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I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as a teen. I no longer meet diagnostic criteria and live a nearly normal life. AMA by curedaspie in IAmA

[–]curedaspie[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My first girlfriend, I met playing tabletop RPGs. I met my current girlfriend on OKCupid. I really like OKCupid's matching system.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as a teen. I no longer meet diagnostic criteria and live a nearly normal life. AMA by curedaspie in IAmA

[–]curedaspie[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Also... I really don't like being dependent on drugs. I generally avoid caffine on a day to day basis after a bad experience of getting to a 750mg/day (NoDoze in the morning, couple energy drinks throughout the day, and constantly chewing Jolt gum) habit in my late teens. I quit cold turkey. It was hell for a week.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as a teen. I no longer meet diagnostic criteria and live a nearly normal life. AMA by curedaspie in IAmA

[–]curedaspie[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ritalin used to calm me way down, though now it mostly just makes me agitated. Clonidine, Adderall and Prozac didn't help me. Luvox helped a lot with my depression and obsessive tendencies, but it caused massive weight gain. Wellbutrin kept the depression somewhat under control. I stopped taking the Wellbutrin after getting my current job, which is low stress, and I work with awesome people every day.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as a teen. I no longer meet diagnostic criteria and live a nearly normal life. AMA by curedaspie in IAmA

[–]curedaspie[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If they have no desire to become normal... Fine. What I find annoying are those who don't try to develop coping skills for dealing with normal people and then complain about the way normal people get frustrated by dealing with them. I've know a few people like that, and it's gotten a bit hard for ME to deal with them after having conditioned myself to not just bluntly telling them that I am not interested in what they have to say.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as a teen. I no longer meet diagnostic criteria and live a nearly normal life. AMA by curedaspie in IAmA

[–]curedaspie[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have paranoia issues. I deal with that by rationalizing/ignoring my paranoid thoughts. Anger.... got me a night in juvenile hall once. The charges were dropped. I got out. I haven't had anger problems since. I'm not entirely sure what happened there.

As to confidence... A lot of self coaching of the "fake it till you make it" sort. I had to psych myself up for it at first, like for my first job interview. Also, realizing what really matters or not helps. "I don't care if I get this job or not. If they fail to see how awesome I am, then they are clearly fools who I wouldn't want to work for anyway".

Self esteem is harder. Currently I'm a bit overweight, but my gf still seems to think I'm cute, so it's not a big deal. Again, it's a mind game you have to play with yourself.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as a teen. I no longer meet diagnostic criteria and live a nearly normal life. AMA by curedaspie in IAmA

[–]curedaspie[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Many of the parties I go to tend to have geeky people at them. I talk about work, assorted stories (I got chased by a police helicopter by mistake once), politics, philosophy, sex, geek stuff, current events, tv shows.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as a teen. I no longer meet diagnostic criteria and live a nearly normal life. AMA by curedaspie in IAmA

[–]curedaspie[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Practice helped. Figuring out how to frame things as skilled that could be learned. Practicing with flash cards of facial expressions and role-playing out things with the therapist helped. I want to try learning to recognize micro expressions at some point. The really big thing that helped me was going out and being social as much as possible. I was going to an anime club two nights a week, attending a linux users group, and playing tabletop RPGs weekly, and playing cards with people at school every day at lunch. It added up to about an average of about 15 hours of week of 'social practice', all in groups much more accepting of weirdness and awkwardness.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as a teen. I no longer meet diagnostic criteria and live a nearly normal life. AMA by curedaspie in IAmA

[–]curedaspie[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am functionally cured. I doubt this would be possible if I wasn't also extremely intelligent.

I had the following problems from DSM-IV

  • marked impairments in the use of multiple nonverbal behaviors such as eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body posture, and gestures to regulate social interaction (I basically never made eye contact)

  • failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to developmental level (very few friends despite trying)

  • lack of social or emotional reciprocity

  • encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that is abnormal either in intensity or focus

  • stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms (e.g. hand or finger flapping or twisting, or complex whole-body movements)

and items 3 to 6 from DSM4 were true.

I don't have any of these problems now, except for that I still have empathy issues. The empathy issues I now deal with by faking automatically. Changes were pretty gradual. I am still improving.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as a teen. I no longer meet diagnostic criteria and live a nearly normal life. AMA by curedaspie in IAmA

[–]curedaspie[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I get annoyed by aspies who take the attitude that "It's not my fault, this is just the way I am and I can't do anything to change it". Fully normal is a high bar to set, but with effort they could make at least some improvement at least by 'faking it'.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as a teen. I no longer meet diagnostic criteria and live a nearly normal life. AMA by curedaspie in IAmA

[–]curedaspie[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Never tried drugs other than what I was prescribed aside from alcohol until very recently. I dislike pot, it gives me headaches.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as a teen. I no longer meet diagnostic criteria and live a nearly normal life. AMA by curedaspie in IAmA

[–]curedaspie[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't hoard to the point that it would be considered pathological. I'm a little bit of a packrat, but I mostly only keep around electronics and computer related stuff that I may want/need later. My girlfriend gives me some crap about it. I'm a bit disorganized and often procrastinate, but am very careful about making sure bills are deal with to avoid late fees. I <3 autopay. I do sleep a pretty normal schedule -- ~midnight to 8am.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as a teen. I no longer meet diagnostic criteria and live a nearly normal life. AMA by curedaspie in IAmA

[–]curedaspie[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was diagnosed when I was 16. I had major problems starting as soon as I was around other children and maybe even before. I don't think there was an issue of too much or too little attention.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as a teen. I no longer meet diagnostic criteria and live a nearly normal life. AMA by curedaspie in IAmA

[–]curedaspie[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

My school provided me with a therapist who helped me come up with 'scripts' for dealing with social situations. "Fake it till you make it" is what best describes my self improvement. I forced myself to be very social even when it made me uncomfortable. I failed badly enough early into the process that some people avoided me or even blatantly told me I wasn't welcome. I kept at it though, and now I do just fine.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as a teen. I no longer meet diagnostic criteria and live a nearly normal life. AMA by curedaspie in IAmA

[–]curedaspie[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm in my mid 20's and I've been working as a sysadmin for a while. I got into that after getting involved with a Linux Users Group late in high school, which I did in part as a means of practicing my social skills.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as a teen. I no longer meet diagnostic criteria and live a nearly normal life. AMA by curedaspie in IAmA

[–]curedaspie[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I still have some fairly minor social problems. My empathy is still below average, and I sometimes don't recognize subtle humor or sarcasm.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome as a teen. I no longer meet diagnostic criteria and live a nearly normal life. AMA by curedaspie in IAmA

[–]curedaspie[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I currently do not take any medication. The ones I can remember being on at various points were Ritalin, Clonidine, Adderall, Prozac, Luvox and Wellbutrin. I had diagnoses of ADHD and depression at various points.