I’m Autistic, but I Can Still See the Big Picture.

Doctors think autistics are trapped in the details. Doctors can’t see the big picture.

I’m in my 50s and only recently self-diagnosed as likely autistic.

I am long term a big picture person.

I get to understand the big picture by lots of flailing research, back and forth, mistakes, blunders, blurts and bang-ups.

I’m not a straight-line learner.

I can follow instructions very well but I don’t necessarily learn from following instructions. I have to do something over and over and over again … often the wrong way so I know why the wrong way is wrong!

And then an “impression” builds in my mind. It isn’t the “idea of the system as a whole based on a construction of its parts” … it somehow *is* the system itself, or a rough model of the system … the big picture.

My bosses will often give me an assignment and I will pause “look up and right” into my brain to see if any concerns will float up. And I do mean float. I don’t think logically about the project, I wait for my brain to just dish out concerns to me … and I often don’t know immediately why it is a concern … I have to work backward to find out such things.

When something “new” is presented to me, it is very rarely truly new. I will almost always have a similar system in my head. This makes people think I’m a very fast learner because I can take knowledge from Way Over There and apply it to what has been presented to me.

BUT … if the concept is completely new to me? No prior system I can map it onto? I get very anxious. When I “look up and right” there is darkness, emptiness, a feeling of insecurity.

And then I try learning from poking at it. Then I read about it. Then I read about what others have said about it. I turn it upside down. I shake it. It still does nothing. I read the middle of the book, jump to this chapter and then that chapter and to the index and then over here ….

At that point, people will often look at me like I’m a slow learner. Sometimes I’ve been told, “this is easy … why are you having so much trouble?”

Me: “Well, in 30 years I’ll figure out I’m autistic but right now I just feel stupid. Thanks.”

I’m a really bright guy … but I am different. And I learn differently.

And slowly — after considerable anxiety that often leaves me feeling stupid and tired — I begin to understand the new system. When I do understand something? I tend to understand it very well. Like … understanding systems is one of my “autistic superpowers.”

Here’s a rough analogy.

When a person gets a new video game with tunnels going off in all directions, they start out with “no map” of the world.

When first wandering around it can feel like it is all random and not very well connected. And then, after wandering around in the game for an hour or two … all of a sudden there is a sense of “how to get back to the house” or “if I go down that direction I’ll eventually make it to the mines.” Eventually, the world feels familiar.

That’s how my autistic brain works. I am a big picture person … but it takes me a lot of getting down in the weeds and learning in a way that most neurotypical people do not.

If you are a big picture person *and* autistic?

I think that doctors can only diagnose using traits they can directly see, so they never considered autistics to be capable of “big picture” thinking.

Every autistic is different.

Embrace your difference. You are unique.

Others may not immediately appreciate your gifts but for your own sanity, you must see your own gifts.

Being autistic can be lonely at times. I love being alone but … sometimes I wish I didn’t have to fight so hard to … to avoid ridicule.

That said, I’m in my 50s, married twice, have a wonderful loving wife and 6 awesome kids. I am employed with a job with tons of responsibility.

I am autistic. And I am so glad.