How Has Autism Blessed You?

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I posted this story before.

This happened during summer of 1971 when I was 13. It was what was known as a teen trips camp. That meant day trips to the beach, the amusement park, sporting events etc. The highlight was the July and August four day sleepover trip. For August that year we went to Boston. We stayed at Simmons College. Being 13 year olds away from our parents we naturally stayed up all night. The next day we came back from wherever we spent the day at 4PM. The counselors said be ready to go on the bus to go to an amusement park in a half and hour. I figured I would catch up on some sleep and somebody would wake me up. Nope.

When I woke up I noticed the sun was at too low an angle to be 4:30. It was 7:20. Yep, they forgot me. What to do? Fenway Park the beloved baseball park for the Boston Red Sox was three blocks away. Attending sporting event in your home city is fine but one in another city that was special. I told the security guard what happened and what I was going do. He said he would call the camp and let me go to the game. I picked up a ticket from a scalper my own age, went to the game, came back. When the bus came back from the amusement park the other kids mobbed me like I was some rock star. I had done what the other kids fantasized about. Heady stuff for an often friendless and bullied kid. The counselors told me not to tell my parents for obvious reasons. I gladly complied. I was not going to get them fired for giving me the night of my life. I eventually told my parents when I was in college too late for them to do anything about it.

Part of why it came together for me was the times. Today no security guard would let a 13 year old kid out alone in a big city at night. I would have texted my parents, And if I didn’t text my parents the other kids would have texted theirs. The whole thing would go viral, massive scandal. The camp would be finished then and there. The kids taken away from the staff. Lawsuits, maybe arrests.

Part of it I believe was my undiagnosed autism. Even then most kids left alone in an unfamiliar big city would have freaked. Because of my autism I was more used to doing things alone and able to more logically and unemotionally figure out what to do.

FYI. Final Score California Angels 4, Boston Red Sox 3. And they booed Carl Yastrzemski!! Tough fans in Boston.




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I think it has made me more able to "think outside the box". It's made me more resistant to things like peer pressure or being part of a mindless herd that sticks its head in the proverbial sand. I tend to pay more attention to detail and may notice things other people might miss. Which has especially helped me with my artwork.

I basically taught myself how to draw, write stories and make crafts, but I don't know if that's a "savant" thing or not, and besides I can't play chess or do algebra and I never graduated from high school.

Autism itself is basically thinking outside the box. I stand by the theory that a lot of the great thinkers in history were autistic. It's in our nature to see things differently, to see what could be rather than just what is.

That Naivete ... caused me interests , I possibly shouldnt have had but not knowing any better.. you do not think about , how you cant do? or not do ? I imagine if I were at area51 .. would walk in from the most unobserved part of the base and ask to see what the big deal was ? After I wandered around abit ? Am a citizen of that country...why would they have any interest in hiding things from me ? .... And probably be offended that they might even want to shoot at me.
For doing so..Can Naivete be a special Power ? .. If no human comes to me , and does not explain things Not suppose to do , How would you know? These days have found trust to be a thing that only has provided diminishing returns .
So a no trespass sign , might not know? that I was a citizen...If the sign posted area51 no trespassing (including citizens of the USA. ) then Maybe ?
Why would anyone ,who is a citizen consider themselves a threat ?much less a loyal citizen, that served in the armed forces? But in otherways , if no one told me that , I could not operate a mig welder, or a gas welder, or a farm tractor,I would try and learn and experiment .Or just about anything ...I could try ? .. And if it could not be done one way, then if it was something , that needed doing....Would look up and read about other ways to do "that something".Even if it took years. Perhaps Naivete can have its merits?
The Benefit is in the Learning ,not necessarily the finished product. Allows you to have cross references for other information, and possibly avoid other mishaps, for having learned other things

i suppose it helped me in that solitude is something i find wholesome and restful [this is a blessing], especially during the thick of illness, esp. covid combined with my body's mechanics going on strike at the same time, back a few years. other than that, i can only bring up the old meme about the vacationer who thought and had their heart set, upon going to the italian riviera, only to find when they stepped out of the plane they were amidst tulip fields in holland- the vacationer might be expected to be dismayed, like "where are all the pretty bikinis on the beach, or where are those fancy restaurants or museums?" but eventually to his total surprise, finds that he likes the calmness of the flowers and nature away from the human hubbub.

i also believe it blessed me with the monofocus necessary for me to do my audio restoration tasks.

I remember signing for thr WON when I worked on the railway and I noticed that someone had signed in the wrong place, and others had copied, so I signed my initials in the right place.
Later I was asked to come into the trains managers office and my conductors manager said "Do you know you were the only guardnor driver in the whole depot to sign in the right place!"

It is the attention to detail that is probably noticable and sticking to the rules.

In another job I was called into the office and told I would get the sack for abiding by company rules as "No one else does". I said "You can't sack me for that! I could get you all sacked for that!"
With that he said "Yes I can because you are not being a team player".

I don't think autism blessed me at all. I consider having 25th percentile visual processing and 35th percentile hearing processing a handicap and I manage to get through live, I am a survivor in spite of my autism. It is a disability, not a blessing. This business of "autism is a super power" is just as misleading as the thing they tell kids these days about "you can be whatever you want to be". Get real. The real world does not work like this.

I could care less about the autism super power quote bit because the now outdated misrepresentation is not so special itself -- though without that scheme happening from the last decade, I'm sure the autistic suicidal rates are way higher...
Now this is just a pendulum swinging back from against other extreme end.


But the latter quote is something I wholeheartedly agree is true.

And I see it in almost everyone. Not just a 'reality' for every disadvantaged, unprivileged, or disabled people out there.
Like itself is the norm at large. With very few exceptions. And that it can be very relative to one's priorities and scope.

Ideas of exceptionality from such norm is a business well sold almost everywhere, no matter the form actually.
Thus the idea of autism is a super power isn't so special to me.


Though I'm far from cynical or bitter about it.

It just means more predictability for me than simple doom and gloom whether in a self serving or in an empathic manner.

And it's just a partial answer to my then lifelong question related to choices and freewill.



Notice my own answer is specifically not related to autism traits, usefulness, or even related to a niche and it's behaviors?

Cause I outgrew the 'need to redeem because of autism stigma'. No need to rush anyone to go there or anywhere.

Might as well outgrew the concept of blessings and curses around autism while at it, too.
But anyone else is still in need of the nuisance of emotional processing around the concepts of autism and being autistic.

Not knocking anyones replies and I am just as guilty with my reply, but I think we need to remind ourselves about the title of this thread so we can give examples of how autism has blessed us.

We do have examples though it is difficult to pick them out because it is impossible for anyone to comprehend what it is like to be someone else, so how do we first separate the autism side of us so we can put "Autism" into a catagory to assess the good autistic points we may have? It is why this thread is a difficult one to answer even though many of us would really love to share our thoughts...
It is however a lovely thought provoking question to ask, and there are many answers I can give BUT to isolate them as being autistic even though I am autistic, is the hard part about it, as how can I point to one quailty or the other and separate it from what I would be like if I wasn't autistic?

The analogy would be someone who has always had three or four hands and arms (Lets say four) and in some ways having four hands and arms is a dissability, but in other ways it is a benefit depending exactly on what it is, but it would take an expert outsidsr to assess the person to work out who is looking in from the outside, who can assess based on who they are as a two handed and armed person to compare the two senarios in different situations if that makes sense, as if one asks the one who has always had four arms and hands that question, they could easily point out the negatives, but when asked about the positives they may not be able to easily answer because they had always had four arms and hands so it is not as if they suddenly werre given them and suddenly realized they could do extra things! (An outside obersver could start to list things, but the person themelves may be perplexed when asked and not be able to answer!)

I hope this analogy goes to explain why one is more likely to have negative responses than positive ones because we naturally notice ourselves the things we can't do, and the key tallents we have we may not notice so much because it is something that others notice in us rather than us noticing so much in ourselves?

how do you know he was a serial killer?

Cornflakes all over the floor? (Joking!)

I twigged years later seeing a documentary on the Milat brothers.
We actually turned towards Belanglo , but turned back when I complained.

Seems Autism has mmany aspects .....the naivete ,I wrote of before , can be as much a curse as a blessing ..
Wanting to believe the best ..Is nice but when it costs you the things in life , you thought were good but merely , others methods to dupe a person . Into something that was not a real thing.. That you trust and believe..The stuff you were told ...And then you end up losing all the most important things in life...and then imagine this hapoening over and over , inspite of having interpersonal lessons , supposably learned..but yet you wanted to believe ...It was a it was as presented . Now as you age , and have no body to fall back on ..yet again ...It really does cause you to lose what you thought were the best values of life . So much for naivete ..has it advantages but life threatening drawbacks too .
It is a wonder , I got this far ......Wonders what more blessings, I might have to survive. ...or not at this age , not much more time anyway ...think making mistakes on big issues , has probably taken more lives than potentially blessings

Asperger's ruined my life.

He killed Tony, Lucky Charms and the silly rabbit.