Mixed bag of disorders?

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I have always heard people in the autism community talk about special talents and abilities they believe their autism grants them. Most of the time the talents I hear about are engineering, mechanics, mathematics, and anything computer related (don't hate me for generalizing). I felt cheated for just being odd and not having a talent, until today, when I figured out what mine is.

I have always had an uncanny ability to take on and understand peoples personalities at will, through reading about them or simply being in someones presence. I don't mean mannerisms and superficial things, I'm talking about full mental processes to the point that I become a shadow of them in a sense. I have always done this and I use this talent in my every day life. I can be around a person for 5 minutes and start picking their brain apart and take on whatever part of them I choose, I know I sound insane. This is why I am able to talk to people easily, I just create a mask to hide behind and do my talking from behind cover. I do it constantly with everyone I know, to achieve goals, influence outcomes and perceptions etc. I am an amazing liar, I am horribly manipulative and controlling which my psychiatrist says is rare in ASD. I know we all crave control in our own way, but apparently my kind of control goes down a darker path. I have been diagnosed with ASD, but also (mis)diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder. If it's just an Aspie skill that I have, cool, but I do wonder if it could be AsPD pretending to be Autism or co-morbidity.

My main purpose for this post is to see if anyone else here has this ability and may have insight. Sorry for getting sidetracked at the end there. If anything post your talents or areas of interest.

I don't understand the whole thing about Aspies being bad liars. Maybe most were never given cause to practice and become good at it?

I was in kindergarten, a few weeks before Christmas, when I found out that Santa Claus isn't real. I realized that my parents had been lying to and manipulating me for years, and that apparently all parents do this. So I reasoned that lying and manipulation aren't actually bad, but people with power (like parents) will tell people without power (like kids) that they are bad, so that they stay powerless and subject to the manipulation of the powerful.

I honestly don't think I ever told a lie before then, but I got to practicing right away after.

A good skill to have you could be very successful lol. You probably have autism and psychopath traits but in reality nothing is so black and white and you can improve and learn more always; someone could build a new personality and become almost a completely different person if they wanted to and worked at it over time.

I went to school with someone diagnosed with AS at a young age who was a very good liar (although, arguably I was very gullible - others had trouble too, though).

They weren't very expressive with non-verbal communication (tone of voice, body language) so it was extremely difficult to tell what was true and what wasn't.

I know I don't fit the math/science stereotype.

I definitely think its both, autism being neurological and the antisocial traits being learned from the not so fun parts of my childhood.

Lying and manipulation are very useful and powerful tools, I just don't have a toggle switch for friendly fire. I don't care who gets hurt or who I lie to or about what as long as my goal is achieved, but I don't actively seek out people to hurt.

Do you have any special area of interest or any talents?
I know that a lot of Aspies are bad at math and hate science, I hate that generalization.

True psychopaths are the way they are by nature because It's a neurological condition, just like autism is a neurological condition

Not to say one can't be born with both unique neurological conditions. psychopathy and sociopathy aren't actual diagnoses either, Antisocial Personality Disorder is the only "recognized" diagnosis.

First, just because something isn't a 'recognized' diagnosis doesn't mean it doesn't exist. There has been decades of research showing that psychopathy (not sociopathy, no one seems to agree on what sociopathy means) can be reliably identified and is a unitary construct.

Second, as of DSM-V, ASPD's criteria have been rewritten so that it now refers to psychopathy, instead of generic conduct problems. And they added a subtype of conduct disorder with callous-unemotional traits (another word for psychopathy). So although they don't call it by that name, psychopathy is definitely present in DSM-V.

We know...

I wasn't disputing the term "psychoparh" I was stating what the actual diagnosis was called, on the off chance people wanted to dispute the differences....being preemptive failed me.