Do you get jealous of savant aspies?

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And people often don't believe you remember it either. Unless there is proof to back you up, they will think you are making it up.

I'm not a jealous type of person. I don't resent others for what they have, that doesn't mean I don't get frustrated about what I haven't got though. I do think there are people that don't deserve what they have got, but I still wouldn't be jealous of them.

I am hyperlexic and have tested as superior in certain parts of my WAIS test, but I have never had the social awareness to make use of the talents I have got, so never got to discover if I am some sort of savant. I've only focused on areas I was bad at. People are always so keen to bat you down if you have a talent, there are a lot of jealous people out there. And if you are niaive and sensitive you just get walked over and end up with low self-confidence and never end up using your skills.

People have recognised my intelligence, but it's never got me anywhere.

Well, I can get a bit jealous too. I have some outstanding skills though, like strong visual skills, but my visual memory has nothing to do with it, it's just as poor as my other types of memory. Besides, in general, I'm slow at reading and comprehending. I don't have a musical talent either despite I like music and musical instruments, including sound reproduction (though I "have an ear" for the latter) . However, there's something I've gotten to know that may be my most unique strength: I can blend/combine my wide range of knowledge into one useful theory in my mind with relative ease.

Ditto that. I used to think other (NT) people must be stupid (vs. perceiving myself as smart) & have been able to "connect the dots," between many data points with relative ease, and come up with explanations or solutions to things drawing from an array of different knowledge. Time and time again. I quite like the way my brain works like that.

I'm not a savant. I have some minor intellectual advantages as partial compensation for my disadvantages but nothing close to a savant skill. My working memory tests in the 90th percentile but it's still within the typical non-savant range. My verbal communication skills test in the 98th percentile.

I do have some intellectual strengths and I'm content with myself in this area. Any desire for a savant memory I might have would be driven by curiosity and even then I wouldn't be jealous of savant Aspies due to the fact that they haven't experienced anything else. I'm just more interested in the different ways memory works and I'd be jealous of someone who's experienced life as both a savant and a non-savant but I'm not sure such person exists. I'm not jealous of savants because they still have the same limited perspective that any other individual has. We only get to know our one brain.

I'm not exactly a savant, but I do have a very accurate memory and learn languages (or anything) really quickly, which is mostly a good thing. That being said, I do wish I was as incredibly talented like a savant!

I am envious of this as well. It doesn't even have to be savant level of acumen. I envy a person who had a job in mind, worked to achieve it, and are generally satisfied with the results. That would be preferable to my own experience, which was:

felt strong motivation to achieve professional skill in one area, an area I very much enjoyed at the time, but then grew to hate, hated the industry, hated the job, hated the process, hated myself for not having the foresight to see this as a possible outcome back when I chose it as my major area of study in university. had nervous breakdown and lengthy depressive period.

Now I have a job that is totally unrelated, that I tolerate fine, i guess, even though the pay is somewhat poor and the hours unstable. it's... i need to stop thinking about this topic. it is triggering me. i need to go to bed.

I'm sort of moderately gifted at English/writing and visual memory, but it's only slightly better than average, not eidetic or anything, and the only thing it's been useful for so far is storing large quantities of TV dialogue. Given that the price I pay for these gifts is social awkwardness and decidedly below average maths and science ability, it sort of evens out and I can feel pretty ordinary at times. Being average is my biggest fear, I'd rather be anything but average, and when I can't keep up in my algebra class or get C's on my biology exams, it makes me feel very average and hollow indeed.

I wouldn't say jealous. I'm more annoyed that I don't have some amazing ability, because without something like that to offset my daily struggles, I'm just weird. I did have an audiographic memory when I was young, but nobody believed I had the ability so I looked like a liar.

Meh, personally I think weirdness is cool and interesting. Just being different is in and of itself a useful trait because it gives you a perspective most people don't have. Diversity is a human strength. We need our weirdos.

I think most of you misunderstood the question. I worded it wrong, I didn't mean "savant" I meant of high intelligence.

Seems like every single person replying to this thread (except for 1or 2 people) claims to be "mildly gifted" to some degree but claims they have such bad social skills they couldn't make use of any of their talents in the working world.

Well at least you have something going for you, you all should be a little more thankful. Imagine being like me, being completely average in every possible way in your learning style and then having an autism spectrum disorder loaded on top of that? --- it literally kills your self esteem.

Even if you all can't make use of your "giftedness" in the real world you could atleast have pride in the fact that you have a better working brain than most of the population and can understand material that most people can't or would even bother to grasp.

I can't do any of that sh*t. Can you understand my jealousy a little bit more?

Last edited by Foreverlost on 12 Mar 2013, 10:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, I agree. Its just rare these days that I find people who appreciate my brand of weird. Lol. I like spending time alone since this is such a constant problem for me. I'm pretty negative these days regarding other people, because it feels like I can't win no matter how hard I try to create and maintain relationships.

You sure about that?

I spent most of my life thinking I was an idiot, told that I wasn't trying hard enough, and could care less about intellectual pursuits until I was much older. Sometimes you don't know what you have. Just sayin...

OK, I'll bite & say I get it. I do. I comprehend what you're saying.. but do you get where we're coming from?

You have no idea how frustrating it is to be able to think up solutions & calculate things in an instant that others might not ever even dream of in their lifetime yet due to ASD you can't manage to execute these things, or convince someone of their value & to just listen to you follow your instructions/design plans/engineering etc, or manage to obtain & sustain relevant employment doing these things because you don't often play well with others, misread social cues, suffer from social anxiety & depression that prevents you from going out into the world and applying your ability to think and making a decent income in reward for it.. especially if you can't stay focused long enough to make things happen and so on and so forth. We still suffer from all of the same social shortcomings that completely f**k us from easily achieving success in the NT work world where Who you know reigns King & the secret to career, business, & financial success lies not in the value of the work you can do but in your social skills abilities. During times where ASD & other neurological afflictions symptoms are really bad, it's even more frustrating, as we can still THINK (and sometimes even better) yet can't APPLY & DO, resulting in extreme frustration & stress and a downward spiral of sustained depression.

Well, writing that certainly stirred up some memories & emotions from worse times. Currently I'm in a much better overall state of mind & well being, and learning as much as I can about how to deal with my various diagnoses in order to manage them and create an ever better balance for myself that keeps me in a positive headspace. So far so good, and the idea is to increase my capacity to apply & do the things I can think. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm a work in progress and well along the path to success with this. So, it's possible & ever more probable that I may eventually be able to utilize my intelligence better than I have been able to do so far, and while I'm in a much more positive headspace than years passed - it's still a frustrating thing to know what I know & be able to think what I can think and not be able to easily translate that into actions that achieve results & rewards.

You don't have to live with those frustrations and their preoccupation on your mind, and related anxiety/depression/stress & so on.

The grass is always greener... Mo' money, mo' problems... etc.

But what can you do? I guarantee there's something about you, physically, mentally, a skill or ability or sensory perception thing or... that at least one person in your life is jealous of. It may be something you'd completely overlook or minimize and think is no big deal, not acknowledging for a second that it's perceived by others as something to be envious of. And there may even be something you're particularly good at that you simply haven't discovered & exploited yet. You don't know what you don't know, nor do you have any idea what other people think of you or what the future holds.

And then there's this:

Actually im jealous of my NT sister who is extremely smart because everything comes natraul to her as well. I have to kill myself and she just keeps going.