What's noteworthy about your ASD?

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Write down what you think are unique or noteworthy behaviors, sensations, or other phenomena associated with your specific version of autism spectrum disorder. I was wondering how differentiated people on the spectrum are, and this will hopefully illuminate me.

On my side, I find music to be distracting when working, as I tend to focus on interpreting the sound more than my work. I also sometimes create music or art in my mind, but not by choice; it just happens spontaneously. I'm not sure what causes it, or even if it's associated with autism specifically, but it seems noteworthy.

See previous postings.

Posts by you specifically, or in general?

My ability to see details that aren't necessarily, noticeable or visible to others, and retain them in my memory, serves me and others, well.

I lament my LACK of ability in this area.

I sometimes wonder: if my mother had just left me alone in my autism, would I have developed "special abilities?"

When I put together engineering projects, it seems lke daydreaming instead of thinking. It feels like I run a fast motion movie in my mind. All of the details are there and all I have to do is capture them on paper.
It works the same way when I encounter problems at a project site. I simply run though movie after movie until I find one with a happy ending. It happens in a few seconds, My technicians are used to me rolling my eyes up into my skull and zoning out before I provide an answer. I watch the them work and imagine them doing thier tasks in different ways, or with different tools. If my ideas seem better, I ask the technicians if they are feasable .
With electronics, I look at the schematics and imagine watching the electrons run an obstacle course. Where the pile ups and crashes happen, is the place the circuit is broken or needs modified.
I wish my social skills came as easy and naturally as my work skills.

Thanks, Britte. I appreciate that very much.

I sense you have an exquisite sensitivity which sometimes feels overwhelming to you.

My task is to understand, better, the precise of this sensitivity in individual people, and help them utilize it to their advantage.

I agree, Kraftie, you bring a lot of knowledge and positivity to these fora, it's much appreciated.

Getting back to the original question:
For myself, there's a couple of things I can do but I'm not sure if they're autism-related or just result from years and years of practice.

One is, I've read so many novels and internalised so many plot patterns, that nowadays I struggle to get more than halfway through a book. A few chapters in, I can see the rough direction of the plot, and by halfway I've worked out what's going to happen at the end, which spoils things somewhat. After that, only a book with outstanding writing or descriptions is going to hold my attention. On the downside, it's frustrating to have lost the intense interest in reading that I used to have, but on the upside, this understanding of plot structure has enabled me to write novels of my own (if not yet to a publishable standard).

The other thing can be illustrated by something that happened at work last week. I went to inspect a landslide restoration site which I designed. I took at a look and realised it didn't look exactly as I saw it in my head, so they got the surveyor in to check and found they'd got the angle wrong on the excavation. None of the contractor's staff or inspectors had noticed this error, which I could see immediately, but I'm not sure if that was an autistic thing, or because I have a lot of experience interpreting contour plans, or just because it was my design.

Whatever the reason, it felt good to be able to do something that others couldn't, for once

^^ This is the sort of thing which enabled Temple Grandin to invent all the things she's invented.

An ability to see things that many people can't see. To visualize it. To dream about it. To see the minute details which can make the difference between greatness and catastrophe. One degree of angle either way.

I don't believe autistic people are "superior," over all. To believe that would be absurd.

However, there are some things which some autistic people can do, which many neurotypical people cannot.

Fortunately, people who were in farming, and the architecture of farms, could see Temple Grandin's genius, and were able to "get around" her "eccentric" ways. Adjust to them.

I feel it would be of benefit (to all of us) if other people could "adjust" to us autistics like those farming people adjusted to Temple Grandin.

I saw this documentary on the BBC IPlayer related to Asperger 'superpowers' , the only thing I really took away from it was how invisible her Aspergers was , she appeared perfectly normal to me which is what the majority of people say to me - so the noteworthy thing about my ASD is it is not really noticeable externally I suppose

One frequently feels that one has to "put one's best foot forward" when one is being filmed.

We don't know what goes on "behind the scenes."

This is really a good, positive thread---worth a bump.