Special Damnations

Unless I've got a special reason ... either desperate need to be part of a decision or that rarest of gifts, an NT who actually groks me and has learned to trust what my brain can do ... I need to behave as a highly sanitized caricature of an NT. That's simply a fact of life for anyone on the Autism/Asperger's spectrum who wants to be accepted into polite conversations with most of the people of the world. And most importantly, my highest, best capability needs to stay completely buried. My greatest gift is actually, in NT company, my biggest damnation.

My main Aspy "gift" is that my brain has the natural ability to store billions of data-bits, many for years ... and then seemingly "immediately" connect several of them with things I've just heard, read, or seen to come up with a new thought or insight. It's called analysis, of course, but I can do it to an extent that is well past most people. And I do mean well past most people.

 As both John Elder Robison and Temple Grandin point out, many of us (though not all) that live on the "Spectrum" have special ... abilities. Call them talents, gifts, whatever. Between perhaps greater simple brain ability (in specialized areas) and the ability to focus both tighter and longer than Neuro-Typical or "NT" people, we can take thoughts and ideas farther and faster than our normal peers. But it is that very ability to go farther and faster ... often blindingly faster ... that we tend to be seen as pariahs or (benevolently) ... simply "weird".

Openly displaying or using such un-seeable talents  is not acceptable within NT universe, unless they've already given you some sort of accredited "degree" for such a thing. Ok, a physics professor (fully "Doctorated" and tenured) can go on about physics, sure. But outside that, you've got to explain to them how your brain works and they've got to be able understand the explanation, so that they can actually decide to pay attention to you. If you can't accomplish both in 20 words or less, save your breath and their patience and goodwill. And that is the rub ... we use language so differently that the chances of my being able to achieve both parts of the previous sentence (with the average NT) are the same as the proverbial snowflake's chance of surviving in Hell.

One needs to be trusted first to qualify as an acceptable "expert", and as my brain works (and I appear) ... weird ... I ain't NEVER gonna get that trust.  I will not be able to make my unique capability understood, nor therefore will what I say be trusted. And so using my analytical capability ... even in the most restricted and totally OBVIOUS simple little way (to me) ... makes everything else  I say untrustworthy, of suspicious origin, and ... unbelievable. And going back to the way I cannot see, "read", and naturally respond to and with the little physical things that NT's do in "normal" conversation, it simply is hard proof to so many people that I'm generally not trustworthy. Not made of good, solid intellectual or character material. Pleasant enough perhaps to be around ... but never trustworthy.

 Oh yes, I see the wall all the time. Though the NT's around me don't, I do ... it's ... there. Those expressions follow me everywhere I go. The lack of trust, the complete inability to take me or my words seriously (no matter how politely folks may appear) are always, ever there.

To the few NT's who have learned enough of me to give me that trust, to listen to me, and to value my abilities ... you mean the world to me! But of the thousands of NT's I've been around and worked with in my 59 years, that would be ... oh, I think we're maybe up to double digits. That's not double-digits "currently" ... that's double digits over the entire 59 years.

Well, "they" do say it's lonely at the top, don't they?