Positive Thinking!

Maybe explaining things well is a gift of Autism/Aspergers?

I am very thorough... In whatever I do, I sometimes see this as a positive and sometimes a negative, as if there is one little thing I have missed, I beat myself up, although most NTs wouldn't even notice but I would.

I am very honest, again though sometimes positive and others negative although it makes me feel more comfortable to be honest it doesn't always others and my honesty has recently as you know cost me dearly at work so I'm not sure if its a good or bad thing....

I would say that I am depressingly resilient; that is to others, but not to myself. So much so, that I have often drawn the query as to why I don't just go out and get a real life. (Suicide would never suit me, as it is far more fun for me to return to haunt the taunters. Let them watch paint dry, instead!) And so also annoyingly resilient. Come rain or shine, I'll be there boring the heck out of my numerous detractors.

How many proof readers does it take to change a lightbulb? I've no idea; but I have been known to proofread with some acumen. Faced with people who are primed to automatically denounce such 'slow' tedium, I often get somewhat sassy, and tell them whatever is their most hellish version of a banal activity, i am extremely ready to take that boring task off their hands! ;-) But I really ought to negotiate better terms for myself! I really need a Guild!  Perhaps the 'Guild of Pro Annoyance'!?

It seems to help me in ways that few people even begin to appreciate. And I'm not sure that I will ever value those ways enough myself. For example, I seem to have an ability to look at a map or satellite photo and visualise quite quickly how the landscape might look. Sounds just a bit mundane, right? So there is a certain geographic website on which numerous people post their photographic shots from the UK landscape and urbscape. It is perhaps a slightly obsessive sort of site, but is undoubtedly of huge interest to anyone who is even remotely interested in geography. I sometimes call it a modern-day geographic 'Doomsday Book'.

I posted quite a few photos myself, and each photo has to be fairly accurately located on Ordnance Survey and/or Google mapping. Rather easy for me and most geographers. But you also get people who are more interested in the photography, and quite a few of those struggle to locate their photos, or just cannot flat out remember where they were taken. I've noticed hundreds of photos that are quite poorly located.But I can't exactly just go around annoying everyone by telling them they got it wrong!

So I noticed this one poster who has posted thousands of photos, all with a similar theme, from almost every year of his life. Sometimes he has a very rough idea where the shots were taken, and sometimes he gets it very wrong. And he struggles with the webware used for the photolocations. So I decide to PM him and offer some assistance with the photolocation. He accepts and I spent some years helping to identify the photolocations by looking at the photos and relating them to online historic maps, Google Map, Google Streetview, Google Earth and even other people's historic photos from closeby. Now not exactly a stellar activity to while away the hours by most people's standards, but I get great enjoyment and satisfaction out of it. He gets some free assistance on photolocation. I've even had times when he has got the images the wrong way round from the negatives. Or he's mixed a photolocation up with a place say in another county. And still I have been able to give a fairly accurate photolocation; sometimes just using my own visual memory of different places.

But what could I ever possibly do with that skill that would enable me to enjoy some latter day career satisfaction; satisfaction that has formerly been almost entirely absent. Not much, I think!

I believe I also have a few other similarly arcane skills, but never - it seems - the ability or opportunity to make good on a career. I'm a bit of a jack-of-all trades really; but master of none! I also seem to often thrive on some tasks that most people would undoubtedly find extremely tedious

I do all that - everyone says I should be a teacher because of the way I can simplify such complex things down to NT level. 

I think in pictures so I always carry paper to draw the things I think of to explain my thoughts to the muggles.

Automatic car driver here! So simple! 

I love charts and diagrams, they can make something complex so much simpler to understand! I always used to make up flow diagrams way back when I was at uni as they simplify things so well.

Analogies are good too. I can think of a few funny ones! 

My bluntness frequently elicits a sharp 'pardon?' from people, but because I interpret literally, I think they have not heard me so repeat myself a little louder! Only later do I realise that they said pardon due to what I said being 'inappropriate'!

Oh.my.god!

Exactly! It's like people getting hung up trying to understand the details of how a synchromesh gearbox works when their car is an automatic & all they need to know is how to put it in Drive, Reverse or Neutral!

Also, the power to 'make complex things simple' - I struggle at work so much with why people can't see things that are blindingly obvious.

I've a very visual thinker and will usually draw a process map or flow diagram so I can understand something - people frequently compliment me on these. I also have what I call 'analogy Tourette's' - I speak in analogies as a way to translate complex concepts into everyday examples anyone can understand, people frequently say "I wish I could put things the way you do..."

Mind you, the razor sharpness of my analysis can also end up leaving 'blood on the floor'... and I'm always getting:

"<sharp intake of breath>...you can't say THAT!"

I clearly CAN - I just did...

Yes! I actually started a 'communication book' up in my house a couple of days ago due to my needs to process information visually rather than verbally. I also now have a reason why this is necessary. It's good to have a concrete reason for certain needs!

Do you find that once you 'get' a process, that it sticks?

Definitely! We have to grow a thick skin (metaphorically speaking) in order to survive!

Most people do lie, sometimes just to be nice or to appear nice themselves, not always to be nasty. It does make things confusing though!

And now I have both an explanation for needing things in writing and a reason to give people when I ask for them. 

I can demonstrate processes to other people on a one to one once I know what I am doing. 

I think resilience could be due to growing up and aging without a diagnosis. Painful, but it pays off now. Mind you, I was always stubborn! 

I wouldn’t be able to lose my need for honesty. I now realise most people do lie, but not always maliciously. I like the variety  in life and lives. 

Written instructions are fantastic! Verbal instructions go in one ear and out the other, that's if they even get as far as getting in one ear in the first place!

Resilience I believe to be a positive autistic trait! I am also very resilient, a lot of autistic people are. We have to be really, to survive in an environment that can be largely hostile and difficult to navigate! Honesty is also a good autistic trait, I can't understand people who can't handle honesty!

I like that I am able to follow written directions. I’m glad I have an explanation why many other people cannot do this via being diagnosed. It has given me more patience. I like sorting out technical stuff. But my good and bad traits are not down to being autistic. They are me. My difficulties might be down to autism, but I am resiliant. I have had to be. I try to be honest, and I am not prepared to change that. 

I love small details in nature, which could be a trait. I see beauty that many others filter out day to day. 

To be honest I need to develop some organisational systems. Work in progress. 

The rats nest of wire running everywhere reminds me of the mess that the sky man made of attaching my sky box to my TV (via the old BT box and the talktalk broadband router!) I've sorted it out now, very quickly! Don't understand what he thought he was doing?!

I seem to have a skill of metaphorically putting bits of systems in boxes, working out the interface and transfer function, and then forgetting what's in the box (because I don't need to know any more). Some of my colleagues seem to get bogged down in a rat's nest of wire running everywhere without being able to make sense of stuff that I can see clearly. It gets frustrating sometimes though trying to get them to tell me what *their* box does, because they can't even work out where the edges of their box lies!

Yes, I'm glad that someone else thinks the same! I've always been told that I'm very logical, now I know why. It's good to solve 'problems' step by step and come up with a long term system that can stay in place for many years to come!

"Systems" probably sums it up in one word - an enjoyment of automating things, solving problems once and once only & letting processes rinse and repeat, and a sense of logic that I suspect came for free with my ASD.