The Political, Aspie Fangirl

paul-freeze-deactivated20110107 asked: I have a question. Do you ever feel like Aspie is somehow a blessing in disguise? I have some friends who say they do, sometimes. In a way. What do you feel?
If this is too personal a question, please forgive me. I myself am learning disabled and it's been mostly a pain in the butt.
I wish you well and hope we can be friends.
Robin

Don’t worry, I’m glad someone asked. I like to be open about it with those who want to know.

Sometimes, yes. I consider Asperger’s like a tradeoff within the brain: a trade between book-smarts and socio-communication. You’re really good at the former and absolute crap at the latter. There are those who say that all Aspies are a genius at something, and I’d have to agree with that. Every Aspie I know is really good at one thing in particular, albeit theater, music, math, science, languages, or in my case, writing and political science. In general, I suppose I’m just really artistic.

At the same time, I’m in college now. I’m a freshman in a very small study abroad group, and I’m literally the only Aspie here. One of my professors, even, who I can only presume has a degree in professional education, had absolutely no idea what Aspeger’s was until I explained to her how it affects my daily life.

And even though I’m a young adult now, it does still affect my daily life. As a kid, I was really weird and just didn’t know how to fit in. I learned how to work around that mostly by just shutting up around people I don’t like. I still have a hard time making new friends, and I’m starting to lose some of my old ones because of distance and drama I’m not mentally prepared for. I have a tough time opening up to people. I’m eighteen and still have never been in a relationship of any kind. I find it a lot easier to make friends online (fuck what Chris Hensen says; it’s easy to tell who actually wants to lure you into a trap and hurt you). I overstress when things don’t go according to plan, I obsess over things like a super nerd— I think you get the point. I’m so socially awkward, and I’m really afraid to interact with people because of that.

For some reason, though, I understand psychology in theory a lot better than in practice. No matter how much I think I get how people interact and why, I can never put it into practice. It’s weird.

Despite all that, though, I can appreciate the good things Asperger’s has done for me. I’m really creative, and I rarely have to study for exams because I have a good memory for book smarts in most subjects (save for advanced science. I hate that stuff.) If it weren’t for my Asperger’s I don’t think I would have been able to finish NaNoWriMo last year all while handling senioritis and college applications at the same time. I also notice things that most people don’t—again, this is mostly artistic. Like, watching movies, I’ll notice how the set and the score and the casting choices all work together. I love movie scores—it’s about half my whole iTunes library. I also notice little things about writing styles, and I’m pretty pro at mimicking the writing styles of other authors—although I’ll admit it’s a pretty useless talent. XD I can usually point out the time period something was written in just from the style, though, as well, which is probably a more useful ability than skilled mimicry.

But yeah, at college now, my Asperger’s is most definitely a pain in the ass, but it isn’t completely life altering as it used to be. It’s a double edged sword, I guess, but I try to make the best out of it. :)

-Becca