u/Dull-Anything4925

I thought vivid imagination and hyperphantasia was common in ASD, but now I read it’s the opposite. I’m confused. Myself and my asperger’s friends all have hyperphantasia. Extremely vivid mental imagery, which also makes us very creative. I sometimes lay at night and imagine a whole movie vividly in my head. The story, music, smell, everything. I’m often sad I don’t posess the talents to actually get it out of there.

I also have very vivid dreams, and almost always remember them in detail.

I seem to cry over everything. Movies, a beautiful painting or tune, a sunset, a little critter getting hurt, just a thought in my head. Anything beautiful, sad or otherwise moving to me really. Yesterday I took my nephew to a dinosaur show, and I started crying when the dinosaurs came up with this epic music. Just sobbing. I used to get people come up to me and ask me if I am ok, and my friends telling me to get it together. I’m a grown guy, and I get embaressed (even though I know crying and being sensitive isn’t wrong, it’s just so excessive with me). I am somewhat better at controlling it now, than some years ago, but I still feel it coming all the time, as a knot in my throat or teary eyes. Makes me shy around any stimulating activies. Not sure how to deal with this.

I’m seeing a therapist as my stress and following avoidance has affected my relationships, but she keeps telling me I can’t be autistic due to my high emotional intelligence and hyperempathy. Is that really so? Or some outdated view? Ever since I was a little guy, I’ve just been so affected by the stuff happening around me. If someone hurt, be it animal or human, I hurt and feel a strong need to fix it. I can’t and won’t hurt a fly. I just never want anyone to feel hurt or unwanted or outcast. I am overly empathetic to a fault. I’d rather hurt myself than hurt someone elses feelings. An ironic example would be a girl who liked me, but I wasn’t into her. Instead of telling her that and giving her a straight no, I kept running away from situations here I’d have to tell her, which caused me a lot of stress. And caused her prolonged confusion, which was the oppposite of what I wanted (I know that, but my behaviour doesn’t always fit what I do know, creating contradictions). I can cry and get overwhelmed by the little things, such as a beautiful sunset or a sad commercial. It makes me feel ‘wrong’ at times, but it’s always been like that. My mother said that too. She couldn’t watch a charity show or the news, or something of the like, with me when I was little, as I would cry and it would affects me for weeks, thinking and asking of nothing else than ways to help and fix it. I’ve become good at controlling those feelings in public though, but it still happens. I also score very high on emotional intelligence tests, such as seeing perspectives, understanding social situations, reading faces. But I still get taken advantage of a lot, and trust in the goodness the wrong people. I’m very idealistic and spiritual. I’ve been diagnosed as a child and again as an adult with ASD 1 (previously asperger’s) and now also ADHD (AuDHD). My brother is non verbal ASD, and I’ve always been the one to navigate social situations for him. And our mother OCD. Our father I don’t know, as he is out of the picture due to DV, which affected me a lot too, though I’ve forgiven him, as I forgive everyone (again, to a fault).

While I do think Michael was a brilliant performer and dancer, no hate there, I always found some of his frequent dance moves more awkward than “cool”. It looked a lot like my autistic brother (love him) stimming, who also loves dancing to MJ. The random hand flapping, crotch grabbing, stiff rocking back and forth, erratic up and down jumps, sudden repititive moves or twitches, neck jerking, random sounds. I wonder was that all part of his practiced choregraphy, or was it something he just did subconciously when he felt the beat/kick of a song?