Positives and Negatives

There are a lot of negatives that come with having an autism spectrum disorder.  I wanted to write about some of the positives, but I could only think of one that I experience.  I process emotions quickly and, most of the time, with little trouble.  I don't get overwhelmed by emotion often, and I'm not impulsive.  I have a very academic approach to dealing with my emotions.  I am pragmatic, but not because I choose to be.  That's the only way my brain works.

Thinking about what's good and bad about being a high-functioning autistic person is not as simple a matter as one might expect.  Every case is different.  Also, almost nobody, I suspect, has complete self knowledge all the time.  I'm not very good at evaluating myself.  Not only do I have low self-esteem, but I'm always looking at myself from the wrong angle.  I don't trust my ability to evaluate others, either.  I don't know what's normal.  That's a complicated issue.  If I'm outside of normal, can I describe and assess what it's like inside?  Few who are inside know they're having an experience that I'm not having.  So it's complicated.

The ways in which my neurodevelopmental condition affects me are manifold and subtle.  I don't even know all of them.  Many of them cause me frustration.  Luckily, said frustration passes like a zephyr; it's the frustration's recurrence, rather than its momentary persistence, that vexes me.  But there are good things about being me. I know there are.  I need to work on seeing through the cognitive and -yes - emotional obstructions that keep me from knowing them.