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My story - How I overcame most of my autism symptoms

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Fino said:
So all you're saying is that you're no longer significantly impaired by your autism?
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No. I'm saying I learned enough that I am no longer socially awkward and understand people very well which makes socializing much easier and more enjoyable. Those are core symptoms of autism so it's a big deal. I'm not pretending, masking, or coping - those were real changes.

I still have all of my strengths, nonverbal impairments, sensory issues, prefer sameness and routine (but no longer distressed by change), and have less interests than most people (but can be spontaneous and enjoy other activities). I'm still slightly affected by the other social impairments listed in the DSM-5. In one sense, you could say I still have the same symptoms I did before. However, that would be misleading because the severity of some of those symptoms has been greatly reduced to the point where I'm almost indistinguishable from my peers. Again, that's without masking or coping.
 
Oh, well that's all basically true about me too, so that makes two of us! I never thought of it as that big of a deal though, and I'm still autistic. I got that way through tons of exposure. And alcohol helped me practice. Good for you!
 
So you learned to stop masking? And... there's a lot of questions here because you're claiming to have changed your entire neural structure. I used to think similarly, but it was just because I was put through behavioral modification SO EARLY in my childhood that I wasn't even aware I was masking. I didn't discover I was masking until I ran into so much trauma that I got autistic burnout, and then I couldn't mask anymore. I still can't mask in a lot of ways that I used to. That burnout happened when I was 35, which is the average age when it happens to those of us that have lost touch with our autism. I really don't recommend that kind of heavy masking because of it. Many of us don't survive it when we finally break from that, and all of us (as far as I'm aware) walk away with at least one if not several chronic illnesses that get triggered by the breakdown.

With autism, it's not just a matter of whether you can change. It's also a matter of whether that change is healthy for you or shortening your lifespan.

I also do think a lot of people mistake comorbid mental health problems with autism, so when they start to recover their mental health, they start thinking they're not autistic after all (I've done this, too). While autism does tend to trigger a lot of other problems, at its core, it's just a different way of learning, socializing, and thinking. A healthy aspie can have a happy social life because they will seek out healthier people who compliment their neurodivergent nature as opposed to conflicting with it.
 
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FormerlyAutistic said:
You seem to really be bothered by my claims. I obviously can't read your mind but I think it's because you interpreted your parents' attempts to help you become less autistic as not accepting you for who you are which probably made you feel worse and my claims are reminding you of it. I felt the same way when my parents tried to help me when I was younger so I know how you feel if that's the case and sorry if my words brought back those memories and feelings.

However, I'm not claiming or trying to change any core autistic traits, personality, or anything that is part of who anyone is as a person. All I did and am trying to help other people do is to better understand themselves and other people with the purpose of making social interaction easier so they can fit in and belong (if they desire, nothing wrong with choosing to be alone.
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Why should I be anymore bothered by your claims than all the other similar claims I have seen for years? Like I said, you need to take a number and wait in line behind all the others who came ahead you with virtually the same story.
 
Fino said:
Oh, well that's all basically true about me too, so that makes two of us! I never thought of it as that big of a deal though, and I'm still autistic. I got that way through tons of exposure. And alcohol helped me practice. Good for you!
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While overcoming a little social anxiety due to mild AS wasn't a big deal for you, I'm sure you wouldn't say the same if you had more typical autism and recovered from it.
 
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Ezra said:
Why should I be anymore bothered by your claims than all the other similar claims I have seen for years?
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I didn't think you were. I'm sure they all bother you equally.

Like I said, you need to take a number and wait in line behind all the others who came ahead you with virtually the same story.
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Not even remotely similar.

You're basically calling me and everyone else a liar just because you don't understand. I'm happy when other people overcome their disorders. Not sure why you feel the need to discourage people.
 
rollerskate said:
So you learned to stop masking? And... there's a lot of questions here because you're claiming to have changed your entire neural structure.
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There is ZERO scientific evidence that those with ASD have a different neural structure.
 
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tree said:
Autism Spectrum Disorder: Autistic Brains vs Non-Autistic Brains
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Let's look at the first link:

"it is difficult to tell an autistic brain from a brain without ASD with enough sensitivity and specificity to prognose, or even diagnose"
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In other words, they can't tell an autistic brain from a non-autistic brain. If people with autism had a neural structure that was different than people without autism, they can't find it.

"“The changes in the brain are subtle and we mostly see them in the average across a lot of individuals because in single individuals, just the normal differences from person to person tend to be much more dramatic than the subtle systematic changes associated with autism"
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In other words, the differences between the average autistic brain and the average non-autistic brains is so minor that it's actually less than the normal differences between people. That's strong evidence against people with ASD having a different neural structure.

Do These Differences Impact Symptoms?
Most likely...it is hard to know
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In other words, subtle differences may have an impact on some symptoms or they might not because they don't really know.
 
tree said:
Autistic people have increased incidence of neurological problems
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Let's examine the second link.

People with autism have more brain-related health problems, such as headaches and epilepsy, than typical people do, according to a survey of twins.
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That could be explained by genes that cause autistic traits predisposing people to those other problems.

I find it particularly remarkable that our results are so clear in terms of confirming that [autism] but also autistic traits are associated with neurological alterations
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My position is that autistic traits are genetic but don't cause a disorder. It's only when a person born with autistic traits develops early maladaptive thinking patterns/schemas (EMSs) that he ends up with a disorder called ASD.

My experience in recovering from autism is consistent with what other researchers have found, "our results showed that people with autism spectrum traits tended to have no mental health problems when they had no or few EMSs. These results are consistent with the views of Baron-Cohen (2008) and Sugiyama (2011), who argue that ASD individuals in the absence of trauma or significant mental health problems can effectively no longer be considered to have ASD." https://www.researchgate.net/public...l_Health_Status_via_Early_Maladaptive_Schemas

The article you posted showing the same neurological alternations in non-autistic people with autistic traits shows it's the autistic traits, not the disorder known as ASD, that is linked to neurological alternations. That confirms my experience and other research that ASD is the result of autistic traits + psychological problems. All of the research on brain differences in ASD can be explained by the fact that everyone with ASD has autistic traits.

To show that the disorder known as ASD is neurological, you'd have to compare the brains of those with ASD to those without ASD who have autistic traits. That is the only way to show the impairments beyond autistic traits are neurological and not psychological.
 
Yes, I expect you will explore each link and arrive at the same conclusions
you have espoused since arriving at this site.

There may be some other
people who look at the links as well.
 
FormerlyAutistic said:
While overcoming a little social anxiety due to mild AS wasn't a big deal for you, I'm sure you wouldn't say the same if you had more typical autism and recovered from it.
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No, I still have a lot of social anxiety. It's more like social retardation that I "recovered" from.
 
When did autism just become about social difficulties? This thread is just becoming increasingly confusing and nonsensical to me. Clearly, this person does not realize there are physical health problems that accompany masking too heavily. That's okay, though. Either this person got misdiagnosed as au, and isn't - which is AWESOME! CONGRATS! - or they're an autie in denial (like none of us have seen that before) that will eventually hit au burnout and go through the trauma of losing all abilities to act NT at all and needing a caretaker for a year, two, three, maybe forever. That's the OP's life, not ours. I really don't appreciate the OP coming in here and insulting people right and left just because they don't have the same life experience thus have not reached the same conclusions, which does not make anyone wrong here. Just different. And different is A-O-K.
 
The problem with believing that everything is a belief is that this doesn't let space for facts to exist anymore. Finding evidences to proove the earth is flat can work, unless you observe the facts. You can distord the facts telling people they do not interpret them the right way and the earth is really flat, people will tell you for your own good that, really, the earth isn't flat. Beliefs are a distortion of reality, we can't agree more about that.

I don't have evidence that emotions are a consequence of beliefs. I've seen babies not necessarily believing anything yet being emotional. I've seen people believing many different things, not necessarily positive ones, and be totally emotionless about that.
I have no evidence autism is based on thoughts. I've seen autistic people with low IQ still being autistic (no offense intended).
I have no evidence about how you rate yourself and the evolution of symptoms - is it according to facts and evidences or according to the beliefs you prefer?
I have seen no evidence that "overcoming autistic symptoms" was a good thing either.

I could continue like that for ages and it's boring.
To be honest, one day this cards pyramid you're building will fall down. I hope it doesn't hurt too much. But it's obviously not as solid as you want to believe it. You can keep on believing until reality comes back, everyone is free, but it might be more harmful than you think it is at the moment. I don't intend to be rude or something.

I do not want to start any kind of deaf and and mute dialogue, so this will likely be my only message about the subject. I do not necessarily want an answer either, it's not written in order to communicate, simply a reminder to stick with facts and reality, not beliefs and speculations. Although speculations, intuition and betting on theories can be genius some times, not questioning them seems doomed to failure.
 
Thanks for oversimplifying what I said. Facts require objectivity, scientific method, research, etc.... You're trying to establish a fact that did not previously exist. You've got your work cut out for you. So far, all I'm seeing is someone ranting about their personal experiences and telling anyone that says it's been different for them that they're wrong because YOU say so.
 
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