Far Removed

My therapist once said to me that he wondered why autism hadn't evolved away.  He reasoned that it must have some Darwinian benefit.  I believe he was talking about ASD on an experiential level.  There is some evidence that whatever genes are involved in autism are also involved in increased iron absorption, which is particularly beneficial during cell growth.  Having cells that absorb iron better might be a benefit worth the risk of developing autism, but that isn't what psychoanalysts want to work with.  So what benefits of autism do I experience consciously? It's hard to say.  Autism is like a small glitch in a single component in an electrical system that causes seemingly unrelated glitches to pervade the system at large.  It's difficult enough identifying all the subtle problems that come with my ASD.  If there are benefits, they're whispers in a storm.  And autism isn't all I am.  It's no mean feat to identify which aspects of my...

Being asocial, I am not motivated to socialize.  Being autistic, as is my specific experience of autism, I am socially inept.  I am, to the detriment of my interpersonal communication skills, disproportionately more analytical than emotive.  Dispassion is often unwelcome in the interpersonal world, even when it is appropriate.  I'm uncomfortable with passion because it is unreliable.  What passion I do have is inclined toward neutral description, so it little seems like passion at all.  This is a portrait of disability.  I am narrow and reticent.  This certainly isn't conducive to lucrative success in the arts.  Because I fail to connect when I do attempt to interact, I escape the notice of people who might help me in my profession.  Furthermore, my art is very analytical, being especially inclined toward philosophical explorations of nihility.  The emotion it contains may seem sterile or cold.  So I may fail to connect on ...