>>12313587My first post ITT
Speaking as someone with an aspergers/High Functioning Autism diagnoses
>>12313560is fairly accurate.
Because of the way autism spectrum can be genetically displayed in different ways across people, ranging from low functioning people who need help to survive to the genius's solving the worlds problems (there is a direct modeled correlation between the expression of autistic genes, and prevalence of genius's within a given population) it can be hard to generalize.
We know for a fact that people on the spectrum have more neuron connections (on average, by a magnitude of approx 40%) than neurotypicals, and in addition, we receive a similar magnitude amount of extra information from our nervous system. This essentially means not only are we getting more sensory information from our environment, but our brains are also attempting to process this information in a wider variety of ways.
This might sound like a super power, but often times the amount of processing power we need to fully process all of this adequately simply doesn't exist in the human brain.
It's not totally incomparable to overclocking your GPU.
In my own experience, I don't generally have a problem with crowds, and in the right environments, I can even be quite successful with my "relationship" to the outside world.
However, when there are situations where my emotions come into play (especially romantic situations, or even just negative social stimulus of any kind) it can be overpowering.
All of a sudden I can not think clearly, tears may come to my eyes, I feel a burning sensation all over, and it's the mental equivalent of being held underwater.
I become effectively mute when experiencing these and find it hard to communicate, though others on the spectrum can react with more volatility.
Different stimulus affects different people on the spectrum, others may be more affected by lights, sounds, or other stimulus than I am, but may receive a similar reaction.
