Someone who overcame the social struggles of Asperger's

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I have no affiliation to this and haven't even read it, but thought this might be of use to people here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2 ... he_social/

Social issues can be largely overcome. Other issues that run deeper and are less on the surface are much harder if not impossible to overcome. You can train yourself in a great number of ways to interact better with the world around you, to engage in small talk more effectively and to have others know what you mean in a clearer way. You can develop, through trial and error, a certain sense of charisma, people's skills and a good and infectious sense of humor. You can learn how to make someone else smile, if this does not come natural to you, how to break the ice and put someone at ease. How to read body language better and how to tell faces or expressions apart.

You can improve in every one of these ways, and as a result improve your social skills. That does not mean your problems will be entirely gone, or that some things won't still be harder for you then they would be for someone else. But largely, I do believe that it is possible to at least outwardly overcome the social issues typically associated with Asperger's Syndrome.

Evidence? Myself. I have taught myself to be quite social on occasion, to interact with other people in a way that makes me seem truly invested in their stories and make people like me and sympathize with me as a result. I have developed, over the course of the years, a certain form of charisma that I don't believe came natural to me. I've also learned how to get women fairly easily. Had I not invested a lot of time and effort into my functioning and how to improve it, I would not be where I am now in terms of social skills.

It can be done, but it is difficult. For some it easier then it is for others and you should never mistake "not displaying outwardly the traits of AS" with "cured of AS" or "NT", because it is impossible to be 100% unnaffected by autism. Yes, it may seem that way, but NO, it isn't. It's complicated.

The way I see it social skills deficits are largely because of sensory issues. Also the level of introversion and intelligence a person has plays a part too.

Sensory issues lead to social problems mainly because they completely overwhelm you, and make it hard to stay present in situations. And they also make you very irritable, which others recognize, and therefore want to avoid you. So you end up walking around being an anxious mess, and no wonder that social interactions go badly. Really being relaxed is the key to good socializing.

Introversion is a problem since people get exhausted very quickly in interactions, and therefore a good social performance is sustainable only for a very short time.

The more intelligent a person is, the harder it is to connect with people whose IQ significantly deviates from your own. When the gap of IQ is more than 30 points, communication becomes almost impossible, since both parties don't understand each other. Unless the more intelligent person has learned to come down to the level of the other person, which is very hard to do.

So in my mind addressing all those specific issues should be the first priority in solving social problems. Attempting merely to be an "actor" is going to lead to exhaustion very quickly.

In my experience meditation, mindfulness, certain medications (I have experience with bupropion (known as Welbutrin, Zyman, or Voxra)) all contribute in diminishing sensory overload. Thus social performance improves automatically.

Introverts need plenty of recharge time, but then again this coincides with the general need for aspies to "decompress"/destress alone with their special interests. Solution is obvious: Socializing should be short and goal oriented. If one wants a girlfriend then most of his energies should be spent on chasing that goal, instead of wasting his social energy on interactions that don't lead to his goal. And then plenty of alone-time between socializing ensures against burnout.

Intelligence issue: Trying to socialize with people close to you in IQ, also focusing on feeling with others when there is a significant IQ gap helps in order to have smooth interactions.

^ A therapist's poster client.

Learned to fake it to fit in and function.

You can only train yourself to lie and deceive others into thinking you are having a good time socializing for the end result of gaining relationships based on a lie and then you need to keep the lie up hoping that when the person finally discovers the real you they will be already too emotionally invested in you to not leave.

There's an old axiom about how you don't really know your partner/friend until you live with them and see them out of their social mask.

It's still the same 'How to modify your behavior to be more NT'. There is nothing wrong with that in my opinion but its not a cure and the autism is not gone. Its just been pushed more in the backround.

If it works for you than more power to you. But it might not work for everyone and we need to be able to understand and respect that.

Perhaps it works for very mild forms autism but it hasn't ever worked out that way for me. To me learning social skills is like putting on a mask.

I can learn and train to act like the person who represents the mask, but I will never become that person from the mask. I can change the way I act but I cannot change the way I feel. When trying it is as if I am controlling someone else and deliberately making choices and doing things I would not do just so others would accept me, it saps my energy and does not feel right. Others make choices because they inherently feel that way, but when I try to act social as other people do I make choices because I think I should act that way. Not because I actually feel that way. For me having to put on all these different masks and accompanying personalities for different occasions has only caused issues, it makes you forget who you truly are and can start manifesting into a dissociative identity disorder.

I am who I am. I am flexible enough to be willing to adapt and bend to accompany other people but I can only bend so far before breaking.

I can learn enough social skills to get by, hold my emotions in until I'm alone, and then have mini-meltdowns where nobody can see or hear me. Seems to get the job done to an extent, but I'm thinking it might not be the best way to cope.

I've overcome most of my social boundaries, but it wasn't easy. I think as I grew older, I just kept trying because I really wanted to have friends. I still have some awkwardness with how socialize, though I also think my connections to internet has helped in some degree.

However, that doesn't this method works for everyone either. I think social skills can be overcome though. However, it's not very easy to just be social because you want to be. Some have extremely severe social anxiety associated with AS, and even a simple hi to someone can cause them to meltdown or panic, which is understandable.

I can socialize but people still think I am weird or there is something 'off' about me...so I cannot act 'normal' and 'normally' socialize luckily I don't have to spend much time dealing with typical people very often most people I hang around are unusual in their own ways as well and sort of deviate from 'society'. Also I am able to learn things on an intellectual level like I know what eye contact is, why people do it and how normal eye concact looks but it still makes me severely uncomfortable and makes it impossible to focus on what is being said since then mental energy is going into trying to maintain normal eye contact........so much of the time with some social issues its like no matter how much I know or have learned on an intellectual level I cannot process all that information in real time situations so social akwardness/issues remain.

I do not think I have the ability to learn to act normal, but I certainly can much of the time act like I feel better or am doing better than I am for a time, but that is about it. Like I can feel like wanting to off myself and act 'ok' when people are talking to me, give automatic responses like i am paying attention while in my head I am just visualizing suicide.