Recent diagnosis

Hi would be interested to know about the privateassment, I am 51 and been waiting on the NHS for 18 months. My wife and I have had long chats about my autism, she has learnt that me stacking the dishwasher wrong (i say i just do it diffrent!) and the like is not worth going to war over. We pick our battles and she now knows I am not doing things to annoy her, its just how I am. She is rubbish with money an dhas big debts so he has flaws too, we all do. Luckerly i happened to come across another guy who is similar to me and talking to him has helped. Talking is really the only 'cure' for this and you both need to move towards a happy place of compromise.

I wanted to say: Don't worry, be happy.

The worst is in the past - uncertainty about himself.

Everyone of us, most likely, was thinking about self as flawed, or broken, or something similar until diagnosis. It is like a manual break in a car for us I think, so he can spread the wings of imagination unrestrained now :)

I have read an interesting book last month (a gift from my friend) ''The curious incident of the dog in the night-time'' by Mark Haddon. It would seem, that explaining things, or figuring out 'how to' in own way, we reach the same conclusions, about pretty much everything. 

One of my special interests is ''Investigating a clueless copycat syndrom among NT's'' :P, and it concludes, that we are unable to copy others. Learning everything without that booster takes significantly more time, but it is worth it, we get better results all the time.

So just no pushing and upsetting and it will be fine at first and improving over time.

It's a battle that only unconditional love can win, I feel.

"Authentic and verifiable" LOL they just don't get how obvious it is when things don't add up and then how irritating it is until you can verify the "other truth".

It's a legal meme (I hope I'm using the word right, I don't fully understand it yet) that a good judgement leaves both parties slightly unhappy... In the world of normie/sperg relations that's about the best result you can get.

Although that result will hurt you slightly less, because normies seem to be good at ignoring constant minor irritations, (like govenrment that only exists to lie to you and take your money to kill foreigners abroad whislt dismantling everyting that was good about home, etc. that sort of thing. ) O>k. I used a hyperbolic example, but they really DO seem very good at the "eyes wide shut" thing from where I sit.

I can tell you, if you can find strategies that work for you to avoid getting irate with your guy, over the bloody annoying things he does, (Because he won't be able to change no matter how he loves you, and if getting love and acceptance back depends on him "just being a bit more xxxxx" he may make the same decison that I have in the past.

I got sick of having impossible demands extended as the "price" of love, (or even a "quiet life"), and withdrew into my own world. So many times, too...

Equally, your guy now has some tools too (starting with the "flashlight of insight") as people have been pointing in in the "what's good about Autism" thread elsewhere.

I'm VERY optimistic that us Autists can work together using the awesome power of individuals united in a common purpose, to make this work a little more truthful and nice to live in. Over and over again, in the posts I read is a call for "Normies to say what they actually mean" which reveals what to me appears an across the board autism trait an insistance on the reality in which we are all immersed  being "Authentic & verifiable". 

There are no "treatments" at the moment, however as many of the people here show there is plenty of opportunity to find better management techniques, at some point there may even be some kind of program but the struggle will be that no technique suits everyone. 

I guess its a lot of introspection a bit of reading round and when you know a specific issue ask what other people do. 

Personally I use a lot of scripting and rehearsal, spans of control, effectively I made the world around me safe.

Avoid the "spectrum" talk it lets people decide how much he's effected, much better to look at the traits and deal with them separately.

The other thing of course is being NT can be just as debilitating in a world set up around autistic traits, so you are going to have to accept that in making things easier for him you may make things more difficult for yourself. (hence the allegory of the longspoons)     

Well the only thing I’ve ever observed to improve my or other autistic peoples social skills is lots of social contact. That’s a painful way to learn because it’s typically learning from your mistakes and comes with a lot of drama.

more generally a lot of it is never going to go away and to an extent it’s about adapting the world around him to the autism. Autism has that in common with physical disabilities, the environment around the person simply has to adapt to their needs. The distinction is autism is a  hidden disability and even when you put a label on it people don’t really understand the needs that come with it. 

if he can gain enough confidence to get out there and start mixing with people it will greatly enrich his life and slowly improve his social skills … however in order to do that people are going to have to give him more latitude to make mistakes in interpersonal relationships and you may find your self, and he will certainly find himself, having to educate his peers about what autism is and why it means they ought to give him an extra margin of appreciation when he makes social errors or can’t adapt period. 

First the bad news: As my psychiatrist who diagnosed me at the age of 59 last year said: "There is no treatment".

It took me quite a while to get my head round the idea that I & my poor g/f are stuck with my limitations for the rest of my/her days... I feel guilty that I kinda sold her a me that was partly or mostly "mask"

BUT there's the good news. We instantly stooped having a number of stupid arguments. A combination of her realising I can't help certain failures combined with my efforts to reduce or apologise for those failures has helped our relationship enormously.

For you, your life with him will get instantly and progressively easier, if you want to stay with him, and for him, life will start to make a bit more sense, no matter how bad ones life appeared before diagnoosis, realising that you've got this far with one hand tied behind your back and a bllndfold on, yoru future HAS to look more rosy becuse you've lost the metaphorical blindfold.

I promise you, an Autist can be exactly the right person to have around in a crisis, or when things go "wibbly wobbly", but we are often very much the wrong person to vent mindlessly at, posing problem after problem, not expecting (or even denying the possibilty of) a solution.  

We don't exactly lack empathy across the board, (at least I don't!) but you don't often find it where you'd expect it. And he's probably very loyal and committed in his actions, traits which i might suggest seem to not be so often present in the normie community...

Hope that helps, with a bit of luck, you'll get some quality answers too, there are some wonderful people on this board, there really are!