I remember years ago my old partner saying I might be autistic and saying it was alright, it just meant I thought differently. It stuck with me. It has more significant affects than it sounds. Perception, thinking, susceptibility to stress, emotions, focus, communication etc. are all different.
I have been thinking about this for 6 months to see what was actually atypical. Some is a bit tricky because it is learned behaviour and adaptive to the environment in which I grew up.
The main thing seems to be an object-oriented memory. Objects can be things or scenes. They have attributes, colour, texture, emotions, weather, time and a visual element. If I don't have enough info to imagine the thing I ask questions. Once constructed then links are possible. I believe this is called associative memory. It allows also instant conclusions to be drawn.
Because time is an attribute I don't find things fade with time. I can remember things for decades ago clearly. But because I have been overloaded for a lot of my life I have patchy memories with years missing. If I think of something it is almost like reliving a scene from a movie, but only as a few stills. But the emotions can be called up if I want them.
Emotions though are strange. I can't figure out how they work. I seem to have none most of the time, then too much. But may also be an emotional neglect issue. Being in burnout messes the whole emotion thing up though, the gain is turned right up.
Communications have a couple of things. I can't remember what I concluded.
I don't know if this is interesting to anyone.
