Life skills, things that work for you

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I am interested in hearing about positive experiences and successful strategies.
If you have overcome obstacles and had positive experiences, how did you do it?

In general, I use my cognition to overcome difficulties.

Nice to have a general purpose tool like that!

Any examples of how?

For example, in a CBT sort of way, I know that my anxiety about many situations is always worse than the reality and if I can just begin the damned thing, it will probably go OK. Learning how to put these thoughts into action at the moment of anxiety has really helped in many situations.

EDITED to add:
I am thinking also of another thread in which you advocated getting a job and talked about the many benefits that came to you from that change.

Last edited by Adamantium on 24 Jul 2014, 10:14 am, edited 1 time in total.

I use a considerable amount of "reality testing." Yep...probably along the lines of CBT.

I also "reward" myself if I perform certain tasks. I also think about future "rewards" for present acts.

I'm a great procrastinator. If I worked as hard as many people did in college, I would have had a 4.0 GPA instead of a 3.8.

As for"getting a job," it transformed me from dependent victim to viable man.

Sorry for being so laconic and terse.

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 24 Jul 2014, 10:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

I always try to tell myself:

Don't use autism as an excuse for your transgressions.

I also try to impart an autistic viewpoint into a situation, without referring to specifically as an autistic viewpoint.

You're a graphic artist--have you ever used your visual sense to cope with things? I, myself, enjoy art, but cannot produce it. One of my main regrets.

I can agree with you about my autistic viewpoint but I believe my friends deserve to know why I'm weird. There's no reason to lose friends making excuses, better to continue life with accountability; less transgression, more forgiveness.

One could be totally accountable (and honest) while being artful about it. It's not "lying by omission" to not refer to an alternative viewpoint as that viewpoint. Its the task of the recipient of the viewpoint to discern its "autistic-ness."

I wonder if Temple Grandin, while she was selling her inventions to skeptical agricultural interests (before autism was well understood, and before she was famous), referred to her viewpoint specifically as an "autistic" viewpoint.

Last edited by kraftiekortie on 24 Jul 2014, 10:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

I enjoy working freelance despite its' perils because it lets me concentrate on people who matter to me. Reward in my mind is a simple matter of how much kindness and/or peace I can bring to bear among my friends at this point. Everyone I know works long hours for little pay. As I'm no exception, I'll tolerate basically anything except losing people, for any reason. For me, people are still less confusing than programming any day of the week.

Yep....People are pretty confusing to me, too.

I'm a data-entry operator (fortunately). I can socialize with people on my own terms, primarily because I'm good at what I do. My abilities offset my "weirdness."

Yes, it is well known that I'm weird at work. I'm the "court jester" of the office, with a smattering of "village idiot." Court jesters were trusted by some kings because these kings knew what lied underneath the humor.

Survival at work, really, is knowing how far you could go.

I've been written up a few times for my weirdness. Then I stop for a while. Then people see me for what I am, while in "restrained" mode. Then when I act weird again, don't get written up again because I am able to convey my usefulness to my employers.

It's a matter of being able to skirt fine lines.

My life was enhanced immeasurably when I stopped drinking alcohol. Looking back on those years, I mistakenly thought alcohol helped me cope, when all it did was make me less aware of and less responsive to whatever was happening in my life, as well as aggravating the depression that dogged me in those years. I also stopped abusing myself with drugs, which NA enabled me to recover from.

The lifeskill that replaced substance abuse was clarity - being able to think again with a crystal clear mind, to see things much more acutely and realistically, and that helped me to develop the courage to do the things that I had been frightened of doing previously, and to relate to both myself and others in new and much more positive ways.

Looking back I see how I used substances to drown/numb the pain of feeling a misfit - not knowing I was on the spectrum during those years.
These gifts of clarity and awareness did, to a very great extent, set me free to live a life that suits me and provides some happiness.

I too drink less than I used too, luckily however I actually enjoy parties. Detoxifying the body is really important to anyone, I remain a crazy hippie but I've long since learned my limits. People tend to, so learning to drink with the best of em' I must admit has done a lot for me, alcohol needn't just be an intoxicant, brewing is art too. I can take or leave the beer, just some hop tea works miracles for my autism symptoms.

To live the Kerouac lifestyle these days, you have be as rich as Kerouac became after he published "On the Road."

No matter how much Horatio Alger is discredited these days, I still believe the Horatio Alger idea is powerful.

One thing that really worked for me in getting respect and making MONEY was learning to ALWAYS keep my agreements with other people. If you agree to do something, ie meet someone, finish a project, go to an event with someone, purchase something by a certain time, then that is a CONTRACT. If you always keep your agreements with others then the world begins to really trust you.

(If you are not going to be able to keep an agreement with someone you must let them know BEFORE... and apologize.)

This is really good advice. Trust is one of the most precious things.

I did not know I was on the spectrum until less than a year ago. I was a female growing up in the southern U.S. during the '50s-60s, which means there was a lot of forced socialization that was, mostly, excruciating for me because I was a typical blunt, literal Aspie - which does NOT go over well in the "genteel southern poor" society I was part of.

The fact that I was so uncomfortable (and inept) with socialization made me aware that I needed to improve myself in that arena, so I spent a lot of concerted effort pushing myself out of my comfort zone, researching body language and nonverbal signals, spending entire weekends (on occasion) watching classic movies to figure out how people were "supposed" to behave in public.

It helped me to "fake it 'til I make it." Even though I'm still pretty darned antisocial by choice, I don't stick out like a sore thumb anymore (most of the time) in general, and I do enjoy the company of a few close friends who I can almost completely "be myself" with. Mostly, however, I enjoy being alone the best. The difference is - I'm now *okay* with being alone. I no longer feel like there's something wrong with me because that's my preferred state.