I read somewhere that Asperger’s people have no imagination and lack creativity. (I swear I did! Will attempt to find the source and update this.) It’s just not true. So not! For one; Einstein is right Creativity is intelligence having fun. Absolutely. And since most Aspies are highly intelligent and they do love to play..come on…how old are you? I’m about 12 and always will be. Sure I like ordering things. My lego bricks are separated into colours…so shoot me. But I built a COW out of them instead of the mundane crappy house or whatever most NT’s come up with. Of yes, I do have a BA in design from the University of London… though Lego cow’s got nothing to with it. Anyhow, just wanted to get it out there; Aspergirls are CREATIVE. All of the I know are. 🙂 Sweeping generalizations about Aspies especially when they’re founded on male traits are annoyingly incorrect.
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I totally agree!!!! We are highly creative. We are often very witty, too…though our humor may not be the kind appreciated by the broadest audiences. We DO have empathy! That myth irks me to no end!! If anything, I believe the majority of us have TOO MUCH EMPATHY. In my point of view, empathy often transforms into creativity as a form of expression, especially for us; we usually are not very comfortable with expressing such things verbally. Just because NT’s done *see* or recognize what they understand as empathy, they’ve made the sweeping decision that this therefore must mean WE LACK empathy. Seriously? Just because someone doesn’t understand something, or because it is abstract in their world, does not give them the right to label a whole group of people in this negative context.
The bubbles are floating around me…my soap box is engaged (or I am in a weird Lawrence Welk Show dream).
If you think about Aspie traits, such as the typically extreme sensitivity to…well… EVERYTHING …why would such things as empathy and creativity be dismissed as possibilities? It is not logical in the slightest.
I mean, if I enter a room full of people, I am overwhelmed by STUFF…sights, smells, lights, noises, textures, motion, colors, and emotional vibes (for lack of a better term). I may have no clue what they mean, or why they exist, but they wash over me like a Tsunami. Wouldn’t you want to go rock in a quiet corner if your senses were assaulted this way? If anything, this is a gross understatement of experiential qualities that affect me and many like me.
The empathy myth frustrated me; sets off my injustice alarm sirens like an impending air raid of neuro-typical judgement is looming darkly. How is that for creativity?
We struggle to communicate with NT’s. Creativity is a natural outlet for stifled communication. Duh, people…psych 101 stuff, right? So why do we get labeled and judged so inappropriately?
Are we scary? I don’t buy that, other than in the sense of the unknown being unnerving. Well, welcome to our world, folks. We wade through the unknown in every social context without labeling an entire group of people the way we have been unfairly stamped.
It’s like the eye contact bit…to fit in, I had to learn strategies to deal with that. It doesn’t matter that eye contact is so incredibly intense for me that maintaining it is impossibly draining (and I can’t LISTEN and do eye contact because all my energy is focused on dealing with the eye contact stuff). No NT empathy for this, though! I cope by very brief eye contact and focusing on mouths and brows more (I have to lip read to supplement a central auditory processing disorder, anyway). I’ve gotten good enough at it that people (even ‘shrinky’ {ha ha} psych types) can’t usually tell and are surprised when I out myself and explain the technique…which they do see once I point it out.
I have, for the most part, excellent coping skills, but it’s still very much a struggle. I can’t fit into a regular corporate setting (even if I were not too physically disabled for it).
So yes, I am definitely on the same bandwagon. We have to be creative (and highly resourceful) just to get through mundane experiences! Rant finis.
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I totally agree!!!! We are highly creative. We are often very witty, too…though our humor may not be the kind appreciated by the broadest audiences. We DO have empathy! That myth irks me to no end!! If anything, I believe the majority of us have TOO MUCH EMPATHY. In my point of view, empathy often transforms into creativity as a form of expression, especially for us; we usually are not very comfortable with expressing such things verbally. Just because NT’s done *see* or recognize what they understand as empathy, they’ve made the sweeping decision that this therefore must mean WE LACK empathy. Seriously? Just because someone doesn’t understand something, or because it is abstract in their world, does not give them the right to label a whole group of people in this negative context.
The bubbles are floating around me…my soap box is engaged (or I am in a weird Lawrence Welk Show dream).
If you think about Aspie traits, such as the typically extreme sensitivity to…well… EVERYTHING …why would such things as empathy and creativity be dismissed as possibilities? It is not logical in the slightest.
I mean, if I enter a room full of people, I am overwhelmed by STUFF…sights, smells, lights, noises, textures, motion, colors, and emotional vibes (for lack of a better term). I may have no clue what they mean, or why they exist, but they wash over me like a Tsunami. Wouldn’t you want to go rock in a quiet corner if your senses were assaulted this way? If anything, this is a gross understatement of experiential qualities that affect me and many like me.
The empathy myth frustrated me; sets off my injustice alarm sirens like an impending air raid of neuro-typical judgement is looming darkly. How is that for creativity?
We struggle to communicate with NT’s. Creativity is a natural outlet for stifled communication. Duh, people…psych 101 stuff, right? So why do we get labeled and judged so inappropriately?
Are we scary? I don’t buy that, other than in the sense of the unknown being unnerving. Well, welcome to our world, folks. We wade through the unknown in every social context without labeling an entire group of people the way we have been unfairly stamped.
It’s like the eye contact bit…to fit in, I had to learn strategies to deal with that. It doesn’t matter that eye contact is so incredibly intense for me that maintaining it is impossibly draining (and I can’t LISTEN and do eye contact because all my energy is focused on dealing with the eye contact stuff). No NT empathy for this, though! I cope by very brief eye contact and focusing on mouths and brows more (I have to lip read to supplement a central auditory processing disorder, anyway). I’ve gotten good enough at it that people (even ‘shrinky’ {ha ha} psych types) can’t usually tell and are surprised when I out myself and explain the technique…which they do see once I point it out.
I have, for the most part, excellent coping skills, but it’s still very much a struggle. I can’t fit into a regular corporate setting (even if I were not too physically disabled for it).
So yes, I am definitely on the same bandwagon. We have to be creative (and highly resourceful) just to get through mundane experiences! Rant finis.
I feel exactly as you do! And I agree with everything you wrote!
I have room on my soapbox 😉
Love the idea of a Lego Cow!!!! Yes, Aspies are creative – when you see the world differently from everyone else, how can you not be creative? The trick is figuring out how to express your creativity. (I’ve always loved legos… even my 13 year old still wants lego sets for Christmas, which I think is COOL!)
aspies are highly creative. there’s an article in facebook about an aspie artists who drew breathtaking pictures of places he’d never been. and from what i read in forums, so many aspies write books. and there’s a group in facebook about asperger and artists, lovely pictures, some of which painted by 13 years old.
i guess it’s some kind of compensation for our lack of social skills, but who says social skills are so important? following the herd?
while the neurotypicals were busy chattering away, aspies invented and discovered things that pushed the human race forward.
I don’t agree, sorry. I have Asperger’s and I see myself as highly intelligent in one area, but I lose grades in school for not being creative. In general terms, such as when I am writing code, I still cannot find ideas anywhere. This is simply my opinion, but I really don’t have any original thoughts. Not one. Sorry about that.