overthinking

NAS10240 said:

My curiousity stems from my hair colour, which can only be attributed to Neanderthal DNA, and the social stigma attached to it. Redheaded females are considered more acceptable than males in many parts of social interaction yet there seems no logical reason for some of the intense dislike.

I too have red hair (fading now unfortunately) and have also experienced some ignoramuses who have a problem with red hair - it seems to be one of the only forms of 'acceptable' bigotry left  At school I was told by some other lads 'we don't talk to red haired b.....ds', even going so far as one of them breaking my nose in an unprovoked attack. 

And having red hair also made me very recognisable (although often confused with other like-endowed individuals).  I was stopped by police when in my thirties to identify myself as there had been an 'incident' and the only thing they had to go on was that the perpetrator had red hair. 

I have read that the preponderence of people with red hair with Aspergers exceeds the normal population by something like twenty to one (ie, twenty times the percentage of people with red hair have Aspergers than in the population as a whole).  But there is apparently only a spurious link between red hair and Aspergers!   It would be interesting for someone to do some proper research in this (interesting but probably of not much use!)  Likewise, Aspergers sufferers are more likely to be fussy eaters (I am), and have a squint (I do).  But in the words attributed to Ben Disraeli (via Mark Twain), are these just lies, damn lies, and statistics?

Aspergerix let's face it, Aspies are the doers and NT's are the users.

When they don't need Aspies they're not interested but when they do....

I love your comment about the tea and biscuits!! That made me smile!

Aspergerix, if you take something like the space program, which has accomplished the feat of landing men on the moon and may do the same with mars, it took many people with many talents of various kinds to achieve. I'm sure Aspies played their part in this and NT's played their part too so it's really wonderful that Aspies and NT's can work together in such momentous events.

It may well be that the same co-operation will be crucial in the future if and when the planet is under threat, say for example, global warming, some global pandemic threat, or if an asteroid is on its way towards us.

Aspies and NT's work best when a common goal is sought and usually this happens when some kind of emergency is impending. I reckon there must have been important developments during WW2 attributable to Aspies. Alan Turing is a good example.

Anonymous said:

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In the past I don't suppose it was the 'social' types that invented the stone tools, etc., because they would have been too busy yacking away with one another. No, it might well have been those individuals who took a special interest in tool making and the persistance to make things work.

I never, ever thought of that but it so rings true. Brilliant!

Thank you.

The thing is, we can rationalise this as much as we want, what it really comes down to is the way Aspies are designed. They have a nervous system that is 'wired' to worry and overthink. I don't think there's a lot that can be done about it.

The way I look at it is that nature must have had a reason to allow Aspies to exist in the past, probably for purposes of group survival, and perhaps some of the problems people on the AS experience today are due to their 'special talents' being undervalued in a world that is awash with modern conveniences.

In the past I don't suppose it was the 'social' types that invented the stone tools, etc., because they would have been too busy yacking away with one another. No, it might well have been those individuals who took a special interest in tool making and the persistance to make things work.

lostmyway said:

In the past I don't suppose it was the 'social' types that invented the stone tools, etc., because they would have been too busy yacking away with one another. No, it might well have been those individuals who took a special interest in tool making and the persistance to make things work.

I never, ever thought of that but it so rings true. Brilliant!

The thing is that Aspies are very good at worrying and that's not my personal opinion - it's something Dr. Tony Attwood has said -  and he's one of the world's leading psychologists concerning autism.

So 'overthinking' is probably just another word for worrying too much which I suppose is driven by the very powerful emotions Aspies experience.

I know that I can't leave things alone, despite telling myself there's really little to worry about. For example, I have a dentist's appointment tomorrow for a routine checkup. Now, I have had many such checkups in the past and usually there's nothing, or at least not much, that needs doing, however, today I have felt pretty depressed and anxious about something that objectively I know is nothing to get worked up about. Why?

I think part of it may be because this visit is going to upset my routine (which is pretty rigid, I have to admit) and as we know, Aspies like to stick to their routines and any interuptions can cause them a good deal of anxiety. In other words, change seems to be the culprit here.

So, maybe it's a combination of 'catastrophizing' and change that causes the problem.