Asperger traits as a source of strength?

Page 1 of 1 [ 6 posts ] 

just-lou
Toucan
Toucan

User avatar

Joined: 6 Aug 2010
Age: 38
Gender: Female
Posts: 252
Location: Sydney, Australia.

12 Aug 2010, 3:08 am

So most things about aspergers lead to difficulties, true.
But does anyone ever find aspie traits make certain things easier? I thought about this today, which was a bad day for many people at my university. I started to get all wrapped up in it (my mimicking behaviour unfortunately sometimes leads me to emulate others responses automatically, so I don't realize I don't actually feel that way myself, I'm just mirroring other people) before I stopped and thought hang on, you're an aspie, you don't actually feel these things and when I identified that I was simply responding (even to myself) in the way that's "normal" to respond, it stopped the reaction right there and it saved me a lot of bother. I was able to cope with the situation much, much more equitably than others because I discounted my own mirrored emotional response as irrelevant. My superiors commented with some surprise on how good my attitude was and how well I was handling things when my compatriots were all crying. Thus, in this instance, apparently such a dispassionate aspie-like trait saved me from spending all evening crying like my associates.
Anyone else encountered this?



aleutianrocks
Tufted Titmouse
Tufted Titmouse

User avatar

Joined: 9 Aug 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 26

12 Aug 2010, 3:56 am

I think that the vast majority of Aspy traits represent genuine strengths...the problem that I see is that those strengths don't translate into social world applicability. I believe it's one reason why so many Aspies thrive at work and/or under pressure compared to NTs...but being able to be dispassionate when someone is dying (I'm an emergency medicine nurse) may be desirable and useful in a crisis...but being dispassionate when someone is showing off fifty snapshots of their 8th newborn grandchild (you know the kind of picture I'm talking about--they all look the same!) for an entire week seems to be socially unacceptable.....if you don't gush and tremble and shoot sparks out of your butt with joy then you're just a mean soul-less crank. I think you can get the idea of what I'm saying....and I don't mean to be a killjoy, because honest to god, I'm thinking about just letting fly with my own Superior Smugness Flag instead of cowering meekly in the corner any more (I'm 44, three kids, married 25 years, so I think I've done my share of "adapting"!) and if that makes people scatter and run for cover then so be it. I've seen it alluded to a time or two on WP---it's a pisser to realize that we ASD's could rule the world if we ever decided to fight back!



Moog
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 25 Feb 2010
Age: 45
Gender: Male
Posts: 17,671
Location: Untied Kingdom

12 Aug 2010, 4:22 am

Yeah, I think we have loads of strengths and talents. The problem is making them work in the world... I'm still working on it.


_________________
Not currently a moderator


ShadesOfMe
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 30 Jun 2004
Age: 32
Gender: Female
Posts: 16,983
Location: California

12 Aug 2010, 5:37 am

what happened??



PaleBlueDotty
Pileated woodpecker
Pileated woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 4 Aug 2010
Age: 54
Gender: Female
Posts: 190

12 Aug 2010, 8:31 am

aleutianrocks wrote:
I think that the vast majority of Aspy traits represent genuine strengths...the problem that I see is that those strengths don't translate into social world applicability. I believe it's one reason why so many Aspies thrive at work and/or under pressure compared to NTs...but being able to be dispassionate when someone is dying (I'm an emergency medicine nurse) may be desirable and useful in a crisis...but being dispassionate when someone is showing off fifty snapshots of their 8th newborn grandchild (you know the kind of picture I'm talking about--they all look the same!) for an entire week seems to be socially unacceptable.....if you don't gush and tremble and shoot sparks out of your butt with joy then you're just a mean soul-less crank. I think you can get the idea of what I'm saying....and I don't mean to be a killjoy, because honest to god, I'm thinking about just letting fly with my own Superior Smugness Flag instead of cowering meekly in the corner any more (I'm 44, three kids, married 25 years, so I think I've done my share of "adapting"!) and if that makes people scatter and run for cover then so be it. I've seen it alluded to a time or two on WP---it's a pisser to realize that we ASD's could rule the world if we ever decided to fight back!


hi just-lou,

i agree whole-heartedly with aleutianrocks.
the said grandparent would be more than grateful to the mean soul-less Aspie crank, if the child had a congenital heart defect and were to be operated on by the psychopathic surgeon ( who else cuts people up for a living? ) and monitored with hawk's eyes by that ICU nurse, who always has more time to check the machinery his/her grandchild is hooked up to rather than to hold his/her hand.

Through our emotional detachment ( which often is instigated deliberatedly - to hell with amygdala and adrenaline, i know that is how my brain works, but it is not practical at the moment, let's try a different approach, the Aspie approach - just like you described, just-lou, :) ) it seems to be easier for us to prioritise, based on the assumption that if you get the basics ( i.e. the bloodtransfusion, or maybe in just-lou's case an establishing of what caused the upset and a suggestion for a strategy to overcome it ) right, peoples' emotions will take care of themselves afterwards.

well, come to think of it, this is true, isn't it? why can't everybody see it this way?
oh my, my black and white Aspie thinking caught up with me again, 8O



j0sh
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 18 Nov 2008
Age: 47
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,191
Location: Tampa, Florida

12 Aug 2010, 9:57 am

aleutianrocks wrote:
if you don't gush and tremble and shoot sparks out of your butt with joy then you're just a mean soul-less crank.


HAHA! Thank you for that. I understand completely. I've had people get mad at me for not pretending well enough too, when I've tried. Butt sparks of joy are hard to fake. :rambo: