After trying to change, I know now people with AS can't

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pbcoll
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27 Aug 2008, 4:23 pm

I think Greentea is the only one talking sense here. You can learn to mimic behaviours, but in my experience in the end this fools no one. Perhaps the borderline cases can learn to function sufficiently well, but the more severe cases will never fool anybody.
I've been trying to improve my socialisation for most of my life and what have I to show for it? The 'friendships' I have been able to get are essentially worthless, disposable, pointless apart from warding off loneliness; relationships - only ever been in one, the outcome was enough to disillusion me. I've been out with people, trying my best to be sociable, only to be told to my face that I'm the quiet-loner-killer type. If that's all I've got to show after years of trying, then I must accept that it isn't going to get much better, and that I will never achieve th things I want socially.


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JohnHopkins
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27 Aug 2008, 5:58 pm

Xanderbeanz wrote:
right ok, i'll just let you wallow in the hopelessness of it all...i wasn't saying try to become like a reality tv viewing airhead...but it's possible to get over lots of the AS traits (my score goes down every year) and you can meet some nice friendly people and have a happy life.x


Truth.



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28 Aug 2008, 2:12 am

liloleme wrote:
Hi Ken

I think at our age its hard to find someone be you AS or NT or whatever.....However I did manage to find my husband 7 years ago and with three kids in tow. It is possible to find someone you can relate to....dont give up.


and I envy your husband very much.
live long and prosper.


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db05
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28 Aug 2008, 6:17 am

pbcoll wrote:
I think Greentea is the only one talking sense here. You can learn to mimic behaviours, but in my experience in the end this fools no one. Perhaps the borderline cases can learn to function sufficiently well, but the more severe cases will never fool anybody.
I've been trying to improve my socialisation for most of my life and what have I to show for it? The 'friendships' I have been able to get are essentially worthless, disposable, pointless apart from warding off loneliness; relationships - only ever been in one, the outcome was enough to disillusion me. I've been out with people, trying my best to be sociable, only to be told to my face that I'm the quiet-loner-killer type. If that's all I've got to show after years of trying, then I must accept that it isn't going to get much better, and that I will never achieve th things I want socially.


Same.

I am now really convinced I am a borderline case. I had been fooling everyone, even the doctor long ago who ruled out autism. But I can't fool me. The people I know, including friends, do not reduce the feeling of being different. I had one relationship, he was different, wasn't NT either, but it didn't work out. We could understand each other in a sense, but all we had in common was that we were weird. I guess we didn't know what we want, we just knew that NTs have relationships and maybe we should too. But maybe we don't really need relationships like NTs do. Maybe having a special skill or hobby is enough.



pbcoll
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30 Aug 2008, 8:19 am

Take body language, for example. No human being can consciously, deliberately adopt the right body language every waking instant, and consciously remember to make eye contact, and consciously use the right tone of voice, and pay attention to the content of conversations when their rules have to be learned rather than be followed instinctively, etc. By own body language is odd, non-NT etc - I am not deformed so I can consciously, deliberately mimic NT postures, movements, etc, just as I can make myself make eye contact. But I cannot keep track of all these things all the time, so my instinctive, spontaneous body language comes out soon enough - and it is non-NT, hence I don't fool anyone for long. An NT with poor social skills could be, for example, advised to make more eye contact, and because it's something fairly natural for them, he would soon do it without thinking, at least well enough to be within normal range. Because these things are mostly not instinctive for us, many of us can't function socially like NTs for long. It's a spectrum, so mild cases may have enough social instinct to manage, but many of us won't, even when we consciously know the rules.


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30 Aug 2008, 8:57 am

KenM wrote:
I keep having reltionship issues. Alot of it is due to my AS. I keep trying to change my point of view, how i act, attitude. I keep coming back to my same way of thinking and all that.
God wants us to stay this way alone and miserable. Don't try to change, accept who you are, a person with AS that will always be alone. I'm just coming to accept it now after 40 years of trying to be someone I'm not.

To the other people with AS, don't go out, try to interact socailly as little as possible, don't think it will get better because it won't. God made us with AS and he wants us to stay miserable and unable to properly interact social with real people.


You're wrong on several points here:

1.) People can change. Even people with Asperger's. Change isn't easy, but it can happen. Some people have an easier time while others don't.
2.) God has nothing to do with this.
3.) If you want to be alone and miserable that's fine, but don't drag others down with you.

I've made a lot of changes in my life. We're they the right ones? Some of them were, but some of them weren't. I'm still making changes. It's not easy. I've spent a good 20 years of my life trying to escape the nightmare that I've been living. Some of it has gotten easier. Some of it has gotten harder. I'm still as lonely as I ever was, but that's because I haven't been blessed with the opportunity to meet the right kinds of people. In fact I've had many of my opportunities in life stolen from me before I even had the chance to recognize that they were there. I've spent a lot of time complaining about things too. I know it does me no good, but when you've felt as helpless and as useless as I have it feels like that is all you have left. But I've made progress since then and I've been able to do something about some of the things in my life and I don't feel as helpless as I used to.

Basically I'm trying to show here by using my own life experiences as an example is that life can be hard, but as long as you don't give up then there is still hope.

One of my biggest mistakes was jumping into action before having identified the obstacles in my path. I spent a lot of time running in circles and getting nowhere until I finally realized that I was approaching situations the wrong way. You might just need to take a step back and take a good long look at things before you can start making progress.


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KenM
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30 Aug 2008, 12:49 pm

Ningyou wrote:
One of my biggest mistakes was jumping into action before having identified the obstacles in my path. I spent a lot of time running in circles and getting nowhere until I finally realized that I was approaching situations the wrong way. You might just need to take a step back and take a good long look at things before you can start making progress.


I've tryed looking at things from different perspectives. Tryed different approches. Always the same results. Nothing changes. God wants me to be alone and miserable. Why should I keep trying if I'm going to be shot down all the time?

"your a good friend but thats all"..... Thats going to be on my gravestone.



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30 Aug 2008, 2:19 pm

Your depressing me KenM so I'm going to start ignoring you, from everyone here you can change but you have to put effort. And stop blaming God, I hat it when people blame him. Hes not going to help you.


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30 Aug 2008, 4:01 pm

I agree, if we all had a strong desire to, we could change. To some degree we cannot help the way we are but that is to SOME degree. We are under the spectrum and will always be..but that should never be used as an excuse. Its very possible for those under the spectrum to make their lives as good as it can be. Change is really hard, especially for us.. but it can be done.


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30 Aug 2008, 4:27 pm

Have you changed who you try and interact with? You can't expect to get along with your average individual. They're too busy trying to become normal and avoiding those who aren't. It takes people with exceptional understanding and caring to be able to deal with people who are different from themselves. Those kinds of people are rare. I still haven't found a group of people who will accept me unconditionally for who I am.

I have a problem putting masks on and keeping them on when I'm with various groups and various individuals. Eventually something that I was trying to keep to myself will reveal itself and what was once a comfortable situation becomes uncomfortable. People who I thought might become good freinds abandon me and I have to start making friends all over again. Making friends and keeping freinds for me is not easy. It gets real lonely after a while.

I used to really want to have a girlfriend. I used to be really desperate about it. My desperation in itself was one of the things that kept people away. Things haven't really worked out because part of my problem is the types of women I usually come in contact with. I got tired of trying to connect with people I'm obviously not going to form any connections with. At the moment I'm no longer looking. I'm not going to waste my time. Does it mean I've given up? No. I'm just waiting to meet someone who's worth putting the effort into. Where I live most of the women are the kinds of girls you'd find in Hollywood or on Girls Gone Wild. A few of the nicer girls I've met were smart enough to leave this city and go elsewhere. Unfortunately I never got the chance to know them before they left and since no connection was formed I wasn't given the opportunity to stay in touch and get to know them better. That's life. It can be very cruel sometimes. That doesn't mean that it's always going to be cruel, sad or painful.

I've also found that if you try to hard in matters as these you can actually harm your chances instead of improving things. I used to make that mistake all the time. Another thing I used to do wrong? I'd try different things, but made the mistake of leaving an important obstacle in place that prevent me from achieving any positive results becaus that obstacle would taint the outcome. Everything I tried to do differently didn't work out because basically nothing I did was actually different so long as this one unidentified and unmanaged behavior would keep interfering. That's why I said you might have to take a good long look at yourself and your situation. This includes not just your behavior or way of thinking, but also the people whom you chose to interact with.

And again, leave god out of this. You're just making excuses. From what I keep reading it's youthat wants you to be alone and miserable. If you want to give up, that fine by me. I don't like wasting my time attempting to help those who don't want to be helped.


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30 Aug 2008, 7:05 pm

I've also been able to change a lot over the last 5-7 years. In my experience you can overcome many of the "drawbacks" of AS. You can learn to socialize to the point that many people will think your just a bit shy but normal otherwise. I have a difficult time talking to strangers at the start but I can do so well enough they think Im a normal guy.

Thats just in my experience though.



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30 Aug 2008, 7:36 pm

Learning to read Braille, use a white stick and employ a dog is not the same as seeing. There are some things that an Aspie doesn't, and will never see. We're blind to these things, so it's possible for some to just pretend these things are not there, since they can't see them anyway, and presto! you've changed yourself and now you are like an NT. Not. It's denial to claim that we are getting all the same messages that NTs are getting.

Sure, you can improve yourself with social skills and all, but the subtle subtext of social politics will always remain invisible to us - except for a small part which we need a lifetime of investment to decipher.


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30 Aug 2008, 9:13 pm

Greentea wrote:
Learning to read Braille, use a white stick and employ a dog is not the same as seeing. There are some things that an Aspie doesn't, and will never see. We're blind to these things, so it's possible for some to just pretend these things are not there, since they can't see them anyway, and presto! you've changed yourself and now you are like an NT. Not. It's denial to claim that we are getting all the same messages that NTs are getting.

Sure, you can improve yourself with social skills and all, but the subtle subtext of social politics will always remain invisible to us - except for a small part which we need a lifetime of investment to decipher.




And that means we have changed because we have learned over the years. I am not in denial.



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30 Aug 2008, 9:55 pm

Ningyou wrote:
And again, leave god out of this. You're just making excuses. From what I keep reading it's youthat wants you to be alone and miserable. If you want to give up, that fine by me. I don't like wasting my time attempting to help those who don't want to be helped.



I have tryed doing different types of things with different people. Same stuff happens. God is the one making me alone when i try not to be alone.

Don't judge me unless you walked a mile in my shoes. I've tryed for 40 years and have nothing to show for it. I'm very frustrated, sick of it all.

I'm trying to help out other people with AS. Letting them know how it really is and to not get there hopes up like I do.



30 Aug 2008, 10:00 pm

Fortunately, lot of us have succeeded. Got married or got a boyfriend or girlfriend because we had found someone who accepted who we are. Took me three tries to find a guy who doesn't expect me to be like all the other women and he isn't needy like the other two were.



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30 Aug 2008, 10:20 pm

Spokane_Girl wrote:
Fortunately, lot of us have succeeded. Got married or got a boyfriend or girlfriend because we had found someone who accepted who we are. Took me three tries to find a guy who doesn't expect me to be like all the other women and he isn't needy like the other two were.


Three tries is a few. You are quite lucky. It is rare to find someone who accepts you for who you are, even for NTs.

I think I understand what KenM is trying to say. Normal people have relationship problems, too. For us, it's 10x harder. Almost impossible to find someone. I'm not saying it's impossible, though.