• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

Do you have unusual abilities, or are just good at certain things that others find hard?

I like Aspychata's take on what are you "good" at :wink:

Like many I am good at forgetting to brush my hair or change clothes.....doing basic stuff like housework only if given the equivalent of a process manual....and supervision:grimacing:

My superpowers, however, are:
Speedreading & absorption of ideas - this was even looked at by some people when I was little because they thought I was cheating.... seems I dont just "see" a couple of words at a time when I am reading but 1-2 lines at a time. It takes me only a couple of seconds to read a page. Very useful.

I am also able to learn complex stuff by myself quite easily - self taught web design, simple programming etc. Some of you will know what I mean - I just "look" at the system and see how it works.

My wife really wishes I could do that when it comes to sorting laundry :tearsofjoy: THAT however, seems to be kryptonite to my brain.
 
Last edited:
Im really good at poetry, better than most at art, or really any kind of creative thinking.

I'm good at analyzing everything. That is probably only a " plus" to another person who likes to analyze everything.

Im really bad at most things most people find easy.
 
I really like what you wrote, it was very well thought out and informative

I guess what frustrates me is since people can kind of just be in awe of me about what I can do in certain things, they develop this idea that “Joe is smart”, so if I am not good at normal things, it’s because of things terrible about me or my laziness or whatever else. But people never grasp that because I am smart at one thing, does not mean that I am smart at everything.

I used to be involved in bodybuilding, and most likely because I am just naturally muscular, but what I noticed it is not the ultra skinny weaklings, who are the people who actually should try to become more muscular rarely have the courage to show up at gyms and better themselves, it's the the peop,e who start out as muscular who go to gyms to just become more muscular

Like I walked in the gym at 18 and could immediately bench press 165 lbs. It was pretty fun and helped with my self confidence to turn being a mildly natural freak into a bodybuilding freak. But in a way it just was not healthy, I still had not the slightest clue of how to talk to girls or even how to make friends.

Like I think that that what adult humans do is get so ridiculously good at one thing, so that they can hide behind that thing, or actually address all their weaknesses while still aknowledgimg their strengths to become well formed human adults, but the damn thing about autism spectrum is people might just be so in one direction that all there is in one side with extreme strengths and another side with extreme weaknesses so and turning oneself from a 100 lb weakling to a 130 lb weakling just ain't fun, especially when you are like struggling to bench press135 lbs and freaks who naturally excel are trying to get to bench pressing 415 lbs

But it's also weird, hard core bodybuildesr see this scrawny ass weakling trying to get to bench pressing something they could've always done naturally see this guy showing up every day to become a better version of himself and these muscular bodybuilders become in awe of the guys courage and no one has more cheerleaders than scrawny wimp trying to get up to bench pressing 200 lbs. possibly because these bodybuilders recognize that guy is killing himself to get better at something in which he sucks at takes lot of guts and courage

Or something, I just write what occurs to me a lot of the time


Yes, I can write an essay and learn some things very easily, yet it's been 2 years and a half that I'm trying to get the driving license... I've been called lazy, yet I guarantee I worked. I rely less and less on other people's opinions anymore. They slow me down, and I'm already slow enough in the areas I need to be working on. If I listen to commentaries, not only I'm being slow at doing the actual thing I need to be doing, but I'm also slowed down by figuring out THEIR opinions. Basically, what they think is their problem. I've got enough to deal with. If they think what I do is good, I'm happy; but I try to not loose my goal from sight if they don't. Otherwise, I'm really loosing a lot of time and energy. Both are limited. I need to focus a lot, for example for the driving license, and this implies to put the parazite/disturbing things aside. Otherwise, I really can spend hours thinking about this. Hours. Days. It's a precious time, and that slows me down while I'm already not that good at the thing I'm doing.

I think it's healthy that you do whatever activity makes you happy as long as you make your other areas of life functional (at least that's what I think at the moment).
I've been very focused for many years on relationships, understanding how they work, what I should do, etc. But it took the time it took. I understood at 16 for irony and humour, and then I was talking ONLY with irony because I enjoyed the concept too much (yes, I did that). I understood at 17 that people actually talk with hands/arms, and I started practicing for a while. At first I looked very odd and uncoordinated. At 18 or 19 (can't remember), it was the sudden realization that people actually look at each other while they talk, there was like an other dynamic going on between them. I first tried to look at people in the eyes inside movies because it was easier. Then I looked at a lot of "real" people in the eyes, and because I didn't understand that it was supposed to mean something, that created some odd situations. Then learning about the main subjects people are interested to talk about or not, etc.

Anyway, all that learning is fine, it was good for me because I didn't want to be isolated, I didn't enjoy it. My family also judged my inabilities quiet negatively. But it's not really fun. It's not the way I like to socialize and communicate, even through I'm doing some stuffs almost automatically after repeating them. But I find it draining and I don't feel natural. In the end, doing so helps me to be functional in relationships - I didn't grow up as an adult able to talk ONLY about her interests [althrough I catch myself doing that] - but having friends this way doesn't really make me happy, because a lot of it is fake. I've got some friends I really enjoy the company (4 people!!!!!), but let's face it : I'll NEVER be anything like a social body builder, I'll always live in loneliness to some extent.
That being said : if you compare my level at social things now to the level I started at, I built a very good muscle. It just won't ever reach the level of people who started with ease in this area. My "social muscle" just doesn't work the same way. In the end, it never needed to work the same way than others. I think just being functional at the level you're interested in is enough. Maybe you're not interested and you never learn more and you have a fulfilling life with bodybuilding alone and you feel well with that. We're freer than what we've been told.

I didn't know about autistic stuffs, but I stopped photography and drawing at around 23 because I realized it was part of "what made me different". I didn't know it's part of being autistic to have such interests, but one day I realized I was doing that while no one else I knew had a passion that was so strong. Nobody in the group was taking pictures of whatever they were finding interesting. They were CHATTING. I wasn't. That day I took the camera and everything I liked, I hid them inside my wardrobe and made them inaccessible for myself because I thought doing those stuffs was making me different, therefore I shouldn't do that. I knew it was part of "the thing that makes me different". I had no idea it was a necessary behaviour.
It's very sad because it was part of my balance.
Bodybuilding might be the same for you.

"Like I walked in the gym at 18 and could immediately bench press 165 lbs. It was pretty fun and helped with my self confidence to turn being a mildly natural freak into a bodybuilding freak. But in a way it just was not healthy, I still had not the slightest clue of how to talk to girls or even how to make friends."
-> I think it's good to be functional in social areas, but I think it's very important to practice what you like and are interested in. It keeps your balance. There's no need to be judgemental about our interests. I think it's about finding a balance between being good at what we like, but taking care about being functional in other areas. I don't believe everyone needs to try to become good at something they struggle in, but being able to function makes things easier.
The thing is also that relationships are totally unstable. They come and go faster than what you can conceptualize. That makes them really challenging, you can't really predict that much, you've got to adapt all the time. It's like opinions about you being lazy or something. One day people will think you're lazy, the next they'll change their minds. You can't rely on that. That's the problem when you associate "working on relationships" + "working on something", you add tons of informations and you're dealing with a huge mess. In the reality, you can't really deal with people's minds. It's unreliable. I treat that as "an information about what THIS PERSON thinks", but I dissociate that totally with what would be an actual fact. Most of the time, I don't talk about it to people, I reply with "the right answer". But I trained myself to get rid of commentaries. They're disturbing, paraziting, and I need focus and energy on the thing I'm working on. I can't work on what they think, it concerns them more than it concerns me. It's a bit antisocial, but it helps me more in getting what I need than hearing I'm lazy and start arguing about it. People made me learn that I'm loosing my time in arguing with them. In the reality, I will worry about the comment quiet a lot, but I train myself to not loose sight of the important stuff, I find it more practical. If they want to communicate kindly, they can.
I never make people wrong because I don't understand them, nor do I make people wrong because they struggle. It just never occurs to me. So now I start from the fact that if people are doing that to me, I'd rather not listen.
I share a lot here because I hope it helps others (but I might also be wrong in what I say!!!). Those stuffs were really painful to me, and a huge part of what was actually slowing me down... People might not know how to help.
I'm sure people with dyslexia have been called lazy and it was "because they don't make enough efforts" etc. Now we understand better about the condition, we know it's not the case and it's not their fault at all. I feel the same. Not everyone can be open minded and understand my functioning, it's easier if I just acknowledge that the other person just doesn't seem to be able to get it without trying to explain and justify why I struggle for some "simple" tasks, but I'm good at "more complicated" ones. I didn't choose.
 
Last edited:
Like, I guess that my baseline is something along the lines of what can you do which your computer cannot do without some ultra sophisticated programming or something in which you just are good at things in which other people people tend to not to be very good at?

Like my entire existence is about people assuming that I can do normal things which I cannot do, so I get this part of the problem

But like my question might be like along the lines of what thing are you so good at. Like it can be completely emotional or supportive and so on, it doesn't have to be logical

This is not a crazy or irrational question. You can't figure out the square root of 2765546633 in .00001 seconds, but your computer can. But your computer cannot do almost anything that you can do

I guess that I feel like I am sounding condescending, but that isn't my point. It's just like I keep keep reading that high functioning autistics brains are just wired differently, but, if this is true, the next question becomes "just how are they wired differently?" If they process certain things better and other things worse, then exactly what are all the positives?

"Like my entire existence is about people assuming that I can do normal things which I cannot do, so I get this part of the problem"

EXACTLY. I am in a dark room with expletives rolling around in my head. Our only hope is either to be surrounding by people smart enough to know that just because we talk and walk and can poop on our own does NOT translate into holding down a career, paying the rent on time, keeping the car and roof and appliances humming along, feeding ourselves correctly, and keeping the lawn mowed to boot. It also does not translate into having relationships and being able to what so many take for granted. People who help us because they WANT to, not because they are paid to do so or obligated via familial ties. That one sentence.........


"It's just like I keep keep reading that high functioning autistics brains are just wired differently, but, if this is true, the next question becomes "just how are they wired differently?" If they process certain things better and other things worse, then exactly what are all the positives?"

And this one, too. I often wonder this, too. People say it's the comorbidityies which prevent us from doing well, not the autism, but if society functions based on certain ways of thinking and behaving and we do not have the capacity to engage in that, then what? Society is not about to bend for anyone out of the norm. Even wheelchair access and ramps in many places took changes in the law! People don't like different. I am different. Ergo, there is a problem with or without comorbidities.
 
Im really good at poetry, better than most at art, or really any kind of creative thinking.

I'm good at analyzing everything. That is probably only a " plus" to another person who likes to analyze everything.

Im really bad at most things most people find easy.

Do you have your poetry on a blog? I would like to read it. I like poetry and writing it, too.
 
"Like my entire existence is about people assuming that I can do normal things which I cannot do, so I get this part of the problem"

EXACTLY. I am in a dark room with expletives rolling around in my head. Our only hope is either to be surrounding by people smart enough to know that just because we talk and walk and can poop on our own does NOT translate into holding down a career, paying the rent on time, keeping the car and roof and appliances humming along, feeding ourselves correctly, and keeping the lawn mowed to boot. It also does not translate into having relationships and being able to what so many take for granted. People who help us because they WANT to, not because they are paid to do so or obligated via familial ties. That one sentence.........


"It's just like I keep keep reading that high functioning autistics brains are just wired differently, but, if this is true, the next question becomes "just how are they wired differently?" If they process certain things better and other things worse, then exactly what are all the positives?"

And this one, too. I often wonder this, too. People say it's the comorbidityies which prevent us from doing well, not the autism, but if society functions based on certain ways of thinking and behaving and we do not have the capacity to engage in that, then what? Society is not about to bend for anyone out of the norm. Even wheelchair access and ramps in many places took changes in the law! People don't like different. I am different. Ergo, there is a problem with or without comorbidities.

Well, it's not the comorbidities only.
If people were living in my head, there's no way public transports would be that noisy and smell so much because no one would be able to stand that. No way someone could ever think about putting those horrible blue aggressive neon lights anywhere. There would be no announcements in airports, centers, wherever. Either ceramic plates wouldn't even exist, either they would have something in caoutchouc on the bottom (back side) so that they don't make that much noise when you've got to wash them and move them. Same for other metallic stuffs. It wouldn't occur to people to push you in order to pass, because they'd be bothered themselves from touching others. No one would push or be pushed because it's disagreable. People wouldn't want to go shopping because of the smells, lights, movements, etc - basically, a lot of shops would have to close or adapt. There's no door that could ever slam. Music, anywhere, would be a lot less louder. There would be places in the street made for people who would need to take a small break and sit a bit in quiet in order to prevent a meltdown, just as much as there are public toilets. There would be NO WAY to build a building with bad isolation of the walls, no one would agree for that. Cars would never have made any noise from the very beginning of the invention. Etc.
The world would be EXTREMELY different, business too. And yes, those stuffs alone prevent me from "doing well" in a situation in which I've got to be in the middle of it. I'm not even talking on the repercussion on mental health, they're enough on their own to not allow me to do "well". I can't "do well" in a crowded street no matter the comorbidities, it's physical.
 
I've got a strong memory that some people are impressed of, although it has it's bad sides too. I generally like to learn things by heart, especially numbers such as physical constants and number plates.

I know the first 300 digits of Pi, every country including its flag etc. but, on the other hand, I do forget to eat when I'm alone at home, I can barely phone someone or talk spontaneously with a stranger on the street. These so-called "talents" are therefore just compensating my social flaws:cool:.
 
Last edited:
I've got a strong memory that some people are impressed of, although it has it's bad sides too. I generally like to learn things by heart, especially numbers such as physical constants and number plates...

...every country including it's flag etc. but, on the other hand, I do forget to eat when I'm alone at home, I can barely phone someone or talk spontaneously with a stranger on the street. These so-called "talents" are therefore just compensating my social flaws:cool:.

I share that sort of ability to form memories of stats and other simple, objective facts. A few years ago I put up $250, the challenge was I was going to draw a map of Europe by memory and label every country. Positions had to be correct but shape could be off and I'd give a bit of leeway for spelling so long as I could tell what was intended. Four people submitted, none of them labelled more than a handful of western European countries meanwhile I only had two out of place, Moldova and another eastern European country were flipped around. Needless to say no one wanted to play when I offered $500 to try to do Africa. :laughing:

(I'm lucky they didn't know I'd have only done the perimeter and a few other bits and left the centre empty with the phrase HERE BE DRAGONS.

I've always had a pretty decent sized vocabulary and I've always had a knack for rhyming; once I started putting effort into developing it as a skill it grew quite a bit, only I've never sat around reading the dictionary like Marshall (4.48/35k). Someone created a chart ranking emcees by the total vocabulary used in the first 35k words they've recorded. Currently there's only two artists with over 7k (Aesop Rock and Busdriver) and only a few more over 6k (RZA, GZA, the group they're both a part of (Wu-Tang Clan), Vinnie Paz (aka Jedi Mind Tricks) and MF Doom). I'm aiming for 8k in my first 35k and don't believe it will be particularly difficult to achieve. I will be disappointed if I don't break at least 7.5/35k which would place me at #2 on the chart.

Rappers, sorted by the size of their vocabulary

If you look at the chart you'll see 3-4k is pretty typical and that newer emcees often average lower than 90s and 00s era emcees. I might be full of myself but I figure if I can't be amongst the best by that measure it's probably not worth my effort to bother with.
 
Been increasingly apparent how strong of a visual thinker I am.
One of those that could immediate do drawing.
More accurately, the past years, what I automatically do is collect aesthetic pictures. A great aesthetic sense, it's what I think about all the time and "turns me on." (Recently, H.R Giger's xenomorph) (ughh!)
If I could imagine things well, I think I'd be amazing. But I can't, I have to specifically mish mash things I've seen before. And creating has been super stressful, should figure out why.
Was inspired by manga and thought of doing it but I seriously struggle with thinking up any kind of story.
 
I've got a strong memory that some people are impressed of, although it has it's bad sides too. I generally like to learn things by heart, especially numbers such as physical constants and number plates.

I know the first 300 digits of Pi, every country including it's flag etc. but, on the other hand, I do forget to eat when I'm alone at home, I can barely phone someone or talk spontaneously with a stranger on the street. These so-called "talents" are therefore just compensating my social flaws:cool:.

Edit after writing: to go back and argue against what I just said about Sheldon Cooper and "The Big Bang Theory," I think that I am more like Sheldon Cooper than I would care to admit. When it comes to things that I am good at, people really can't follow me and these people mean my MBA ex-gf, and even her PhD grandfather, so I do feel sort of superior about these things. And I hate change and freak out over change. And I do kind of liked to be babied, sort of the equivalent of Sheldon needing to be driven around.

Continued edit: But it bothers me to think of myself as kind of like a cartoonish tv character, because I am not completely oblivious like Sheldon is and I am not completely unaware, I know that I am badly adjusted and being an ahole and get very mad at myself for not being able to do more normal things. Like I do feel a bit superior, but then I also feel completely inferior and useless much more often than I feel superior and all knowing

-

Do you know why you memorized 300 digits of Pi and memorized countries and their flags?

The best that I can guess with the reasons why I do some things are:

-that it makes me feel good about myself to be able to do some things that others can't really do. Kind of like a muscular person going to a gym and becoming even more muscular.

-that it can seem a little like a magic trick to others and is impressive

-It can give me something to add to conversations and help people with

-and the biggest reason, which is just that enjoy doing these things and it helps me make sense of the world

Like, if you have watched "Big Bang Theory" I had been interested in how the Roman Festival of Saturnalia might have led to Christmas just before an episode where Sheldon talked about exactly this. While your mentioning flags sounds a little bit like Sheldon and his "Fun with Flags"

So I see elements of Sheldon Cooper in me but I don't identify very closely with the character. It's more like I am much more normal seeming and not as much of an a**hole, but I am also not a genius, and in a lot of ways I am even worse adjusted. But I do sort of like to add facts and observations to conversations and problems that I have are not in a completely opposite direction
 
Last edited:
I am weird and somewhat autistic, but it's making me feel positively normal to compare myself to whoever went through hundreds of thousands of lyrics from thousands of rap songs to compile that list

For what it's worth I assume it involves dozens or hundreds of us who are also hip-hop fans. It also might have used computers to do the analysis. I know when I read about it in depth earlier it described having some degree of difficulty with how to count spelling variations of words since a lot of emcees will write things out closer to how they pronounce it than standard.

Only related on a tangent, but I'm often very curious how a sampling of emcees would test for AS features; especially if you mostly focus the more deeply lyrical ones who seem to be mostly focused on impressing themselves or close friends with wordplay/rhymes/setups and punchlines, etc and make no attempt to make their work comprehensible to people who don't understand the lexicon and references.

I know that there's a fair degree of work suggesting that genetic predispositions towards some mental illnesses and ASD overlap and as a broad generalization I believe diagnoses of both would be higher in that population than in the general population and also that it's likely that diagnostic rates probably aren't even across demographic boundaries and it makes me curious how the experience of being undiagnosed and not even aware of it as a consideration in that environment might impact one, given my own experience with being late diagnosed and not even aware of it as a consideration in a relatively unforgiving environment.

With that in mind, it makes me wonder how much of underground hip-hop is driven by folks with ASD or ASD-like traits. It might explain the fixations, the tendencies to let trivial things get big, over-compensation, personal eccentricities, etc that seem to be common; maladaptive behaviours aren't uncommon in late diagnosed or undiagnosed adults and would obviously complication diagnoses.

tl;dr - a lot of underground emcees are weirdos who i suspect of having undiagnosed asd
other tl;dr - i believe undiagnosed asd can contribute to other mental issues in late diagnosed and undiagnosed adults and that if a community is less likely to consider it and/or is less able to receive testing that it will have negative repercussions for those individuals and broader impacts on those around them
 
For what it's worth I assume it involves dozens or hundreds of us who are also hip-hop fans. It also might have used computers to do the analysis. I know when I read about it in depth earlier it described having some degree of difficulty with how to count spelling variations of words since a lot of emcees will write things out closer to how they pronounce it than standard.

Only related on a tangent, but I'm often very curious how a sampling of emcees would test for AS features; especially if you mostly focus the more deeply lyrical ones who seem to be mostly focused on impressing themselves or close friends with wordplay/rhymes/setups and punchlines, etc and make no attempt to make their work comprehensible to people who don't understand the lexicon and references.

I know that there's a fair degree of work suggesting that genetic predispositions towards some mental illnesses and ASD overlap and as a broad generalization I believe diagnoses of both would be higher in that population than in the general population and also that it's likely that diagnostic rates probably aren't even across demographic boundaries and it makes me curious how the experience of being undiagnosed and not even aware of it as a consideration in that environment might impact one, given my own experience with being late diagnosed and not even aware of it as a consideration in a relatively unforgiving environment.

With that in mind, it makes me wonder how much of underground hip-hop is driven by folks with ASD or ASD-like traits. It might explain the fixations, the tendencies to let trivial things get big, over-compensation, personal eccentricities, etc that seem to be common; maladaptive behaviours aren't uncommon in late diagnosed or undiagnosed adults and would obviously complication diagnoses.

tl;dr - a lot of underground emcees are weirdos who i suspect of having undiagnosed asd
other tl;dr - i believe undiagnosed asd can contribute to other mental issues in late diagnosed and undiagnosed adults and that if a community is less likely to consider it and/or is less able to receive testing that it will have negative repercussions for those individuals and broader impacts on those around them

Ugh, I started a very long response, then walked away from my iPad and it timed out and the whole response got erased

Basically, my friends are musicians and I tend to make up lyrics on the fly which tends to highly impress my musician friend and I can sing passibly

My interests in music are everywhere, like I tend to really like 1920s music, but then get impressed as hell that Eminem turned a disco beat into rap in “Without Me.”

I think that I tend to be very hook oriented, so if you are working on something, or are looking for an idea, let me know

I don’t know what the he’ll happens with me, but I just don’t see different things from different styles as unrelated, even if they are separated by 100 years or more. Like at this second, it kind of occurred to me if 1869 song, “Shoo Fly, Don’t Bother Me” could be used as a hook in a rap (ovbuously not in the way it is used here)

It’s almost since my executive function diesn’t work right, there is this advantage where there is no separating things from other things like might happen with more normal people
 
Ugh, I started a very long response, then walked away from my iPad and it timed out and the whole response got erased

Basically, my friends are musicians and I tend to make up lyrics on the fly which tends to highly impress my musician friend and I can sing passibly

My interests in music are everywhere, like I tend to really like 1920s music, but then get impressed as hell that Eminem turned a disco beat into rap in “Without Me.”

I think that I tend to be very hook oriented, so if you are working on something, or are looking for an idea, let me know

I don’t know what the he’ll happens with me, but I just don’t see different things from different styles as unrelated, even if they are separated by 100 years or more. Like at this second, it kind of occurred to me if 1869 song, “Shoo Fly, Don’t Bother Me” could be used as a hook in a rap (ovbuously not in the way it is used here)

It’s almost since my executive function diesn’t work right, there is this advantage where there is no separating things from other things like might happen with more normal people

Like adding to the 1869 kids song, I might add in lyrics like some obnoxious slang noun referring to women.... ‘ be trippin, be crazy, be foolin, be usin, be droolin

Then go back to the sweet, innocent 150 year old kids song. I don’t know why it occurs to me to come up with this, I don’t hate women or anything. It just seems entertaining in my head to mix “Shoo fly don’t bother me” with offensive rap
 
@Jumpback

It's a forum in which transgressive lyrical content is accepted and unlike death metal you don't have to bark like a dog and make pig and frog noises. To be fair, I also enjoy making pig and frog noises in music at times. I might use harsh vocals as supporting vocals in my tracks.
 
I would say that my visual memory is pretty strong - maybe even photographic? It's like I've taken a hazy screenshot of something. (also I recently found out that a percentage of people don't have any visual memory at all!)
Also I'm pretty bad with numbers and sequences but have this weird affinity for remembering the registration plates of everyone I know who has a vehicle. I considered this a bit of a pointless skill until up to 2 years ago when my family moved onto a main road and since then it's come in pretty handy...
 
For what it's worth I assume it involves dozens or hundreds of us who are also hip-hop fans. It also might have used computers to do the analysis. I know when I read about it in depth earlier it described having some degree of difficulty with how to count spelling variations of words since a lot of emcees will write things out closer to how they pronounce it than standard.

Only related on a tangent, but I'm often very curious how a sampling of emcees would test for AS features; especially if you mostly focus the more deeply lyrical ones who seem to be mostly focused on impressing themselves or close friends with wordplay/rhymes/setups and punchlines, etc and make no attempt to make their work comprehensible to people who don't understand the lexicon and references.

I know that there's a fair degree of work suggesting that genetic predispositions towards some mental illnesses and ASD overlap and as a broad generalization I believe diagnoses of both would be higher in that population than in the general population and also that it's likely that diagnostic rates probably aren't even across demographic boundaries and it makes me curious how the experience of being undiagnosed and not even aware of it as a consideration in that environment might impact one, given my own experience with being late diagnosed and not even aware of it as a consideration in a relatively unforgiving environment.

With that in mind, it makes me wonder how much of underground hip-hop is driven by folks with ASD or ASD-like traits. It might explain the fixations, the tendencies to let trivial things get big, over-compensation, personal eccentricities, etc that seem to be common; maladaptive behaviours aren't uncommon in late diagnosed or undiagnosed adults and would obviously complication diagnoses.

tl;dr - a lot of underground emcees are weirdos who i suspect of having undiagnosed asd
other tl;dr - i believe undiagnosed asd can contribute to other mental issues in late diagnosed and undiagnosed adults and that if a community is less likely to consider it and/or is less able to receive testing that it will have negative repercussions for those individuals and broader impacts on those around them

Dan Akroyd is supposed to be autism spectrum and he decided to make a comedy skit out of a kitchen blender and bass. Who in their right mind would think to do such a thing?

Anyway, that’s sort of what my head does, things that aren’t supposed to go together get mixed together and I can even get sort of obsessed with them. Sometimes it makes me funny or entertaining or have good insight, but much of the time it’s debilitating because I often can’t do normal things or follow normal ways of doing things

Like, right now, I was taking the trash out and got distracted by this thought and lost all interested in taking the trash out.

I don’t even know if it’s autism spectrum for sure or not. I am adopted and I met my biological mother and she said my biological father was abusive, so maybe I have very mild brain damage or something


https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/bassomatic/n8631
 
Last edited:
For what it's worth I assume it involves dozens or hundreds of us who are also hip-hop fans. It also might have used computers to do the analysis. I know when I read about it in depth earlier it described having some degree of difficulty with how to count spelling variations of words since a lot of emcees will write things out closer to how they pronounce it than standard.

Only related on a tangent, but I'm often very curious how a sampling of emcees would test for AS features; especially if you mostly focus the more deeply lyrical ones who seem to be mostly focused on impressing themselves or close friends with wordplay/rhymes/setups and punchlines, etc and make no attempt to make their work comprehensible to people who don't understand the lexicon and references.

I know that there's a fair degree of work suggesting that genetic predispositions towards some mental illnesses and ASD overlap and as a broad generalization I believe diagnoses of both would be higher in that population than in the general population and also that it's likely that diagnostic rates probably aren't even across demographic boundaries and it makes me curious how the experience of being undiagnosed and not even aware of it as a consideration in that environment might impact one, given my own experience with being late diagnosed and not even aware of it as a consideration in a relatively unforgiving environment.

With that in mind, it makes me wonder how much of underground hip-hop is driven by folks with ASD or ASD-like traits. It might explain the fixations, the tendencies to let trivial things get big, over-compensation, personal eccentricities, etc that seem to be common; maladaptive behaviours aren't uncommon in late diagnosed or undiagnosed adults and would obviously complication diagnoses.

tl;dr - a lot of underground emcees are weirdos who i suspect of having undiagnosed asd
other tl;dr - i believe undiagnosed asd can contribute to other mental issues in late diagnosed and undiagnosed adults and that if a community is less likely to consider it and/or is less able to receive testing that it will have negative repercussions for those individuals and broader impacts on those around them

I think that what you said sounds about right.

I think that sort of what might happen is that creative people think divergently, they come up with unusual solutions to problems, but then they have to apply them to a normal world, so they have to converge them back together which can cause stress and anxiety and people to appear strange and not fit in, since doing all this is more complicated than just a straightforward, accepted solution

Whereas schizophrenics can just get sort of divergent and never converge their thoughts back together

So there should be a relationship between the two.

Like a divergent thinking creative person might think it’s funny to come up with dressing up like “captain tight pants” for Halloween and play the part, where a schizophrenic might decide they are someone else and lose sight of this just being something entertaining

I don’t know if what I just said is accepted scholarly thought, but I do have an undergrad psych degree and know that some of these things are accepted thought

Here is something about it

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/...hology/201407/schizophrenia-and-modes-thought

By the way, getting through college was hard for me, because it involved managing to get up and go to class and make it there on time. A lot of times, I couldn’t take the stress and would just give up and not go to lectures. Then once I got to class, I could not pay any attention to the lectures.

So it looks like ADHD or anxiety disorders or something, but I also get crazily intensly focused on things that I am interested in and am calm when I am thinking about them. Like I am kind of writing all this to deal with stress of taking trash out and do dishes and so on.
 

New Threads

Top Bottom