Posted: May 24, 2016 12:55 am
by tolman
My very best wishes for your future.

I have been lucky to find niches where I can use my strengths, have time to realise for myself who and what I am, and even luckier to find unusual friends who don't judge me but relate to me as another unusual human.
I do remember very clearly ~30 years ago making a tentative suggestion to seriously some close friends that I was 'maybe borderline Aspergers', to be met with by one of them with a rather surprised 'Borderline?'. It was a bit shocking at the time, and probably close to the limit of what I could cope with without reacting but he was a guy with a big heart but without many inhibitions, which was probably one of the reasons why I did, and still do, love him. Also, it was true, which made it somewhat easier, as was the fact that despite that being what he thought, he was my friend, as I was his.

While I've long ago given up trying to be 'normal', I have found the passage of time has made a huge difference.
I still find much social stuff mystifying or alien, and many social situations oppressive enough to at least need a breather every now and again. Even largely working on my own I still find I'm learning, and despite still feeling like something of an outsider and somewhat puzzled by why other people don't see what's obvious to me, I'm far more at home in myself than when I was younger.

There are a lot of good people out there, and those I have met seem to respond much better to me being me than me trying to be someone else.