Asperger's people think too much compared to NTs

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An unexamined life is not worth living eh?

KevenLA, I think you are quite correct. We do think about everything. Sometimes to the point of personal distress.

Last edited by LiendaBalla on 17 Feb 2011, 10:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

When I was younger I used to tell people that if there were ever a job where all you had to do was sit around and think I would like to do it

TBH I drive myself crazy with all of my thoughts and I'm amazed at the tangents a single thought can lead to. It's one of the reasons I can never get to sleep at night. I basically don't even bother anymore until I'm completely exhausted.

Usually, I think too little. I have NO self awareness and when i rush into things i do not understand the consequences it has for me and others. It is only when im anxious that i start to overthink.

But then again I am anxious most of the time so scratch that, I do overthink

Hey, it's not okay to say something like that. It's not okay to say that someone isn't really conscious because of lacking one particular trimming. Even if it's an important one. Even if it makes up the bulk of your thought. Since that one gets used against autistic people so often you shouldn't use it against NTs.

Anyway, that said, there's no such thing as thinking too much. Also the reason NTs don't have to think about social responses and you do is not because you've thought so much it's interfering with doing what they do. It's because they have a shared language that they can speak with each other without having to think about it. You actually can't do that with NTs. So it's better for you to think in that situation. If they would just reciprocate and actually think when interacting with us, we'd have far fewer problems. Keep thinking. Think more!

I was just asking Deus if she had Socrates in mind with her comment.

For some people maybe. I don't think and analyze as much as usual.

AS people use a different part of the brain to process social information compared to NT's. We use more of the left-hand hemisphere, while NT's use both hemispheres.

I can't understand people that DON'T analyze everything. Mainly because I cannot stop myself from doing so.

People say TV and games are bad because it shuts down the brain. Well, MAYBE I WANT to shut it off for a little while? Because otherwise it would be unbearable!

I watch reviews of videogames by this guy called Yahtzee. His videos are on the Escapist and they're called Zero Punctuation and if you for whatever reason want to not have the cognitive space left to really think AND get a laugh, watch them. TV and games don't do it for me; I just play and contemplate philosophy at the same time. Or watch and knit/draw/read/eat.

Damn, your brain must be on overdrive compard to mine.

I rather enjoy thinking a lot. It helps me write and makes doing next to nothing with my life interesting. Although reading usually gets my brain fired up.

Analyze comes from analeyin "to undo" i.e. breaking down something complex into its constituent elements. Aspies are supposed to be notorious for paying attention to small details.........................

The subject line of this thread may be oversimplfying, but it’s dead-on. An Aspie brain is a seething machine that never stops churning. It’s why we have such trouble sleeping, too.

Again, an oversimplification, but generally true.

A way I like to think of it is, while the world of NTs has been squabbling over petty differences for centuries, we’ve been doing more “important” things that are essential to the NTs' existence and quality of life, like, let’s see, developing the theory of gravity, composing masterpieces of classical music, inventing the personal computer, and creating Facebook and the iPhone… The worst part is, we invent stuff that the rest of the world uses to blow each other up.

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well, I really think it's an unjust criticism of NT's to scoff at us and say "you think too much, just let it come naturally / go with your gut feeling/ bla bla bla..." we aspies don't know what a "gut feeling" is, or it's misguided, and as for coming "naturally"...well, while I think it's very flattering that an NT person would think that I have the capacity to let some common sense nuance of interaction come to me "naturally", I can't help but think they are just giving one of those polite beat-around-the-bush responses.

The fact is, we often have no choice but to work out social situations methodically, i.e. if I do or say X, how will person A perceive that and what if they tell person B then what do I say if...and try to organize the possibilities in a mental decision tree. Believe me, I've found myself doing that all too often, and I think I'd have been better off with that sort of mental preparation than going with my "gut feeling" which could have culminated in embarassment or alienation. Sure, some people will judge me that I shouldn't have to think so much, but compared to not thinking about it at all...it seems as if it's the NT's who think in black-and-white terms, either we have to communicate with them "naturally" or it's not acceptable as the norm. When you go to a foreign country and make a concerted effort to speak the language, they don't judge you that you can't speak it exactly like them. So why should NT's expect any different of us? Otherwise, it poses a tremendous disincentive to trying to improve interpersonal responses at all...if there's no credit for it...