Hidden Talents and Special Abilities

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I don't think it's arrogant to be proud of your talents and abilities, but I know that others can often misunderstand our intentions when we talk about them. At the same time though, I think it's important to recognise what we can do, and what we are good at. It's all too easy to fall into the trap of negative thinking regarding the daily struggles that we face, and I know from experience that we can greatly improve our circumstances with even a slight shift in what we focus on.

Yeah I may be the person who defies that belief. 37 years and still no sign of talent or skill. And if it is there, it's in an area I have no interest in and I really lack the ability to gain new interests. I'm basically the same I was when I was in my late teens as far as my interests and motivations.

That'd be my luck too. All these years I thought I had no talent, and it turns up I do in something I couldn't care less about having talent in.

My family were all talent-less losers. And that's what I've become. But thanks for the encouragement.

Thanks for the encouragement. However if you think "being full of love and light" applies to me, you must not know me very well (I obviously know you do not). Now that you've addressed me personally, I can safely say I'm probably the darkest, most negative person you've ever spoken with.

I've tried the whole 'positive thinking' mindset for years with some progress, just not much. I still try, but positivity, hope, and true joy are very alien concepts to me. I simply don't relate to happy things. Or happy people. Never really have.

At least I'm finally progressing to where I do not despise happy things/people and understand happy people aren't that way just because they are too stupid or oblivious to know any better. I realize now this is false.

Yes, I have discovered a few of them over the years. However, not all of them are good and some of them are hard to control.

Hi all

Like gkk7z, I had trouble fitting in , parents didn't notice me etc. I spent a lot of time messing around with things electronic. it became my life work. I can look at a schematic drawing [circuit drawing] of something and see what is going on in the circuit. Most other technoids find that amazing. No college degree, just learned it on my own. I am also fairly decent at assembly language programming, an obscure type of programming most programmers don't do.

This also allowed me some degree of success in work life despite my autism. It is well known in the electronics business that techs and engineers are a bit odd so I could fit in there if nowhere else.

I can look at a German word and it's meaning in English and never forget it.

Lots of diversity here, which is very cool! Anyone else with a special talent or ability that they want to share?

I'm actually curious to see if there are any more 'mathletes' on here...

I am far from a "mathlete." I have an uncanny ability to add a column of numbers 5 times and get 8 different answers. Lol.

In all seriousness. I have a sort of gift of humor at times. Sometimes it is a blessing and a curse.

I have an ability to spell almost anything correctly in English, right away without thinking about it. The exception would be a few very obscure words. But even rather unfamiliar words, if I can build them from their roots, are not too hard for me to figure out. It is like I memorized the spelling of almost every English word I read over the years. It was a nice parlor trick and won me a bunch of spelling bees in my grade school years...but now usually just annoys people because I correct them--unless they need to know how to spell something and I am close by.

I also have an ear for music and can harmonize by ear. I can often pick out a tenor or alto part if someone else is singing the melody. Not perfectly, but usually pretty well.

I can draw pretty well. Sometime I would like to pursue this talent farther and take some painting and drawing classes. I always liked art but not a lot of variety of types of art. I specifically like to draw and paint, and high school art made you do stuff like photography and pottery. It was more fun than math, but...it was outside of my special interest so I lost interest pretty quickly. I have not done much art since high school except design some tattoos for my husband, one of which is now on him. (not by my hand though--I never aspired to be a tattoo artist) The one I designed is my favorite of his tattoos (obviously ).

I agree with Yigeren; people don't really like when you talk about stuff you do well. I don't understand it--I am not trying to be a show off, just stating a fact when I say I can do something pretty well. I guess this annoyance is an NT thing. I am careful not to brag...when you brag you have to deliver on your statements or you look foolish. I would rather understate what I can do and have someone say "wow, I didn't know you were so good at that!" than brag myself up and look dumb when I didn't do as well as I hoped.

My special talent appears to be hiding, sure hope it shows up someday haha

I play Scrabble and remember words to use, even though I may not have a clue as to their meaning. But, there they are in the Scrabble dictionary!

Just curious, is your visual memory strong enough to repair electronics without a schematic? Can you see what is going on by looking at the hardware?

I will share one that I have previously mentioned about in a different post section on WP. One of my "talents" is the ability to constantly solve problems, run experimental simulations and design things in my sleep, primarily involving chemicals of some manner. I usually do not "dream" like most people can, unless I am really, really tired. Unfortunately, I do not always have control on what I can think of in that state, especially if I am angry/stressed over something bothering me. In those cases, some of the things that I can design this way are very disturbing. That part is a leftover effect from being bullied in my youth and the resulting rage that I tapped into (revenge side of my personality). It took me a long time to sort out a way to "forget" these things by encoding them with a series of songs so that I do not concentrate on them while awake. In a way, this "talent" is really a curse to me because I cannot fully control it.

My special talent is phrasing things in a way that can really irritate people. I'm very good at it, of course it happens spontaneously and I can't produce it out of nothing. Its almost as if I take other people's thoughts articulate them for them and then people get angry.

I've been trying on this forum to find people with a similar situation on this forum, but haven't.

It then must be something uniquely me.

Yeah that's just called being observant and speaking the truth. If this is a skill, I have this too then. People hate the truth spoken aloud.

The one thing I am really good at is piano. I can see the shapes and patterns needed to play chords quickly and I can learn them quickly. I don't think I'm great at picking up patterns elsewhere in life but for some reason I can see them on a piano. I'm not sure why it makes so much sense.