What's your superpower?
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Mine is a super power in a crisis. The rest of the time it is a massive hindrance. But! I also think it's why I'm so unique and why I developed so many other skills, so I wouldn't trade it so much as living in a world that can't accommodate me.
Obviously my past experiences have made me who I am, but plenty of neurotypical people are unique and have skills too. I genuinely believe I'd be the same person I am today but "better" if I didn't have ADHD. I don't want to sound like a doomer, but it's genuinely difficult for me to do basic things. The narrative that disabilities are actually super powers is deeply troubling to me. At times it can even feel like toxic positivity.
I'm not trying to say you're doing anything wrong by describing your ADHD as such. I don't see a problem with it. I view it similar to the way some people who are deaf don't want to be able to hear. Nobody can dictate your experience to you. You know what is best for you. Individuals with ADHD saying things like that don't bother me. What bothers me is when neurotypical people do it or it's a trend.
I got into an argument with someone about this before. They were using the idea of hyper focus as being a super power. If the planets align and I'm able to hyper focus on what I need to be doing at the time and somehow I don't need to be doing anything else then sure, it's a super power. More often it's me being unable to stop thinking about something I'm fixated on for days. Losing sleep while I think about it. It distracting me from work. It distracting me from friends. Only to just suddenly leave making me wonder why I'm not interested in the thing I had been obsessed with for so long.
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I'm definitely not unflappable, I still get angry. But it fades quickly.
Okay! I'll maintain the unflappable facade until you become... less flapped.
That sentence really got away from me. The point is I mean well and I get at least some of what you're talking about. And! I can ask you to come be angry for me when I'm unable to flap! A perfect system!
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I can make the sound of one hand clapping.
It was a thing that went around my middle school. You keep your hand at about a 90 degree angle to your arm, and then flap back and forth with your fingers loose so it hits your palm. Takes a little practice.
To me the sound of one hand clapping is whoosh... whoosh... whoosh...
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I can turn ducks around... but only when they are in the water
supe name: The Ductator!
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Obviously my past experiences have made me who I am, but plenty of neurotypical people are unique and have skills too. I genuinely believe I'd be the same person I am today but "better" if I didn't have ADHD. I don't want to sound like a doomer, but it's genuinely difficult for me to do basic things. The narrative that disabilities are actually super powers is deeply troubling to me. At times it can even feel like toxic positivity.
I'm not trying to say you're doing anything wrong by describing your ADHD as such. I don't see a problem with it. I view it similar to the way some people who are deaf don't want to be able to hear. Nobody can dictate your experience to you. You know what is best for you. Individuals with ADHD saying things like that don't bother me. What bothers me is when neurotypical people do it or it's a trend.
I got into an argument with someone about this before. They were using the idea of hyper focus as being a super power. If the planets align and I'm able to hyper focus on what I need to be doing at the time and somehow I don't need to be doing anything else then sure, it's a super power. More often it's me being unable to stop thinking about something I'm fixated on for days. Losing sleep while I think about it. It distracting me from work. It distracting me from friends. Only to just suddenly leave making me wonder why I'm not interested in the thing I had been obsessed with for so long.
toxic positivity
Oof, you're not joking. There was a community somewhere else on the internet who was 100% about that bullshit. Some days, you just want to be able to do the fucking laundry. Or in my case, make the marinara sauce. I took meds today and I'm all focused but I'll be damned if I can start cooking. Executive dysfunction can really fuck right off forever.
why I’m not interested
There's that depression-like emptiness where once a whole-life obsession was! I'm really grateful that I've gotten to a point in my life where I recognize that feeling for what it is, because that helps me a lot in coping with it. "Why am I not having fun anymore?" It can be such a bleak thing, but I'm lucky enough (I recognize not everyone is!) to be able to objectively realize that's what's wrong with me, and now that it's been identified, to set aside that feeling and wait for the next hyperfocus.
You're for sure right. There'd be less struggle. There'd be less strife. And I wish you could give it up, and be those things, and not have to kill yourself to do basic, normal things every day. But I think I'd keep it.
Hey, thanks for the conversation. If you ever need an accountability person, my DMs are open!
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I have extremely sensitive hearing. I can tell when there's an animal scarer nearby.
This brings me to Microsoft Teams. You might have seen people mention that their dogs know when someone joins the call before they do. That's because they introduced "ultrasonic howling" to detect if they're in the same room as you, and mutes their mic.
It hurts like fucking hell with headphones on.
Never heard of ultrasonic howling, but what a cool idea - stop that feedback in its tracks! Bummer that it bothers your hearing.
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I used to absolutely hate cucumber, to the point that I could taste it if someone cut a tomato salad with the same knife they used for the cucumber without washing it in between, the whole tomato salad would be ruined for me.
I could smell instantly when someone started chopping cucumber in the other room.
That's it, my superpower is to detect traces of cucumber.
That reminds me, when we were kids my little sister used to call cucumber slices "ice cubes". No idea why.
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CRT TV's emit a high frequency noise while in operation. Apparently there must be a significant number of people who can't hear frequencies that high. My wife can't hear it and had no idea those TV's made any noise at all.
Aww, it's not magic, just science
(Thank you for the info! Very interesting!) -
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I can do the Skype notification sound with my mouth, but it's not a natural ability, a beatboxer classmate taught me during highschool. He could also mimic a cricket and that derailed more than one lesson, but he never taught me that one.
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I can repressurize my ears without yawning, just by flexing a muscle. Even less useful, I can focus my eyes to different distances without using the finger trick, which comes in handy never.
It could come in handy if you took up archery.
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I used to be able to tell if a TV was on or not. I can't really explain it, but it was like I could vaguely hear/feel it? I don't know, I was a kid. My grandma would play her games without sound sometimes so she wouldn't wake people up (and probably to play without a kid hanging off of her), but I evolved to counter it.
I can tell when the batteries on my cordless mouse have died. There's a strange feeling of resistance when the mouse is active, but when it's dead, nothing.
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Mildly more heat resistant. I can pick up hot food out of a fryer basket with my bare hands or stay in the cold a bit longer without getting frostbite.
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I believe I once killed a fly with my mind. I had just read an article about a Japanese kid who could supposedly project images onto camera film mentally. The way he described it was building up a storm of energy in his mind and sort of throwing it at the camera. So I noticed a fly on my window right then. I did the same mental exercise, picturing a cyclone of energy whirring through my brain, building up more and more power, and I visualized unleashing it suddenly in a burst at the fly. Pow! The fly instantly fell off the glass and was dead on the windowsill. Either I killed it or it was ONE HELL of a coincidence.
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Mildly more heat resistant. I can pick up hot food out of a fryer basket with my bare hands or stay in the cold a bit longer without getting frostbite.
Also I can taste caffeine.
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I get to be the favorite of pretty much all the family pets. Always been.
Some family and friends joke that I probably could go to an African safari and the lions wouldn't harm me. Not really rushing to find out if it's true tho.
I have also been "the first human" as my wife puts it my entire life. Never had an animal act aggressive towards me and they typically gravitate to me during public events without even showing them attention.
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I have an impeccable nose for work BS.
When a new initiative or proposal or project or just a simple inquiry comes my way, I seem to have a really good instinct as to how feasible/likely this project will come to fruition. BS projects get tossed into a corner, Non-BS projects get attention.
99.9% of the time, the BS projects are cancelled or get completely rectified into non-BS projects before I had to waste a single calorie on them
90% of the time, the non-BS projects are actually developed or, if cancelled, it's due to forces outside of our control
The consequence of this "power" is that I am rarely busy since I don't waste time on the BS and I get solid work done as I can move the time to the non-BS stuff... 23 years into my career I have never been late for a delivery or caught with no progress on a request
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I used to be able to tell if a TV was on or not. I can't really explain it, but it was like I could vaguely hear/feel it? I don't know, I was a kid. My grandma would play her games without sound sometimes so she wouldn't wake people up (and probably to play without a kid hanging off of her), but I evolved to counter it.
I had this too!
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I have two superpowers:
Mosquitoes don't find me delicious. When everyone else is getting hammered, they generally leave me alone. When I do get bit, the bites barely swell and they don't usually itch.
Rock star parking- Anywhere I go, I always check out immediately in front of the place I need to be. There's almost always an empty spot, and if there isn't there's someone just leaving that I pull into. I dunno how that helps me fight crime, but it sure would be useful if I were a bank heist getaway driver.
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You an I... We are either going to form an unstoppable super team or... You ate going to end up as my nemesis.
You sleep a lot and I do everything? Doesnt sound very nice to me, tho in FF14 there is a quest chain where one guys is always awake and his 'wife' sleeps for him because of a magical item.
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Idk your wife, but I would feel like that's a very intimate connection to share that you have with her. I could see it going a number of ways, of course. But what's kept you from sharing with her, overall? If you don't mind me asking
I think she would be mortified if she knew I knew.
