Are highly intellectual aspies different than other aspies?

Post Reply New Topic

That’s the concept I can’t seem to get.

Think about bowling. Think about the strategy you use to get strikes.

Bowling is not an intellectual activity. But the process you use to get strikes is mathematic and geometrical. You use an intellectual method to get strikes.

Getting strikes, in and of itself, is not an intellectual activity.

Another example. When I explain to people how my different personas work, I often speak of them very analytically. My personal personas which I experience are not an academic subject. They are personal expressions of myself. But when I speak about them, I speak in very analytical objective terms which are not emotionally based.

Ok it’s starting to make sense now.

hi new to the forum, new to self diagnosis, not good with blogging and a big step for me to talk publically like this. but I love the question as it meshes with a bigger question I have.
I am also very busy and so not a regular blogger. If I do not respond, nothing personal.

The diagnosis of autism is based on an observer describing external characteristics in common.
I fit the criteria but my internal world and experiences in finding ways to blend in don't fit well with the perception from those who do not have autism.
But as I have poured through the forum, I am reading about people who think and experience the world like me. Very rich internal world. Lots of emotions, lots of empathy, love where it matters- action, not the transient chemical response that makes you feel romantic love.

my point
I am being helped by a friend with autism who is also asking bigger questions like this.
What is autism and what is the product of society's reaction to it and our reaction to it?
Who am I minus all the negative thoughts in my head drilled in over the years?

and narrowing it to this thread
I think of Temple Grandin who said she would not have been able to pass Algebra. A modern day requirement she did not have to do in her day. If she went through the schools today, no diploma. not an intellectual anymore in the world's eyes. relegated to low pay. low position.
non autism, without technology and fame a mind like Steven Hawkings or any other mind written off such as people with severe cerebral palsy who cannot afford communication aids and resources. How would we view them?

Helen Keller. another brilliant mind locked in until the right teacher.

so I hold very loosely that I am different from others with aspergers/autism because I had a long term marriage (widowed now) and professional. I wonder how many would be more integrated with love and acceptance from the start, along with tools designed by us to achieve our goals. I know if they tried to fix me socially before I was ready to want it, it would have gone very badly.
I have seen great videos on youtube from this one Australian engineer who dissected social cues as an example of how we can help each other.

there are clearly some additional cofactors I see complicating peoples lives. some non autistic, some as part of the diagnosis. But is that person's mind just more locked in and we have difficulty connecting? is their internal world as rich or richer?


rambling on. Very excited to "meet" you all.
lots of questions racing through my mind. But beautiful spirits on this forum.

And I know the thread has moved to a particular discussion about the meaning of intellectual. This is a response to the original question assuming intellectual in a broader sense as people use it during casual conversation.

wow, this is the thread that doesn't end!

I do think that there is a social element here which is not being discussed: labels. People use labels/categories to understand each other and themselves, and will also temper expectations based on those labels. When a non-NT kid is growing up, at some point, they get split into one category or another in the minds of adults in charge of them. How early that happens depends on where the person lies on the spectrum and how much those particular adults care about attributes of normalcy.... but getting split into another category early on can be impactful, potentially either positively or negatively. I'm not going to sit here and talk about costs and benefits of mainstreaming vs. special ed for low functioning folks, because I have neither expertise not personal experience in this area. I suspect, however, that people on the spectrum that perform well in school settings don't get labeled the same way as those who struggle with school a little, or who are even average. This means that high school-performing kids on the spectrum will have higher expectations placed on them. That difference in expectation can be hugely motivating or discouraging. I've been on both sides of the fence on that, and I can tell you that I generally performed better in school when people told me I was "gifted" than when people called the way that I am, an "intellectual disability".

It took me longer than most kids, but I eventually figured school out. I guess you could say I couldn't get enough of it, since I wound up in grad school . Now I have a PhD and teach others. Am I perfectly happy in every way? No. Do I have a permanent job? No... but there were multiple spit takes along the way as people realized that I am actually smart enough for this job, and that kinda makes it worth it.

It's a paradox.

I WAS split into another category from a very young age.

But I was also given the same expectations as any other kid.

It was hard sometimes---because I sometimes didn't know why I was being punished.

I can relate so much to this.

One time, I left the kitchen a little messy. I was 15 years old.

My punishment: I was confined to my room for a week.

Luckily, I had my cat Zum Zum to keep me company. And a field trip to the Cloisters (in upper Manhattan) helped me to contemplate a sort of monk-like existence.

The desire to be a monk left me rather quickly---but the desire for virtue remained.

Welcome to Wrong Planet Upfromashes

That sounds awful. I think anyone would be confused by that treatment.

I never got locked in my room (don't think it was possible, I was an escape artist), but I too remember getting the distinct sense that I was being punished because people were annoyed with me more than my actually having done something I wasn't allowed to do. I remember my mom once got mad at the way I "gulped" when I swallowed. Instead of talking about it or explaining how I was supposed to not-gulp, she held a glass of water to my face and yelled at me to "quit gulping." Or how for maybe 6 months my chair at the dinner table got shoved in so hard it hurt my sternum -as a way of keeping me in a "normal sitting position" when I eat.

Hilariously, I still don't sit in a chair with my legs down. I think I still gulp when I drink too. I did learn how to hide it a bit though, at least enough to get the table off my chest and the water off my face.

I am strictly average in intelligence but other people keep telling me that I am cognitively above average. I can tell you I certainly don't feel above average, at least in that respect. my perseverations don't seem that much more involved than those possessed by other aspies I've met. bill gates' avocations [many people deem him one of us, albeit at the top rank] are a LOT more involved than my own. but mine are somewhat more complicated than at least some of the other aspies I've known over the years. I guess i'm somewhere in the middle-functioning range.

Labels in general are indeed interesting.

So are labels in relationship to specific groups whether they are within a family, job site or educational system.

In my early years I had the idea that questions were inappropriate.

In my 30’s I had a supervisor that literally wrote me signs

The first was slow down. The second it’s OK to ask questions.

Sometimes labels can keep me stuck.
I just made two shirts.
Both read Autism does not define you.

That is a sad story Kraftie.

If I could choose to live one more life I would definitely spend it living alone in nature somewhere... or as a wandering ruminating Sufi. I love pretty much everything about the life I have but it is a life where meditation has to fit in alongside living. I try and be the quiet calm centre for myself and everyone else. Sometimes I succeed. But I would like to feel, for a little bit, what it would be like if meditation was everything.

Someone I met when I was 18 taught me something valuable: Intelligence is the ability to make yourself happy. That has guided me to make decisions that might have appeared strange and foolish to others but that I feel led me to a happy life.

This stings for me. Before I knew my daughter was an aspie and had sensory needs i would sometimes get frustrated by her eating habits. There would always be tons of food around her chair and she'd be all over the place and when she eats rice it literally ends up everywhere! I don't think I really had a go at her or anything but my frustration must have shown at times. Now she has a wobble cushion and can even prefer to stand and eat for bits of dinner and it works so much better. It turned out that sitting on a regular chair with her legs dangling didn't ground her enough and give her enough sensory feedback, now with the sensory feedback added, she can sit and enjoy her meal and chat. Literally, overnight by adding the wobble cushion she went from getting up and down constantly to sitting through her whole meal and being able to engage with other stuff whilst eating.

.... and when she is at school.... It is my preferred chair too!

Smart lady!

I’m not very good when my feet dangle, either.