Savant at my university?

[RightIsWrong]

It was weird. My wife would tell me how frustrating it was being married to me. How she couldn't really talk with me and that I wasn't like everyone else. Little did I know.

One day, I was sitting and reading an interesting article in Psychology Today and thought....this sounds a lot like me. They described some things that I couldn't help but think, that's me and that's me and that's me. The problem was that they were also describing other characteristics that were so unlike me it was glaringly obvious that I wasn't this type of person. And a good thing that I'm not either, it was about sociopaths.

Then a couple of weeks later I was driving to work and listening to NPR when they were interviewing a group of two men and a woman about their struggles of dealing with Asperger's as adults in their various careers. I had never heard of AS prior to that and was simply amazed at how I was able to relate to 95% of what they were saying. Their joys and pains and the difficulty of going through life without truly feeling like you are understood.

My wife didn't quite know how to react when I told her that I think that I have Autism. She was understandably upset at thinking that she was sold a bill of goods that didn't come with a disclaimer stating: "Warning: The man you are married to is not normal and your children will inherit a social disorder from him!" Thankfully, she is a research junkie and did what she does best....obsessed in the subject matter. She found every article, journal, book and test that she could and would give me a battery of them to see how I compared with her.

I remember one specific test that an average person would score < 10 (she had a 4) and someone with Asperger's would score in the 28-34 range. I scored at 38. It has been a little easier for her to accept that I have it than to accept that our son has it. Every mother wants their child to be perfect and the realization that ours wasn't was very difficult.

Now, reading Jeff7's post, I get to reminisce about my own childhood and school experiences. I am guessing that I am slightly older than Jeff so my memories aren't as vivid as his are....but I can relate to the sentiments and the internal feelings that he was able to express.

My recollections are of things and not really events like most people seem to focus on or recall. I remember my teacher's names (all of them back to the second grade and I am now 41 y/o). I can remember phone numbers that I had as a child. I can remember assignments, books, people's names and other things about them. I couldn't tell you what any of them look like though. I rarely would look at them.

I remember songs. Not because of experiences that were associated with them though. I remember the lyrics. My wife and kids are amazed at the vast amount of useless crap that there is occupying the wasteland of my mind. They all believe that I know every song ever made. Music was my obsession. Like Jeff, I obsess about things like that. I have watched some movies literally dozens of times. I have listened to albums on loop until I knew every lyric. In the movie quote thread, I am able to recall the exact scene that a lot of the quotes have come from.

Jeff's comments about his inability to control himself from staring at something that would catch his eye are also something that I have difficulty with. My wife calls me a "Flutterbug" because I can't focus on a conversation for very long. And if the conversation is in the least bit stressful and/or tense....forget about it. As much as Aspy's like to go into infinite detail about mundane things like how something works, I completely freeze up in those situations. Not to the point of there being gaps, but to the point of my mind being completely and hopelessly without a single thought of something to say. That is one of the hardest things for my wife to deal with. She cannot understand how her mind races and she is constantly thinking about things and I can claim that there is not a single idea or shred of thought going on in my head. It's like I block out all outside interference so that I can concentrate/learn whatever it is I am in the middle of (music/movie/whatever).

There are some definite benefits to having Asperger's though too. I don't really care as much (if at all in most cases) what others think of me because I really don't notice a lot of the time when they are happy or displeased with me. I am usually pretty blunt and able to tell people when I think that they are being an ass (although that is kind of a drawback also since I don't really read people correctly). I am able to do mechanical things incredibly well and can focus on a monotonous task for hours or days if needed.

And like Jeff7 and Led Zeppelin....I am able to "Ramble On".

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: RightIsWrong
It was weird. My wife would tell me how frustrating it was being married to me. How she couldn't really talk with me and that I wasn't like everyone else. Little did I know.

One day, I was sitting and reading an interesting article in Psychology Today and thought....this sounds a lot like me. They described some things that I couldn't help but think, that's me and that's me and that's me. The problem was that they were also describing other characteristics that were so unlike me it was glaringly obvious that I wasn't this type of person. And a good thing that I'm not either, it was about sociopaths.

Then a couple of weeks later I was driving to work and listening to NPR when they were interviewing a group of two men and a woman about their struggles of dealing with Asperger's as adults in their various careers. I had never heard of AS prior to that and was simply amazed at how I was able to relate to 95% of what they were saying. Their joys and pains and the difficulty of going through life without truly feeling like you are understood.

My wife didn't quite know how to react when I told her that I think that I have Autism. She was understandably upset at thinking that she was sold a bill of goods that didn't come with a disclaimer stating: "Warning: The man you are married to is not normal and your children will inherit a social disorder from him!" Thankfully, she is a research junkie and did what she does best....obsessed in the subject matter. She found every article, journal, book and test that she could and would give me a battery of them to see how I compared with her.

I remember one specific test that an average person would score < 10 (she had a 4) and someone with Asperger's would score in the 28-34 range. I scored at 38. It has been a little easier for her to accept that I have it than to accept that our son has it. Every mother wants their child to be perfect and the realization that ours wasn't was very difficult.

Now, reading Jeff7's post, I get to reminisce about my own childhood and school experiences. I am guessing that I am slightly older than Jeff so my memories aren't as vivid as his are....but I can relate to the sentiments and the internal feelings that he was able to express.

My recollections are of things and not really events like most people seem to focus on or recall. I remember my teacher's names (all of them back to the second grade and I am now 41 y/o). I can remember phone numbers that I had as a child. I can remember assignments, books, people's names and other things about them. I couldn't tell you what any of them look like though. I rarely would look at them.

I remember songs. Not because of experiences that were associated with them though. I remember the lyrics. My wife and kids are amazed at the vast amount of useless crap that there is occupying the wasteland of my mind. They all believe that I know every song ever made. Music was my obsession. Like Jeff, I obsess about things like that. I have watched some movies literally dozens of times. I have listened to albums on loop until I knew every lyric. In the movie quote thread, I am able to recall the exact scene that a lot of the quotes have come from.

Jeff's comments about his inability to control himself from staring at something that would catch his eye are also something that I have difficulty with. My wife calls me a "Flutterbug" because I can't focus on a conversation for very long. And if the conversation is in the least bit stressful and/or tense....forget about it. As much as Aspy's like to go into infinite detail about mundane things like how something works, I completely freeze up in those situations. Not to the point of there being gaps, but to the point of my mind being completely and hopelessly without a single thought of something to say. That is one of the hardest things for my wife to deal with. She cannot understand how her mind races and she is constantly thinking about things and I can claim that there is not a single idea or shred of thought going on in my head. It's like I block out all outside interference so that I can concentrate/learn whatever it is I am in the middle of (music/movie/whatever).

There are some definite benefits to having Asperger's though too. I don't really care as much (if at all in most cases) what others think of me because I really don't notice a lot of the time when they are happy or displeased with me. I am usually pretty blunt and able to tell people when I think that they are being an ass (although that is kind of a drawback also since I don't really read people correctly). I am able to do mechanical things incredibly well and can focus on a monotonous task for hours or days if needed.

And like Jeff7 and Led Zeppelin....I am able to "Ramble On".

cliffs?

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: CorCentral

Originally posted by: Jeff7
When I was learning to spell, I had a Texas Instruments thing that would say the letters and words typed into it. Ever see a kid type "C-A-T" into a machine for hours on end, day after day, over and over? I'd do that. C. A. T. Enter - electronic noise - "Cat." Music, too - if I find a song I like, I can listen to it in a continuous loop, sometimes for a few hours. I try to memorize so that the melodies stick, so I can "listen" later in my mind, but they never do, they're always muddled and mixed.

You mean the Speak and Spell.
Scroll about 1/3 down the page HERE


"Now spell sweet." The Speak and Spell should not require any kind of introduction because if you grew up in the 80's, you already know what it is. Released in 1978 by Texas Instruments, S&S was practically in every school. Did you know that Stephen Hawking lent his voice talents to give the Speak and Spell it's distinctive sound? The S&S would verbally ask you to spell a word, and then you would type in your answer on the touch pad (earlier versions had raised buttons.) Sometimes though it was very difficult to understand what it was asking. Also released were Speak and Math and Speak and Speak and Read.

That's them. I had the yellow one and the gray math one. I really spent a lot of time on those things. And I swear, the yellow one could process and pronounce "cat" more quickly than any other word in its dictionary. I still have them in a box back home. I couldn't bear to part with them.
Ah, the good old days, back when toys were meant to educate, not advertise.
In every school? Heh, we didn't have anything that advanced. We had Texas Instruments calculators, blue things that could handle only the basic math functions, and correctly spell BOOBS.


RightIsWrong - yeah, just a bit of an age difference. I'll be 26 next month.

Remembering things - I was good with strings of numbers, too. I had memorized my debit card number, bank account numbers, and my parents' credit card number - it was all I could use when I was too young to order my electronics components over the phone. It saved my parents the trouble of having to go look for their credit card when I wanted to buy something. (You know, back before you could buy things on teh Intarwebs.)

In school, this memory worked for and against me. Standardized tests were freaking breeze. Vocabulary tests were just fun, as the test and definitions used the same wording.
breeze - Any of five winds with speeds of from 4 to 31 miles (6 to 50 kilometers) per hour, according to the Beaufort scale.

Then the test would have a matching section, and the definition would be the exact same thing. I never had to study for those tests, partly because the words were generally in my vocabulary already, partly because I could pull the word apart piece by piece to decide what it meant, and partly because I could read the definitions once through and retain enough to be able to do the tests. A lot of teachers used that too - very few custom tests. My physics teacher always made his own tests; he also taught at a university at some point in time. His were fun. "I push Kathy off a 50-meter cliff at 10m/s, at an angle of 15 degrees up from the horizontal, and she has a mass of 55kg. There's a lake at the bottom of the cliff. Where should the police divers start looking for fat fish?"
Physics II dealt with electromagnetics, nuclear forces, and relativistic effects. We'd do some interesting calculations, such as how fast you'd need to accelerate a golf ball to destroy New York City, or something along those lines.

Listening to speech is something else I'll tend to have trouble with, especially if there's any background noise going on. Crowded places are awful, too - I can't filter out just one conversation, I get a combination of everything that's being said within earshot. Focus is a bit unpredictable for me. If I'm tired, it really deteriorates. Just an hour ago, I put some macaroni into boiling water, and promptly forgot about it until I heard the pot creaking a bit, which luckily was before any noodles had adhered to the bottom. Yesterday, I made a mess in the microwave making cream of wheat because I forgot to keep watching it. I think I turned around to look at something on the table, and bam, totally forgot about the microwave until 3 minutes later, when it had completely boiled over.
(Today I'm making macaroni and cheese, my mom's recipe - it uses cheddar, mozzarella, a little bit of flour, butter, and milk. Then it gets topped off with stewed tomatoes. Damn good stuff. Best part: Giant Eagle (store) brand stewed tomatoes taste just like homemade, and the stuff's cheap.)

You're fortunate with the "don't really care as much what others think of me" department. My time in school taught me to care intently about what others thought about me, because otherwise I'd be subjected to constant torment. From 2nd grade to 12th grade, it just never stopped. I didn't know how to make it stop, as I didn't understand the nature of it. I knew that telling teachers didn't work, because they weren't around all the time. My dad always said that I should just fight back, as in, punch someone. I knew that that wasn't the answer though; verbal abuse doesn't warrant physical attacks. That, and I didn't feel like getting my ass kicked. When I was in 8th grade, I was still shorter than most of the 5th graders. By 12th grade, I weighed 110lbs. I also know that getting my ass kicked in short order would not help my social standing at all. I "learned" that the best option was to try to become invisible to as many people as possible, to just not be a part of anything. That way, attempts at interaction wouldn't yield the usual negative consequences, and if I kept to myself, it reduced the risk of people going out of their way to antagonize me. It didn't stop some of them, of course, as some kids are just really bored little dipshits with nothing better to do than make others miserable. And as I said, that's a mindset that just didn't make sense to me. Hurting people because it's fun.....and I naively hoped that adults wouldn't do that sort of thing, that I wouldn't have to deal with it later in life. Too often now, in either work or college, I feel like I'm still in a damn daycare center.

Originally posted by: silverpig
cliffs?

It one then my I now my I Jeff's there and.
(Go back and read carefully. )

 

[xtknight]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
Some of the stuff makes me wonder if I should have seen a psychologist when I was little. When I was learning to spell, I had a Texas Instruments thing that would say the letters and words typed into it. Ever see a kid type "C-A-T" into a machine for hours on end, day after day, over and over? I'd do that. C. A. T. Enter - electronic noise - "Cat." Music, too - if I find a song I like, I can listen to it in a continuous loop, sometimes for a few hours. I try to memorize so that the melodies stick, so I can "listen" later in my mind, but they never do, they're always muddled and mixed. Oh well.
Computer games - I'd play the same game over and over. Raptor....phew, I don't know how many times I played that game through to the end. I'd spend hours hunting around the borders of 3d games, looking for amusing little bugs in the software, missing textures, or AI quirks. Eventually I'd actually get through the game's main plot, too.

I was the same way with things: always trying to find little problems. And I still listen to the same music a lot. I must have reinstalled Windows 95 forty times when I was young and the icons in the wizard fascinated me for some reason.

I grew up fine. I think. :laugh: (/me glances at his post count and away)

At one point I thought I had obsessive-compulsive disorder. In my brain I see the world as an extremely high resolution (infinitely) atmosphere. It's not weird or anything though. I can't do large math calculations in my head (although perhaps larger than most people), and I'm no savant.

Stress, anxiety, and even emotions of love can cause people to act psychologically ill. Apparently I'm more nuts than most people but I don't know for sure. I am extremely analytical; I believe there's a reason for everything people do, the way they write a sentence, why they're writing the sentence, and why they didn't pick up that graham cracker on the floor next to their computer desk. Perhaps I'm a little narcissistic and self-centered sometimes, but I develop several ways to counter it so it doesn't come out too badly.

That bit about remembering TV shows verbatim, that didn't always help me out. I'd try to interact with people - they'd talk about movies, so I'd mention some quote of the movie, and after a bit, they'd say, "Jeff, what are you talking about?" I'd just say that it's a part of the movie, and they'd have no recollection of it, and so tell me that I was being stupid again or something to that effect, that I was just trying to be cool and didn't know what I was talking about. I hated that, I knew I was right, I knew when the lines were, I knew the tones, the backgrounds, the context, but I was somehow wrong. Negative reinforcement - once a stimulus (direct personal interaction) becomes unpleasant after nearly every attempt, well, continuing to do so starts to amount to sadism. You don't cut yourself with a knife every day thinking, "Well maybe today it won't hurt me."

Eye contact to this day makes me uncomfortable, I freaked out when there were thunderstorms until....I don't know how old. Even into middle and high school, they were still an adrenaline rush, and I hated it. Before I could speak properly, I'd assigned unique sounds to individual letters. By sometime before 4th grade, I'd memorized the names, orbital times, distances, # of moons, length of the day, composition, etc etc, of the major planets. Sports, normal children's toys, they seemed utterly useless to me. I saw the mind as important, and the body was just a container and transport vessel for it. Sports felt like a waste of time, catering to the otherwise obsolete vestigial body. So in my mind, they were assigned a value of almost nothing. I didn't get the obsession with them that so many people seemed to have. I didn't have many friends, as I preferred dealing with teachers and adults; they seemed so much smarter and more mature than anyone my age. My peers were of course, childish, as they were children. Inanimate things made more sense. They were predictable, they didn't talk back.

Interesting. Well I didn't play too many sports either, but one thing I loved doing for whatever reason was making toilets and doing plumbing stuff. And I messed with coax cables and splitter and you name it. God, I better count my blessings...

If it makes you feel any better, I still view people as objects. But I at least view them now as objects that need to be cared for and talked to. My psyche plays tricks on me sometimes but eye contact is generally not an issue. I still have remnants of social anxiety, and I'm not about to say I've "recovered" from anything. It's just practice, that's all. And it's easy for me to get "out of practice".

School.....damn nightmare. I saw an episode of South Park which actually provided enlightenment (years too late). Cartman keeps ripping on Kyle all the time, and the homeschooled kid doesn't get it. "If he's your friend, why do you keep making fun of him?"
Stan replies with, "We're guys, it's what we do." Or something to that effect. I've heard too from one friend who also knew others who "tormented" me throughout school. He said that people kept trying to include me, but that I never went along with it. I wonder how much of the tormenting was actually intended to be funny or sarcastic, but I didn't understand that sort of humor or behavior, and took it to be an insult. For example, I hear guys at college say things like, "Fuck you man, you're such a dick," and then they laugh. Not too many years ago, if someone would say that to me, I'd take it literally and assume that they don't like me the slightest bit. That sort of bonding behavior, or whatever the hell you call it, was just completely foreign to me. I figured that if you say something insulting to someone, you mean it.

Hmm I'm not sure anyone said much to that extent to me, probably a couple times when I was younger though. But that doesn't make it right. There's still no time I'd say that to anyone unless it was a close friend (even then, probably not because it's not funny and it's stupid and pointless with the potential of being harmful).

They are trying to get a reaction out of you is why they are trying to do it. And unbeknownst to them, they are going too far. They are used to being inhibited by an emotional response that would deter them from doing further damage, and with you they are not getting that response. They continue to prod you until it becomes harmful to you and your continued ignorance of them doesn't help them stop. But, a simple bad response generally makes them understand. Why? Most of the time it happens with stupid people who have no self-control and are complete jerks.

I have to admit that I have belittled people only slightly to try to get a response out of them but I have never sworn at anyone or started a fight. I always make sure to make it up to them later, because I know how it feels. Don't get the idea I swear at people, but I might laugh if they make a mistake or something like that. I'm only trying to give them positive attention. Most people understand that as positive, but not everyone does. And for those that don't, there are other things you can do to make sure you don't come off as being a complete asshole.

That bit, "read between the lines" - well, look at what's between lines of text. There's nothing there. And that's what I always would perceive.

In public, I've gotten better. I'll catch myself starting to stare intently at something, like a flickering light, or some mechanism. I could do something like that for a few minutes at a time before snapping out of it, just quietly watching something to see how it behaves.
Social niceties still remain an irritation. Small talk - speaking for the sake of occupying silences - seems utterly useless. Greetings, also useless. If I'm going talk to you, I already understand that you exist, I don't see the need to add in the "hello" to hammer this point home.

Most people aren't all that into saying "hello" or "hi". But they always enjoy some type of varied interaction once in awhile.

sup dude!?! yo man did you see Shaq the other day...56-3...OMG

I try to engage in such things, but it's wearing. Every day is another acting class, like lying to everyone I meet, a false face that society deems borderline acceptable. It's what made shared living really rough. Dorms, roommates - I had nowhere to go to get away from everyone. Even when my roommates would be away, there was always present the knowledge that any second, they'd be back, and that element of mild chaos would be reintroduced. I didn't feel a truly relaxed moment for a few months at a time. Now I'm in my own apartment, just me. It's serenity like I'd never known before.

I wish I would have had some foresight, or......insight maybe, much earlier in life to pursue this. But I was a direction-follower. Do what you're told. Trust the adults, they know what they're doing. Don't make waves. That sort of stuff. Skipping grades was never presented, so I never brought it up. Going to a counselor or psychologist was never suggested, so I never brought it up.

Adults are bad! They are the grown up versions of us: just screwed up even more.

Well, after all this, I don't believe I have a disorder. I have never been to a shrink and would never desire to, unless my anxiety takes a turn for the worst. But even this I have been able to control, naturally through practice. There's almost always a natural fix for these disorders. Get out and talk to people. It's never too late. I didn't really talk to people that much until tenth grade, and I sure did say some stupid things. And I really didn't pay much attention to how people reacted, and why their reaction was important.

I'm not about to say that you don't have a slight condition that is preventing you from doing these things naturally, though. It would be offensive to suggest either way or the other. If you think it's a problem, maybe you should see one and see what they can do for you. But I'm only trying to help.

Psychological disorders are rare and easily overdiagnosed. A lot of them are thrown around by people, who have problems themselves, towards others. I still don't believe there's much wrong with me, except, perhaps a slightly hypersensitive nervous system since I worry a lot about things and I'm a little more sensitive to mundane things like getting up in the morning.

Anyway, computer knowledge does not have to be inversely proportional to social performance. There's no law or axiom that says that. In fact, they're probably different parts of the brain. So, why let it limit your social ability?

P.S. As long as there's something slightly amusing about somebody, they will always receive a lot of criticism about it. It's no different than pop stars and the crap they have to go through everyday. And, it only serves to your advantage as long as it's not socially despicable ("taboo").

Occasionally, initially negative responses can even mean good things. Just remember the human brain works in odd ways, and the only way to decode it is brute-force, not by some type of guessing or algorithm. You just must try different things. Every human out there is just as f**ed up. I take pride in the ways I am irrecoverably messed up.