanted to ride a bike, so I'd practice like hell. That's kinda been the way it's been in my life, I've just had to apply myself like 10 times harder than a normal person to just do simple things like that.

But yeah, as a kid, everything was great, and I talked to everyone and I guess was quite extroverted, but then middle school and high school came, and life got terrible. Now I got like almost a decade worth of crap to fix in my life. It's hard, because now everyone sees me and thinks I should be in school and/or working to make lots of money, and to me it doesn't matter anymore. I just want to fix the specific things I see wrong in my life right now, and until those are fixed, I can't pursue the other things.

It's pretty not cool...



naturebug
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06 Jan 2012, 5:16 pm

DreamSofa wrote:
Quote:
No child knocks on doors to hang with older people.


Nonsense. When I was a child, I loved visiting my next door neighbours, who were then in their 70s. I loved talking to them and hearing their stories of what life was like when they were growing up.


I totally agree with DreamSofa, as a child I also would visit houses in the area to talk with the adults. I had more conversations with teachers than I ever did with kids my age, it just felt more comfortable. Even at family and other social gatherings, I would be chatting it up with the adults while the other kids were all playing together.

Though now that I went back and read the original post this quote comes from (buryuntime)... I can see their point. Normally, a neurotypical child would not be knocking on doors to talk to adults, I believe this is however, common for those in the autistic spectrum. So this might be a red flag for the person who started this thread....



Rewind
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15 Jan 2012, 2:03 pm

I don't think aspies are inherently non outgoing. Some of us withdraw later in life as a result of negative outcome from social situations. We are born aspergian but the resulting behavior can change with environment, experience and choices.



indiana
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27 Jan 2012, 3:50 pm

RomanceAnonimo wrote:
I read something that may be a good indicator for the OP but wanted to get other opinions about its accuracy before portraying it as a point.

It was, that a way to understand at least a part of what Asperger's Syndrome is - was to understand that people who are neuro-typical have a "social instinct" that enables them to have fluid social interactions, by giving them natural cues as what "to do next" during any social encounter. Whereas people who are Asperger's do not, but rather engage in a process where they must observe social interactions, collect information or 'data' in the memory regarding the experiences of social interaction, then reference the memory of that data in order to respond in a social setting, a net result being, that a lot of processing capacity of the brain is used in accessing and processing data rather than facilitating emotion.

Further, that it can generally be said that at least in this one regard of Asperger's, there is a clear and 'observable' distinction between neuro-typical and Asperger's individuals. It is the efficiency and accuracy of data access, and the contents of the data itself, that leads to relative capacities to socially interact. The less 'accurate' the socially responsive (or reciprocative) behavior is for an Asperger's person, the lower 'functioning' they are considered in regard to social interaction. The gist is that in neuro-typical people, the 'social instinct' part is really known as 'personality'.

The ability to effectively 'replicate' human behavior can be a factor for those that want to socially interact. The drain on mental energy makes it an important consideration to make on the part of the Asperger's person in regard to the extent to which they want to socialize, work, go in public, etc., because in exchange of exerting large amounts of mental energy on that behalf, there is often a pattern of becoming physically energy sapped, sometimes even physically ill.

What does everyone think about these assertions? Is it good information for the OP to consider?


Absolutely. Particularly the last but one paragraph. One can successfully replicate NT behaviour but it comes at quite a price in terms of physical stress.



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28 Jan 2012, 7:16 am

csuli wrote:
Hi, all. I'm 36, and as yet undiagnosed, but finally realizing the likely cause of that the outrageous social problems I've had over the past couple of decades. My question is this: My parents say I was a very outgoing child, and I remember as a kid actually seeking people out wherever I went, and never hesitating to engage with them. (But, then, maybe I was extreme on this scale, since as an elementary-school aged kid I would walk down the street and knock on doors to hang out with various housewives.) Not until my 20s did things take another turn, and I became "antisocial" and introverted, to the point of losing contact with most people from my past.

So, is this typical? I'm still trying to get beyond wondering if I'm just depressed...


Asperger Syndrome as the medical community currently knows it is something that people were born with, and if anything, the symptoms should be more severe and obvious in childhood, with traits slowly reducing over the next 2 - 3 decades with the development of more coping mechanisms and intellectual compensation.

There has been a notion called "Middle Age Autistic Burnout" where ASD adults put in a lot of effort to fit into a predominantly NT society, but find it cognitively exhausting, and then they slowly give up and can't be bothered anymore, superficially regressing to be much more introverted than before, and this may jeopardize their employment as well if lots of vapid NT-social interaction is involved. However they won't actually lose their verbal abilities, just that they prefer to spend much of their time by themselves, and only interact socially when it's really necessary.

There may also be the case that you are an Aspie, but you were outgoing when you were young coz you didn't realize how socially awkward you are and how many things you did that are now considered "silly" and "shocking" when you look back, and so you become much more self-conscious these days. Some Aspies also managed to make friends with some NTs in the past, but as they grow older, they realize that it becomes too stressful and tiring to maintain the friendship in a NT-socially-acceptable manner, so they slowly drift apart and become more "antisocial", as you say.