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Are there any well-adjusted Aspies?

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I'm just wondering - are there many well-adjusted Aspies out there? People who just get on with their lives, have good jobs, have relationships, are happy? Who are aware that they are not like everyone else but don't dwell on it too much?

I guess that a web forum for Aspies is going to mainly feature people who really don't feel like they fit in and are having issues with coming to terms with that. But from what I can gather many of us had pretty miserable childhoods, and I wonder if having as happy a childhood as possible can help Aspies to grow up to be reasonably well adjusted adults?

Having to wait until you are 35 or 40 and for your Aspie traits to start to fade before you can be happy really does suck.
 
Yep. I don't care what people think and I am just laid back. I don't even worry. Though I am shy. I am getting a job soon I hope and I am happily married.

I wouldn't say my childhood was too miserable because there are kids out there who had worse childhoods than me. I guess I was just lucky to have parents who accepted me and loved me and tried to understand me.
 
I wish my parents didn't want me to change.


Isn't the very definition of Asperger's "not well adjusted"?


My boyfriend says he was okay socially by the time he was 20. I'm 22 now and took some pills when I was 19 that took away the social anxiety. I didn't have any more shame left and went a bit crazy. When I went off them the anxiety returned. I had it for a whole year, and what sucked was that that was the year Stan and I spent together and Lars was born. Now my depression and social anxiety are lifting. I have been back on meds for a long time, but the combination I have now is probably the best.
 
I had a miserable childhood, but at 21 am happy as can be. I am engaged, I am going to school, I have a couple friends, and I just found out I've been selected for an internship at the nation's capital next year. For some of us it's easier than others, but I think all of us can find our happiness, whatever that means to the individual. It just takes a lot of patience and effort.
 
I had a bad childhood in some ways, idyllic in others.
I do believe I am a much better parent then mine were and therefore my kids will be better adjusted than me,
because I will not stand in the way of their interests and I understand them.
Perhaps they will go through the same things in their teenage years as I did of, being the unfortunate outsider but they will always have my support.
I never had my parents support, they would just say when it came to the subject of friends, either > Try harder and proceed to a critical analysis of everything I do wrong, or then I'd get the, you don't go to school to have friends you go there to learn.
I think looking back, in the end I figured option 2 was the better one. If only I had found all subjects as interesting or even been able to comprehend the necessity of some of them.
Anyway, I can't say I'm well adjusted, but I'm OK. I have no career.
I don't know what to do with my life career wise at the age of 34 and I have a big student loan I have to pay back.
I find communicating with people exhausting and annoying and very stressful (except on-line).
I have found love, though in a person quite like myself in many ways though with a very good career and who does not really struggle with people, but does not care to see any except for us (he has colleagues but no friends).
And I have my kids who are lovely kids.
I can always hope that being a more understanding and loving parent can lead to a more well adjusted person with AS, who hopefully can have a career in some interest they will be allowed to pursue.
 
I have become more adjusted since I joined the forum. I have learned not to give a toss what other people think which helps with the social anxiety. You've got to learn to get on with your life and stop trying to fit in. I have a few friends, and they know that I am different and they just accept it. I don't know hard things will be after I leave college though.
 
Well...my childhood was stressful and my teens were worse, I didn't get a good education...but...I'm in a perfect relationship and I'm going to be getting a good education and stuff. So...I'm halfway there.
 
First of all, I'm not officially diagnosed, just self diagnosed since a few weeks back, but I can't think of any other rational explantion for my being...me, so I'm about 90% sure I am. Got my first psychiatrist appointment this week in order to get professional testing. So I can't for now authoritatively give a value judgement on beind "well-adjusted". Not that anyone really can really.

But anyway, doubts on me having or not having Asperger's set aside, I do think I'm quite well-adjusted. Either that, or my current environment and friends are very understanding and supportive people. I have very loving and supportive parents, one of the things I am most grateful for in my life. To be honest if my parents had not been like that I seriously doubt if I would be still be alive today. Okay, maybe that's too much of a pessimistic, depressing view. I had a difficult time at school until I changed schools when I turned 16, but home was a safe zone for me. Higher studies at uni are hard for me, but I finally passed my first year, now in my second, and I hope I can continue on to third next year. I've got friends now, very loyal ones too. I do slip into depressions easily, and then I start doubting the "realness" of their friendship, but I think that, if people don't stop at calling once, and keep calling, and won't take no for an answer when asking if you want to go hang out...I guess I should interpret that as them being genuinely concerned about me. New people are only really a problem if I have to face them on my own. I've found that, when in the company of my friends (some of which seem like born naturals at this to me), I easily befriend people. I don't know if they're doing this conciously or not, but sometimes they seem to bend conversation over to a subject I can at least say something about.

I guess the only two aspie traits that still bother me and profoundly interfere with my goals in life are the social anxiety when without the company of my friends, and the panic attacks when something unexpected happens, or when my routine is broken. I guess a third would me being 22 and never had a girlfriend in my life, my first crush (rejected) having been last year. But I've learnt to cope with that by remembering this: being single is hardly the same as being alone. Not that it doesn't bother me anymore but meh, what can you do. It's all chemistry isn't it?

I guess that I should get some book, or cd or whatever on body language and facial expressions though. Not being able to interpret those still bothers me. Vocal fluctuations less, because of my fascination with language.
 
My childhood was quite happy and normal. A little bit bullying happened at the end of primary school and junior high school. Only a little bit luckily. From there on my life has been quite good. And its going for better all the time. At first I hate the fact that I had aspergers and I thought it made me a worse person. But in time I got used to it and know I totally accept it and live in peace with it. I am happy.
 
There seems to be a theme that having supportive parents is a big help in being a well adjusted Aspie.

That makes a lot of sense, and is kind of reassuring.
 
I think I'm pretty well adjusted... since I've moved here, to a place with tons of social people who expect me to be the same, I've been forced to learn social skills the hard way - on my own, through interaction, without any actual teaching. Over time I've become more at ease talking to and interacting with people, on my own. But it was worth it... I'm happier now and I don't get in trouble as often as I used to.
 
I see myself as being pretty "well-adjusted" overall. Parts of my childhood were difficult, but I think at least part of childhood is rough for just about everyone regardless of their neurological wiring, so I try not to dwell on that too much or feel bitter about that. I had some more pronounced "Aspie" traits when I was younger (I can recall saying and doing things that people thought insensitive or inappropriate and not understanding why they had such a problem with it, having lengthy one-sided "conversations" with people about my obsessions, etc.) that I would say that I've mostly grown out of or at least learned how to keep under control. I do ok in most social situations, it's just that I don't seek out social situations to the same degree that others do, and nobody is ever going to call me "the life of the party." I've had problems with depression and anxiety, but I feel like I'm emotionally in a better place now than I was in the past. I'm currently figuring out how to find a suitable job/career and a new social "niche" after finishing college (it's too bad that college seems to be one of the few "havens" for Aspies in modern society), but I try to stay optimistic about that. I think that, in some ways, Aspies have a somewhat steeper "learning curve" for life than most people, but it's no reason why one can't be "well-adjusted" or accomplish the things they want to accomplish in life.

As I mentioned on the "Introductions" board, I just recently received an official diagnosis, so the "Aspie identity' is still something new I'm trying out. What the psychiatrist I saw told me is that if the "Aspie identity" is something I find useful, I am free to embrace it, and if it's something I don't find useful, I'm free to throw it out. I'm still uncertain as to whether or not the "Aspie identity" is something I'm going to adopt beyond this early, tentative phase, but right now I see it as having potential as a useful piece of mental "software" that I can use to better understand parts of myself. Right now, I see the Asperger's diagnosis as the best explanation I've ever found to the question "What is the thing that makes me a little different from most people?' I don't look at myself as being defective or as having a disease but simply as having somewhat different neurological wiring, sort of like being a "Mac" or a "Linux" in a "PC" world (it's so hard to discuss this stuff without using computer/technology methaphors!). I'm not waiting for a "cure" for this condition, and even if there was, I don't think I would want it.

I'm currently reading the book Look Me in the Eye by John Elder Robison (recommended to me by the psychiatrist I saw), who grew up a couple of decades before much of anything was known about Asperger's and didn't receive a diagnosis until he was 40. If you want to read about how an Aspie figured out how to have a good, "well-adjusted" life even if he had to go through some pretty rough periods to get there, I would recommend it. I think he also does a good job of exploring how so many of the ideas out there about what's "normal" and what isn't are pretty arbitrary when you get down to it.
 
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