I am different

In my teens, I thought, all people were more or less like me. I used to think, that laws were unnecessary because people wouldn’t suddenly start killing or stealing just because there are no laws forbidding it, and those who want to do that, already do it despite the law. But I was about to get surprised - I was wrong.

During my psychology studies, I’ve learned about Kohlberg’s moral development stages and understood that since my teens I was in the sixth - universal principals of ethics - stage. But I was mostly surprised by the fact that the majority of people are in the fourth - loyalty to law and order - stage and that they would do such crimes as stealing or killing if there were no laws forbidding it. I didn’t want to believe that but later talking to some people I found out that they really would do that without the laws.

Another matter-of-course thing for me was logic. What I mean when I say logic is rules like “If A, then B. A, therefore B”. I also connect logic to Raven’s progressive matrices test, measuring fluid intelligence (general intelligence, independent from accumulated knowledge). I used to think that all people were thinking in the same manner. I mean, if "If A, then B.", then how can you even think that "A, therefore C."?! The world would be entirely chaotic. But apparently, I was wrong here as well.

At one point during my studies, I used to teach the usage of the statistics program to other psychology students. Its usage was straightforward, you just had to remember or write down what to click and in what case, everything based on the “if A then B” principle. I had a bit of difficulty with one of my students. Eventually, she asked me: “Everything here is based on logic, right?” I was thrilled that she finally understood everything, and I answered: “Yes!” Then she told me that logic was always difficult for her. I had no words, I was surprised how that was even possible. How can you even think without logic? Do you imagine that you live in a miracle world, where anything can happen and there are no rules?

As part of my psychology studies, I had to do Raven’s progressive matrices test. It was effortless and only one question required a little more thinking. I couldn’t understand how anyone would be unable to answer all 60 questions correctly, or at least 59. But then I was surprised by the results of my group members, the majority had significantly lower scores. Even people that I considered to be extremely intelligent often were able to answer only 50 questions correctly. It was so bizarre for me.

But somehow I still ignored all those things and I still thought that most people think in the same manner. But in 2023 I found out that that’s not the case. I have been diagnosed with autism (official diagnosis – Asperger’s syndrome, because Lithuania is still using TLK10) and the psychiatrist mentioned that one of the symptoms is that my thinking is different. I no longer remember how she named that variety of thinking exactly (maybe structural or categorical?) but to me, it was associated with what I call logical thinking. So, I got to know, that it's not the girl who didn't understand the logic who is weird - it's me, my brain is functioning differently.

That was my road of discovery from the belief that everyone is like me to the discovery that my brain is rather different from most people.