On 08/04/09 21:14:03, Kelvin Jackson wrote:
> On Apr 8, 2009, at 6:50 AM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets wrote:

> > Not as far as I know. My husband is a former psychotherapist and  
> > says I
> > don't exhibit the usual symptoms. I'm just socially challenged,  
> > having never
> > really practised social skills when I was a child. I do have them,  
> > but they
> > stayed in embryonic stage due to lack of training.
> Sounds a lot like me. I have issues with social skills as well—I have 
> been a loner as long as I can remember. But I think about many  
> problems as if I were explaining them to another person (the main  
> exception being math). As far as I know I don't have any neurological 
> conditions (with the exception of grapheme > color synaesthesia). 

I'm no loner --- I'm just picky who my friends are. Any impression you 
get of me that makes me look "socially challenged" or as if I "have 
issues with social skills", they're just part of the test to make sure 
you're worth keeping as a friend. Actually, I love having other people 
around, as long as I can be myself. (I never moved or anything until I 
was in year 10, so about 15 or so years old. People picked on me at 
times, it irritated me. They usually seemed to understand when they 
went too far, and layed off. Maybe I just wasn't worth bullying too 

I think with my brain and try to avoid any complicated understanding of 
how it's working, as long as I know how to manipulate it to my 
advantage (and I do manipulate myself, because I can). I do know how I 
work (so I can manipulate myself), and I guess I think with words, but 
if I can say something in a foreign language, it just comes out, it 
doesn't get translated. It's there or it's not. And if it comes later, 
it's sudden and not at all conscious (every now and again I try to 
construct sentences that use English-style "is" for the present 
progressive, it doesn't work very well, but perhaps it suggests 
something of how I work ... but I don't get equivalent problems with 
bad translations of prepositions or other word classes).

My brain is just a tool. My mind is another tool. I let them work 
however they feel like as long as they achieve my agenda. It has 
nothing to do with being me.