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How do you "pay your way"?

I Sperg

It's fairly obvious that Autism adversely affects one's ability to be a "nice and popular human being".

(Otherwise we wouldn't have to do "masking"!)

For those of us who's doctors express surprise (whether warranted or not) at what we have been able to achieve in life, how did we do it?

In 1995, I got depressed, took a course of prozac, and in an amost unique in my life occurence, immediately decided to give someone some physical payback for a couple of months of psychological messing about/bullying that they had been handing me. Prozac made me dangerous on that and another occasion in a way  

As one of the "friends" that deserted me during that time told me, "people have been putting up with you for a long time, now you have finally gone too far" which confirmed what I had long suspected, I needed (and was consciously providing) to bring somehting else to the party other than my sparkling personality, in order to be "acceptable".

In short I'd realised in my late teens I needed to "pay my way" or be a hermit, semi-subconciously, and had evolved a protective mechanism, (which at it's peak made me a very popular little person indeed, but failed eventually, when people (including myself) stopped focussing on fun and started doing more grown up things).

I've since replaced it with a system based more on honest & mutually productive interactions, which has the bonus of requiring me to deal with far less people on a daily basis. 

What particular things do YOU do that you know make people value your being on the planet?

I'm hoping we can find a grab bag of instantly useful things that will help struggling Autists to improve their lot.

Parents

  • I'm certain that my autism does not prevent me from being 'nice' and somewhat 'popular', though it does limit the amount of time that I can engage in socialising. As long as my limits are not stretched too much, I can treat people as I would wish to be treated myself. I was told by a friend, when I informed him of my autism diagnosis, that he always thought of me as individualistic and both engaged and engaging. He is in many ways the polar opposite of me, a professional actor, and very extrovert. We have known each other since we were 14 years old, so opposites sometimes do attract.

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  • I'm certain that my autism does not prevent me from being 'nice' and somewhat 'popular', though it does limit the amount of time that I can engage in socialising. As long as my limits are not stretched too much, I can treat people as I would wish to be treated myself. I was told by a friend, when I informed him of my autism diagnosis, that he always thought of me as individualistic and both engaged and engaging. He is in many ways the polar opposite of me, a professional actor, and very extrovert. We have known each other since we were 14 years old, so opposites sometimes do attract.

Children
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