Spectrum

Being on the spectrum is a blessing and a curse. You sense more than the average person, both for good and ill. You see, hear, smell, taste, feel things most people don't, but it can and often is very overwhelming. That's why order and a tight schedule is so important. It's more than a little easy to freak out at the avalanche of sensations flooding you from all directions. Folks on the spectrum are also misidentified as being aloof and even uncaring, but it's most often the opposite. The level of empathy experienced by those on the spectrum is so strong that it's deeply painful many times. Sometimes you feel both trapped inside yourself and standing outside of yourself simultaneously. Your own skin, ears, eyes are your frenemies, pulsating with overloaded sensations. As an aside, stimming helps alleviate that overload. It allows you to focus your attention on one thing to the exclusion of everything else bombarding you.

The term idiot savant is now a term we don't use because of its offensive nature, but it's one I still think can be useful in one sense (pardon the pun) in that it connotes accurately that someone can be incredibly talented in one area while being limited in most others, especially socially. I think we all know someone who's a great mathematician/coder/chess player/musician who struggles with interpersonal interactions. Seeing, or maybe better put, sensing patterns is an amazing thing to experience. But of course that can easily go awry. Obvious examples are Bobby Fischer and John Nash. Both geniuses who also struggled with serious mental health issues throughout their lives. I guess I kinda know these people. I see a little through their eyes. It's why I considered working in the intelligence world three different times. For my own mental health's sake, I'm glad I never, figuratively, pulled that trigger. It can be a very dangerous rabbit hole to go down.

No wonder I loved Sherlock Holmes as a kid. He was definitely on the spectrum, even if he was fictional.