"You're over thinking it."

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I'm getting pretty sick of being indirectly criticized for doing this. This is the way my brain works, it's the way I make sense of things. It allows me to do high level mathematics, it always me to understand and see connections between things. It's not a deficit... yet so often I'm told I'm doing it wrong because I'm over thinking it.

In the course of a day I can be praised and criticized for the exact some thing. I can be envied for my math ability and way with things, and yet at the same time be told not to think the way I do.

I'm starting to get sick of it... It's like telling a blind person not to read with braille.

Everything in this world is complicated to me, simple things and hard things... the inattention to detail and thought process that makes 'easy' things second nature to some... are the reasons why I can do the things they find difficult... but in so doing I have to process the easy things as hard things and go slowly. I'll gain insight but never speed.

Gah, I'm know others here will relate... but I'm having a hard time of explaining this to people. No one understands just how different my mind works from others... no one knows the hidden challenges I face everyday...

As an NLD'er (non-verbal learning disorder)'er I envy your math skills. It seems that you Aspie folks have great math skills but less verbal/communication skills, while we NLDer's have little math/logic skills but are able to communicate better. Which is more difficult in our society?

To be honest I'm not sure that I have AS... I've looked into so many different things about what could be going on in my head... all of them fit and none of them fit... if that makes sense. I seem to be a statistical anomaly, even among the uncommon. Which is to say that I'm unique just like everyone else... but that's little consolation when you still are trying to cope with life issues at the age of 26...

I'm good at math because I can take a base set of rules and follow them to certain conclusions. I'm also good at noticing basic patterns in relatively simple systems... by which I mean math is simple... real life is complex. I yearn for abstractions to take away the rest of the difficulties. If I can't break it down into simple to digest chunks of ideas, I'll have a very difficult time.

To that end, I've become quite good at jamming my math/logic ability into solving every problem in life. It's a good cudgel... just very slow and not optimized.

I've been working at tutoring people in math, and it's strange how these ideas form in my head. I do have a very directly noticeable verbal disorder of some sort. Ideas in my head don't come out in words. I don't think in words, I don't think in pictures either. I get jumbled up and say words backwards... I forgo nearly all technical jargon, my spelling is horrible, all the outward signs of intelligence don't come forth... but the idea, the core of my understanding is advanced. I know the connections, I just don't know the words to convey it... I especially can't figure out the words in real time.

The same thing happens when I play an musical instrument, I'll imagine a musical phrase to play... but I don't have the dexterity to do it in my hands... again I'm 'over' thinking it...

What's the deal with NLDs? I've looked into possibly having this too...

My answer to it, which always shuts people up--at least temporarily--is "it's better than not thinking about it".

NLD is pretty specific in that there seems to be right-hemisphere brain problems. NLDer's have higher left-brain iq's than right-brain iq's. I for exmaple am at 88th percentile verbal (left) iq and 39th percentile performance iq (right).

Part One, for the critics who mean well but miss the mark: We need a catch-phrase and, when appropriate, a follow-up explanation, like a thirty-second elevator speech. Something about our need to study human interaction as a system, because we don't have those social instincts.

(Or maybe we need a bunch of catch-phrases, for other issues not relevant here. Like Jim Sinclair's "Don't Mourn For Us" http://www.autreat.com/dont_mourn.html)

Part Two, for the rest of the foul, corrupt creatures out there: They don't want to think too hard about what they're doing because it would force them to understand just how corrupt they are. Like the critics of Socrates, honest questions are seen as a threat to the very fabric of society. Don't ask so many questions, just obey.

I've seen enough of your posts. You're close enough. If it helps, I hereby give you permission to call yourself an "Aspie." It won't get you drugs or services, but in the privacy of your own mind, you can wear that shoe and hang out at WP all you like. Maybe we should ask Alex to give out membership cards. After 2752 posts, you should probably qualify for a gold card or something.

That could work, too.

My teachers would always get upset with me because I wouldn't "show enough work" for schoolwork or cite enough sources for essays. I understand the need to reference material and give credit but my problem is that my knowledge of some topics is so advanced that I feel that some information is common knowledge and does not need referencing. On math problems for example, I felt no need to show every single little step and waste time. I am good about sourcing information but it is ridiculous to have to cite every single sentence.

When I would write a paper for History, my teachers would get mad at me for not "citing" where I found such basic information like "Louis XIV became king of France in 1643." The problem is that I already knew that Louie became king in 1643 and I didn't need to look it up anywhere. I guess if your brain is ahead of the pack than you have to slow down for others to catch up and slow down to explain things to them that you take for granted. As far as your special interest goes, when you describe it to others you have to imagine that your audience is a bunch of 4 year-olds who know nothing and you have to explain concepts to them that you have understood for years just so that they can comprehend you. I hate having to "dumb down" but that is just a microcosm of our larger society that directs all cultural production to the lowest-common-denominator.

I guess my sense of things is that I have a large database for detail and I have a hard time seeing the bigger-picture(which I guess is common on here.) I feel like I know alot of facts but I have a tough time transferring information and applying knowledge to everyday situations. I might memorize a list of steps but be unable to execute them.

Heh thanks, I have to say that I'm unsure of having AS... it fits in with everything else... knowing so much that I say that I don't know anything.

I swing between what seems to me like extreme social ease... and then bouts of not having any idea. I think I'm just confusing the social situations where I'm experienced, with regular friends and going to the same shops with NT ability.

I keep on thinking life shouldn't be this difficult for me... but then it's my nature to assume some social principle because it makes sense in my head and execute from that perspective... then give up when the world doesn't work the way I think it does.

I'm the exact opposite. I'm always a big picture/top down type. I use the details to learn the principle, then I forget the details.

In Math classes, I have a difficult time memorizing the 'facts'... but I derive the information on the tests.

This might be opposite of the way AS traditionally is, I don't have the rote memory stuff much.

have you ever thought of AD(H)D or Dyspraxia or them in comorbidity with asperger's? what you are talking seems to be my experience but I have dyscalculia so my math habilities sucks even though I really like it (and dream about being able to read numbers good to become some geek scientist. ( )

I fit easily in this diagnose, so I'm like AD(H)D+AS+DCD (developmental coordination dyspraxia)=DAMPS

I have days when I'm more socially able, days where I cannot coordinate my words with their meaning while talking, days when I get lost walking back home as usual, one day I coordinate my movements really well anothers I can switch hand while holding a spoon without realising. It makes me somewhat tense to have this unstable brain. I tend to get more stressed on new situations. I feel lost in this messy world, my confusy brain is always overworking to understand it, but is yet unable to act.

I always get that "you are always thinking too much and that's your main problem" from my bf and he's right but I cannot just act since coordinating my toughts is very hard.

I've also been called "and ocean of knowledge but one centimeter deep" I know about a looot of stuff and my habilities to find logics behing things are great! but I'm unable to do anything with it since I cannot coordinate my ideas... I have AS (selfdiagnosed) but i don't have one topic that obsesses me (except now that I'm hyperfocused in my ADHD/AS process) so I learn a lot about an interesting topic and then I move to another interesting topic and so on. I can never recall the facts

you can read about it here:

DAMP: DAMP:wikipedia

Dyspraxia list of symptoms in adults: Dyspraxia foundation uk

The Overlaps of ADHD, DAMP and Asperger's Syndrome:
http://www.addiss.co.uk/

Good luck!

Last edited by Dianitapilla on 20 May 2009, 9:16 am, edited 1 time in total.

I know you mean well, but stereotyping really doesn't conribute to the dialogue here. "...you Aspie folks have great math skills but less verbal/communication skills." Many of us "Aspie folks" can barely add two and two, having no math skills at all. The diagnostic criteria for Asperger's includes normal to superior verbal/communication skills. Or hadn't you noticed that most of the people here are extremely verbal and communicate their ideas very well?

The ability to think things through analytically, in great detail, isn't very common. So it's natural that most people will react to it negatively. I used to get that BS, even from my own family, but I learned to ignore it. "Overthinking" is at the core of who I am. It's an ability that can, potentially, take you further in understanding the world, and in carving out an interesting career, than the emotional reactivity/cliche-spouting that usually passes for thinking.

There's nothing wrong with you. Carry on.

This was one of the most frustrating aspects of school for me (academically). I'd write my paper with relative ease, and then have to go searching around to find "references" for the things that were just right there in my head.

It just occurred to me, though, in an earlier time, like perhaps 1850, a student would probably be able to mention that Louis XIV became king of France in 1643 without citing a reference, because it was common knowledge. I don't know if that specific fact was common knowledge, but it seems like students were expected to know more facts like that back in the "olden days". That and Greek Mythology and Bible references. You could pepper your essays with those things and never cite any references, because those things were assumed to be common knowledge.

The demand for proofs and sources in school is based on the notion that students aren't expected to know anything that they haven't been taught. Teachers just take it for granted that their students don't read anything that they don't have to, so if it wasn't in a textbook, you're not supposed to know it on your own. If you leaerned to read early and have always read in a lot of subject areas, you're going to have knowledge that goes back to your early childhood and you won't even remember what book it came from. Most teachers don't read any more than their students do. They know what they have to teach, so anything outside that boundary throws them for a loop.

Yeah I hate being told not to dwell on things. I can choose not to do it, but I last for literally about 10 seconds, then my mind starts doing it again whether I want to or not.

Those who usually tell you not to dwell on things also probably couldn't figure out solutions to problems if their lives depended on it..whereas you have the brain power to do it!