I managed to shore up the weaknesses that mattered most over time and with effort. So I’ve actually become quite able to fit in when necessary while retaining my even more valuable and less common traits. And working on them too, as of course they are much easier to work on.

Most of our “strengths” and “weaknesses” present more as effort multipliers. It can be incredibly inefficient to work on a skill you don’t have the aptitude for, and is thus also quite uncomfortable and requires great expenditures of will power. But I have alot of time and a safety net, so I was in the uncommon position to be able to spend and more importantly recover that will power.

Not everyone is in the position to do so, and thus I can understand a desire to be more “normal”. Not to mention autistic people born with less useful positives and lacking aptitude in much more important aspects. But I personally am very glad to have been born the way I was. If there was a “cure”, I would understand some people wanting it, but I’m not the least bit interested.

I did try dealing with my anxiety through medication, but it just “felt” wrong. Like to me I just seemed reckless on the medication. I’m sure I would have eventually gotten used to it and it would have become my new baseline, but I opted to work on it the hard way instead. With alot of time and effort, I managed to sort of put a barrier between my anxiety and the rest of my brain. I still know exactly what my anxiety is trying to tell me at any given time, but it has less of a vote in how I choose to act. I feel alot better about it this way than just making it disappear. It did usually at least have some valid points, I just wanted it to only be one source of information and not have a controlling share of the votes in my brain, lol.