04 Feb 2011, 12:59 pm
In terms of social understanding, there's no doubt that I've made a massive improvement.
When I was younger, I had next to no concept of empathy, no clue of how to handle socialising on those rare occasions when I actually had an interest in pursuing it, no ability to 'read' people or appropriately modify my behaviour in differing social situations, and very little grasp on non-verbal communication. There was a gradual improvement from the ages of 9 to 12, fuelled partly by intense observation of NTs, and partly, I suspect, by maturity.
These days, my social skills, taken superficially, could probably be classed as 'almost NT' 
, though that doesn't diminish the fact that these skills did not come intuitively and without effort.
04 Feb 2011, 3:37 pm
08 Feb 2011, 2:37 am
15 Feb 2011, 12:28 pm
God, yes.
Also a discussion board on the internet really helped me. It was like, wow...this is how people think! There were some people from the UK and the rest in America, and it was pretty small. If I reread my old posts from when I first started going on there, I sound seriously bizarre!
I suppose it's an all round amelioration, although those lovely sensory issues are determined to stick around. I'm better at blending in. I always tried to, but it still came out weird- the Aspie version of NT 
I'm not so bothered about being weird anymore, less than the average person, whereas it used to be a massive thing for me.
25 Feb 2011, 2:15 am
A lot. When I was very little I walked on my toes and had echolalia. For some reason I suddenly stopped that. When I was in elementary school I used to have 15 minute long monologues. I also had a lot of anger problems and I didn't care if I looked weird. In middle school I obsessed over fitting in. Right now I;m not trying as hard as I was in middle school. Right now I'm obsessed with not talking about my obsessions. I think that's my most ironic obsession.
