@PatternChaser I think it's a sensation-avoider thing, which the majority of #autistics are — but by no means all. I'm autistic, but I'm a sensation SEEKER, not an avoider. I work 12-hour night shifts in an inpatient pharmacy, with a ceiling filled with huge fluorescent light fixtures — and I wish they were even brighter. At home, I'm not the one who wants the lights kept dim — it's my #hyperallistic wife. I've nicknamed her "Batgirl" because of her strong preference for low light, which I don't share at all. She habitually keeps the lights so low that I can't even read printed paper pages in our living room — only actively illuminated screens. I've told her, only half jokingly, that I wish we had operating-theater floodlights throughout the house.

LET THERE BE LIGHT!!

@VulcanTourist @verdantsquare @autistics Would you also lay claim to the next part of my description of Morgan?

"Instead of missing social cues, she sees every one of them. She can all but read minds."

By "hyperacutely tuned in", I wasn't referring to the idiosyncratic hyperawareness of various sensations and events that is indeed common in autistics, including myself. A hyperawareness that is either random and unfocused, or focused in a way driven by our own internal priorities, rather than by any role in understanding the social world in which neurotypicals live. The awareness of neurotypicals — and, even far more so, that of #hyperallistics — is an ORGANIZED awareness. Organized around the task of understanding the neurotypical social world. It includes the ability to TUNE OUT things that are irrelevant to that task — and organize the things that are.

I've nicknamed my #hyperallistic wife "Madame Butterfly" ever since we watched "The Life of David Gale" together. While I was attending to idiosyncratically selected scenes and dialogue of interest solely from my particular autistic perspective, she was instinctively yet methodically organizing subtle clues that I would never have noticed. Then, in an early scene, she heard music from Puccini's opera playing on a truck stereo, integrated that with information she had already gathered — and correctly predicted the entire complex plot of the movie. (I could have watched that early part of the movie 100 times and I would never have guessed the ending.)

And in the 1980s, a friend — whom I now, with hindsight, recognize as #hyperallistic — was so fascinated with the process of party politics in the USA that he decided he'd like to have the experience of being on the floor of the Democratic national convention. He had no nefarious purpose; he wasn't trying to steal Democratic Party secrets, or influence the outcome of the convention, or anything like that. But he also had no legitimate purpose for being there. If I had wanted to have that experience, I would have thought: "It would be nice; so would orbiting the Earth, but I have no more chance of getting past the Dems' security than of stowing away on the Space Shuttle." But to him, the neurotypical Dem security officers were merely a speedbump. I forget the details of the scam he used, but it involved diversion and distraction; he intuitively understood and exploited the attention overload involved in policing an event with so many attendees. And he had the experience he wanted — undetected.

What is more, he made the same mistake implied by the title and dialogue of "High Potential". He thought his #hyperallistic abilities were conferred simply by high intelligence, and couldn't understand why I couldn't do the same. He even told me I could if I wanted to! (Not in this universe.)

Can you perform feats like these? If so, then maybe your autism diagnosis should indeed be reconsidered. But if not, you're no more #hyperallistic than I am.

@dedicto @verdantsquare @autistics

> Morgan is #hyperallistic — the polar opposite of autistic. Instead of being detached from her physical and social environment as we are, she's hyperacutely tuned in to it. Instead of being oblivious, she notices and keeps track of EVERYTHING.

You might have just described me. So much for my autism diagnosis....

@verdantsquare It absolutely floors me that anyone would think Morgan Gillory on "High Potential" is autistic. She is as far from autistic as it's possible to get. Neither are her abilities merely a matter of high general intelligence, as the show's title, and some of its dialogue, would suggest. Morgan is #hyperallistic — the polar opposite of autistic. Instead of being detached from her physical and social environment as we are, she's hyperacutely tuned in to it. Instead of being oblivious, she notices and keeps track of EVERYTHING. Sherlock Holmes with fluorescent nail polish. Instead of missing social cues, she sees every one of them. She can all but read minds.

Morgan is not neurotypical. #Hyperallism is a kind of neurodivergence — but it's the very opposite of OUR kind.

@autistics

@graymattergrcltd @autistics Another issue with the #EnvironmentalYoke: even if we abstract from concerns of context and goals, and evaluate the standard-issue neurotypical environmental yoke strictly in terms of fitness for purpose as a means of succeeding in neurotypical human society, it's likely that it still falls far short of perfection even when viewed through that highly focused lens. If you want to understand neurotypicals and their interactions, it certainly helps to BE one; but it doesn't follow that that's the path to the best possible understanding.

I believe #hyperallistics exist: people who deviate from neurotypicality in the opposite direction from autistics. (Indeed, I believe my wife is one.) Instead of turning off the environmental yoke and seeing how the world looks without it, as autistics do, they develop it to heights of sophisticated performance that neurotypicals can only dream of. In #hyperallistic hands, the neurological mechanism becomes so good at perceiving how the social world really works that it becomes a true instrument of liberation, rather than a gadget to facilitate going along to get along — it is no longer appropriate to call it a yoke.