Strengths & advantages of Autism

Strengths and Advantages of Autistic People in today's society

People see Autistic people are socially awkward and quirky, but never knew anything more about their lives. Most Autistic people like myself have strong technical and analytical skills as being their major strengths. If we are talking about employability, the current recruitment system solely focuses on social and communication skills, although analysing, observations, organisational and other technicality are missed out.

I am very technical and organised person because I tend to focus (over analyse) things to find out their solutions and meanings. When I went through high school I decided what I want to learn. I chosen science, because its my passion and interest to pursue for my career. Autistic people feel more comfortable to do their own hobbies and interests to become a career due to their passion and intelligence of knowledge. Science has helped me to become analytical where I have abilities to research and determine results. Science taught me how to become a person to know what, how, where and why things are made to cause events.

My Autistic characteristics makes me to become obsessed with the subjects I am interested in since the fact I know I am very good at. The obsession can be seen as 'habit', 'addictive' and 'stereotypical' from the neurotypical's (NT) perspective. This becomes a social judgment. Likewise employers don't tend to see that since the 'obsession' is making the workplace uncomfortable. Apparently this area is poorly understood by NTs because its their passion on the subject that makes them comfortable and professional.

Bill Gates, Albert Einstein and Mark Zuckerberg may have Autism because of their passion and obsessions on things of their area of expertise. They became very successful people because of their service to the society. They are very analytical, innovative and inspiring people.

What about me?

I enjoy my time observing and reporting thunderstorms. I grew up watching thunderstorms coming by. I took up photography and filming them. I learned about the dynamics of meteorology over time where I analyse weather forecasts and observations to see if there going to be stormy conditions. I also have strong passion in politics, geography, environmental sustainability and inclusive society. These passions grew when learning science during high school, and during two academic degrees. My passion grew along with development of knowledge it helps me to connect closer with like-minded people about same interests.

These areas helped me to become expert in understanding and interpreting systems, especially in geography I was able to read maps whilst traveling and understanding their systems. I may get in panic mode if I get lost, but thanks to my strong ability to find myself where I am. Without a map I able to interpret the sky (where the sun sets, rises etc) to know where the North and West is, follow trails that leads to something, and follow road signs such as a city that I am heading for (e.g. going to Nashville, I will follow the sign says to Memphis because I know I get to Nashville on this same road because it the next city after Memphis).

In politics and society inclusion I analyse and observed people's behaviour like racism, bigotry, discrimination and related attacks I see myself how it will solve crisis on sensitive things like human rights and climate change. But me having Autism means I dislike violence, attacks and crimes (breaking the law; even minor issues!) I become very attentive to situations in political arena to understand the person's opinion/voice on certain issue compared to other person's different opinion. My strength is to analyse why there is two sides to the story/issue, I always come to meet in the middle. This is why I stopped attending rallies and small action events because my observations analysed that democracy is not improving by systematic violence and sending language to the society on the certain controversial issues.

I strongest passion in my career is environmental sustainability. I am in love of creating projects and innovation to improve our community health and wellbeing for the future. I enjoy my time listening, reading and watching new ideas about positive things for our future such as renewable energy, community projects, sustainable homes, public transport solutions and forest spaces. This passion will never fade away for the rest of my life because I am not giving up on my future facing uncertain situations like climate change impacts and environmental disasters.

What people see me?

While I enjoy my time spending with like-minded people with similar passions, I don't see myself making them uncomfortable in social situations. It not a downside of having Asperger's (aka. high functioning Autism) because the way NT sees us obsessive, one sided and creepy where it makes them uncomfortable. On a typical Autistic mind is about showing enthusiasm and compassion to the person knowing them are passionate and intelligent about the topic. It usually make a conversation leading another way. Unfortunately from my experience the person I talk to with my passion doesn't respond to me much as I do. It made me curious of why, missing out on the body language cues it doesn't tell me why this person is not confident to talk about the certain topic of in similar passion.

Many times when I have a conversation with someone who talks about something else other than my passion it also becomes one sided too! This person will talks the most of the time. It brain freezing me because of no knowledge on the subject. However there are times the conversations I had with people can become two sided where the person is very socially confident and non judgmental. I am not saying everyone who is one sided with me is judgmental, but the values you are being confused with my behaviour.

Many psychologists, counselors and researchers I have spoken about the futures of Autistic people in the society they said they should be employable by their chosen field and knowledge. The society needs more work on innovation and creating opportunities for positive change. Lots of people on the spectrum can be really good at social and communication skills too, like myself. But we still get discriminated and judged everyday by NTs who sees our behaviour is different among their peers. This becomes a roadblock for Autistic people to become fully engaged and successful people in the society.

What examples of roadblocks in my experiences because of people not understanding my Autistic behaviour in the way of my analytical and intelligent skills?

• Employability focuses on social and communication skills rather than technical, knowledge and experience.
• Public person; board member, candidate - internal choice of the person who wants to be a spokesperson, candidate or a board member usually focuses on same abilities such as social and communication skills a same approach to becoming employed.
• When comes to dating, some conversations can be one sided because the person's confidence is highly dependent.

What skills and knowledge from Autistic person is highly advantegous to the society?

• Problem solving ability - able to analyse solutions and alternatives
• Analytical skills - able to interpret, observe and maintain data, conditions and technicalities
• Does not enjoy violence and crimes - finds peace, respect and courtesy when people follow the rules and laws that will have no impact on person's lives. E.g. driving over the speed limit because speeding kills and its rude.
• Communication skills - of course we are great at communication skills because we learn strategies over time. It may us appear not good at them at the start, but if you train them, they become experts!
• Social skills - they are also easy to change over time like communication skills. If you give them a chance to socialise, you will able to help them to observe situations. Over time they become social experts!

What my psychologist told me

Psychologists always enjoyed my analytical and intelligent conversations about my social perspectives of my life experiences. Today my psychologist told me I was right by many things of how I observe and analyse social situations, my friends' lives and the way of current global communication. I learned that calling someone being a racist, a bigot and that is offensive in a same way of how people behave in such these manners. When I analysed these situations, and that is not improving the social relationships and communication barriers between different kinds of people.

As being an Aspie at age of 25. I am seeing trends and scenarios of people at my age cohort are experiencing downtimes are social disruptions. A typical Aspie would have obsessions during conversations that can be daunting and boring a person out which that would appear socially disruptive from a non-autistic person. Thus a person with Autism may not see that, but he/she is behaving in an intellectual manner by showing strong analytical and organisational skills. This is what my psychologist told me today!

Good news everybody! I am smart, passionate (& compassionate), intelligent and caring person. That is a relief to know that. I be thankful for who I am who and that I have been taught by my great family and friends over the years who helped me to overcome my challenges and learning new things. This made me to become a better person for myself. You can prove that I have attended universities, completing two academic degrees with one a Masters thesis earned a perfect grade. I was analytical person, and now I am more than that. This achievement earns my confidence to establish my efforts to find potential friends and a partner of my life to share experiences in a socially intelligent and talented society.

Whilst I learned not to take sides of people's debates and making negative remarks of their behaviour I made a better person of myself to prove these opposed points to be coincided to make a statement that would solve opportunities. Unfortunately, the society have not seen me yet. I am still looking for friends who would enjoy my company of our passions and intelligence to make our environment a safer, healthier and inclusive lifestyle. Also, of course I have a desire to find a potential partner to share for rest of my life because of my goals and compassionate is to achieve successes due to my positive, caring and talented attitudes. Just like how I completed my Masters degree composed a thesis GPA of 7.

Being an Aspie is NOT a negative nor a loser way of life. It just being different. Communication must be in strategic and intelligent approach. It helps me to become inclusive with the rest of the world.

Now this piece is beautiful!