Growing our of your symptoms

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Pushing too hard can lead to mid-life burnout. I'm exhausted and it gets harder every year. I wonder if I'm going to make it through my degree and if there will be enough left of me to start a career after/if I graduate. It's a balancing act to figure out how much is enough and not too much.

I guess I don't really see 'symptoms' as what defines AS. Symptoms are all adaptive behaviours, whether they are stereotypical Aspie symptoms or not. I see AS as defined by how the brain works, and everyone will have different ways of expressing that, or compensating for difficulties. Some behaviours are simply more socially acceptable than others.

As I get older, I am more self-aware, so I have a choice as to what behaviour to use, based on what I judge will be most effective for me. I see that as having more control, and it being a good thing. But I am careful to decide what is best for me, rather than simply what society would preer - although sometimes what is best for me is what society would prefer. But it's about the motivation - rather than trying to fit in because I'm ashamed of who I am (which I sometimes did when I was younger) it's more about judging whether fitting in, in any particular situation, will be more beneficial to me than not, and how I can do that with least disruption to myself.

I agree it can be dangerous to overdo it. The rushed atmosphere of college and jobs really doesn't help....they're probably not good places for trying to prove you're NT. Personally I've always avoided anything too hectic for my constitution (and therefore accepted that I'll never be rich). Thing is, if you opt for a reasonably gentle lifestyle, you'll be more likely to notice when things are getting too much, and you'll have more freedom to take a bit of time out to recuperate. The rat race has no such panic button.

What I've currently got is as gentle as it gets other than sitting at home on SSI and that's stressful in a different way -- I can't afford proper food, I'm always late on a bill, my clothes are in rags. I just can't live on $600/month and still have a life that I enjoy having. And the prospect of dying in a squalid state-run nursing home like I watched my aunt do is too much to bear.

If I can't achieve an acceptable income level (and I'm really not asking for much) I may as well commit suicide to avoide the decades of suffering that lie ahead.

^ I agree - I need about $1000 per month (£700) to live "reasonably" well......and I'm shockingly frugal as well as having no rent or mortgage to worry about. There's also the problem that simply accepting low pay doesn't guarantee a gentle job, although morally it should - in fact I suspect that the lower the pay, the harder it gets in many cases.

Minimum wage over here is $8.59 per hour (£5.80), so $1000 (pre-tax and other stoppages) could be earned with about 15 days. The tax threshold is about $9500 so there wouldn't be much tax to pay....I don't know how much National Insurance you'd pay over the water, and of course there might be travelling expenses if you can't find work locally. So given that a full-time job is about 5 days per week, you might be lucky to scrape through even if you worked 4 days a week. That sucks. No wonder people throw sickies.

The trick is, find some place where you can fit in without having to hide oneself.

Which I've managed to do. And it's pretty nice.

I can relate to this.

For me, it's AS IF...I have to tell myself, "Okay, remember to give some eye contact," while I'm talking to someone. And then I tell myself NOT TOO MUCH so I don't creep the person out or something.

So yeah, some things I've gotten better with, but it still requires constant monitoring. It's not like it's completely natural. But again, everyone is different.

In my own case, I'm not going to say it's AS, per se. I mean, it's SOMEthing (PDD-NOS, Social Anxiety, Schizoid PD, perhaps AS)...who KNOWS? But I do have symptoms/deficits.

This is also why diagnosis on adults has been more nebulous - a lot of the traits are merely well-adapted to by adulthood. so only the truest experts have been able to determine how to approach adult diagnosis.

Beyond just looking at controllable encounters to intellectually develop a controllable response, how does one approach things in the "core" of one's personality that aren't actionable? How would I approach vicariously feeling what someone else is feeling so I can detect when it would be a good idea to use emotion-repairing strategies or when it would be over-reacting? A big part of the issue is not sensing the signals that most people would intuitively (without conscious deliberation), which throws you off in any unfamiliar scenario.

The symptoms I've grown out of are both explained by increased self-awareness
1. Picky eating - I still am considered picky by most. The difference is that I perceive I only feel like eating certain things at any given time. I've only just recently noticed how I do this, sort of auditioning food in my thoughts. I make sure to eat those things that I feel like eating instead of trying to force myself to eat something I won't be able to. I have a set of preferred foods I stick to, making shifts from time to time (as my tolerance tends to break down. Suddenly one day I just cannot eat what I have been recently).
2 Impulsiveness - This I view as a natural part of my adolescence. I've noticed the older I've gotten that I always get lost on focused details. My lack of big picture perspective throughout childhood explained most of my out-of-control behaviors. As I now see a longer view of my own personality, I've become more baseline, in control of the actions I choose, and more often finding myself the opposite of restless-- but come across very calculating, even intimidating to some. I've become such that I simply avoid action when I can.