Autism, From Someone Who Is On The Spectrum

Autism and Thinking Differently (February 2020)

"Autistic thinking is associative and decentralized. Autistic people are exceptionally creative and original thinkers. Some might view this as a paradox, given that we can also be quite rigid and particular. However, both our originality and our rigidity have a common basis in our decentralized, sensory-based thinking process. 

Neurotypicals, when in a given environment, use the information they have gathered from previous experiences to inform their perception of the current situation. As details filter in, neurotypicals fit them into a pre-formed hypothesis about the environment. They start with concepts and apply them to circumstances, rather than starting with circumstances and linking them to concepts. 

This process is efficient, but because neurotypicals only gather a few details before filling in the rest with their pre-formed mental schema, they often miss important details, or end up applying generalized concepts to situations where those concepts do not actually make sense. This top-down, centralized way of thinking is quick and efficient, but it can stifle creativity by relying too heavily on past experience. 

Autistic people, in contrast, cannot help but start with our immediate circumstances and build our way out from there, because of the way our sensory processing system works. Rather than coming into situations with preconceived notions of what is supposed to happen and then acting on those notions, we never have a concrete idea of what is "supposed to happen". To us, every situation is a new situation. 

Autistic people absorb and sift through hundreds of details, parse out the patterns that link them, then draw our own conclusion from those patterns. That process takes longer, but is often more accurate and yields more novel conclusions. 

Our decentralized approach, linking together different senses and aspects of our circumstances until they create an understandable concept, is more labor intensive than the one-size-fits-all method neurotypicals employ. It becomes exhausting to constantly sift through new stimuli and new situations, never knowing quite what to expect. 

Autistic people cope with this by creating routines for ourselves. That way, we will always have something to fall back on, a break, where we know what to expect and everything is the same for once. 

Autistic perception is inherently decentralized and non-hierarchical, no detail is more important than another. This non-hierarchical processing extends to much of the rest of our concept of the world. It is often difficult for autistic people to understand social hierarchies and power differentials, because we tend to perceive every person in our environment as equally important, and equally deserving of our attention. 

This can give us an anti-authoritarian edge, and is perhaps why autistic people do not always instinctively defer to those more powerful than us. We are often labeled delinquent, disrespectful, and uncooperative by authority figures. I believe this is because we do not see why we should listen to them anymore than we should listen to ourselves. We know that our perception of the environment is valid. 

This is because we have taken multiple aspects of the environment into account, evaluated how they overlap, and deduced their meaning from there. So when our conclusions are challenged by neurotypicals who are glossing over details we know exist, we see no reason to go with their view of the situation. Autistic people, therefore, have an "emperor has no clothes" quality about us. If I am sure about something, it does not matter if other disagree and disapprove, I go ahead and say it. 

I think these are positive qualities that should be celebrated, not punished. Instead of relying too heavily on our past experiences and preconceived notions, we approach every challenge with fresh eyes. Our solutions to problems are therefore more novel and creative than those of neurotypicals. It takes us longer to reach those solutions, but when we reach them, they are extremely valuable."-The Autisticats

 Until read that quote, I never know there was term for the fact that I am creative thinker something I heard most of my life in one way or another. Most autistic get the complement, you look at things so differently. But that make sense when I think with my sensory systems instead of any other way. But have this explanation to make it easier explain to others why my brain does not know any different than this way.

Based on the fact I sort through details on regular basis in many situations in life. It makes sense that I had hard time learning how to read because in my mind no details is not important. Now I know that is advantage now because I catch details before they are important. But it took many years of frustrations to know that is advantage but I know that is the way my brain works.

In certain situations, I have learned to pre-formed hypothesis of environment or situation but those situations make me anxious because it is not natural feeling for me to take not take all the information in and sort in a way that my brain is not use to do. This common in situations, when I am getting a lot of information at once and I need process quicker speed I am used, I am so used to sort details out sensory that I have to fast than my brain can be very confusing to me.

But while that is disadvantage in certain situations, I have always been able to the patterns in sensory details and link them together in way that many people cannot see. I love the fact my own conclusion in many situation are based on those patterns. In my world, there is one size fits all and that is based on those patterns that I am able make connects in ways that others may not be able to see.

So yes, I am grateful that my brain is sensory based and that is how I think because I create connects together in different senses and aspects. But I now know it always taken me longer to be express myself in many ways because my brain is busy sifting through details on regular basis in so many ways that I cannot actually explain how it works. All I know is it works in many ways because there is not supposed to happen in my world and that allow me to make connects in ways I will never be able explain to anyone else. And that is okay!