WHAT LIFE IS LIKE WITH SYNESTHESIA & ADVANCED COGNITIVE ABILITIES
Spoiler alert: It can be a lot. That’s why for every time I appear “social” - it mostly means I spent the day inside my cave.
I’ve never been “normal” so I won’t pretend to be now … nor, would I want to change anything about myself. I’m truly gifted, and had no idea what these diagnoses meant because what I experience is so “normal” to me; I don’t know how to be any other way.
Maestro …
If you’ve seen the shows Pokerface, High Potential, and Brilliant Minds, I am a hybrid of all three.
I have the randomness, and spot on nature of Pokerface, the fashion sense and literal crime fighting of High Potential (I have a law in the state of Connecticut that I set when I was 17), and the “brilliance” of the Dr. in Brilliant Minds.
While Pokerface and High Potential don’t address synesthesia directly (Pokerface technically does when she tastes something she hears notes - when I write I hear notes) Brilliant Minds on the other hand (er, cross wired minds?) embraces it.
speaking of embracing it …
… Also I may never unsee my face as zachary quinto.
I have a lot of different types of synesthesia, and it affects every minute of every day of my life (When I animated how I experience the world, I went viral to 4.3 million people.) … only I had no idea that it was “a thing.”
I have known I am different, but after spending DECADES in therapy (I like to say that my inner child now has a doctorate) …
Not a SINGLE doctor thought to test me for autism, nor even told me what a sensory processing disorder was (which synesthesia happens to be).
I was misdiagnosed, and mislabeled a LOT of other things that caused me a lot of extra head and heartbreak.
That will be what it will be, if I dwell or live too long in the past I’ll miss out on the magic that the same networks that placed a bid on my life story in a FOUR WAY BIDDING WAR, had no idea these were the conditions I have … since I had yet to be diagnosed with them.
This happened in 2015 (courtesy of Jerry Bruckheimer and Warner Brothers). CBS purchased my blog as a put pilot in a four way bidding war between ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX.
This was announced again in 2022 and I had gone viral the Friday before.
CBS didn’t check to see if they owned the rights. I was RABID about buying them during COVID despite the put pilot not being picked up by Les Moonves.
ANYWHO …. total “coincidence” all this happened and I bought my rights years later …
As you can see, I “pick up on things,” and those things are very literal to me.
I’ve always said, “I don’t just ‘trust’ my instincts, I act upon them,” only they are more than “instincts.”
My body and brain act as a decoder to what is going on around me at all times.
It’s like living life with a 360 degree camera … which has made my life exciting enough for someone like Jerry Bruckheimer to want to option it, but also very overwhelming, and sometimes confusing as to “how I always know these things.”
I felt like I couldn’t ever “take credit” for the gifts that I had because I had yet to recognize them as such.
A few years back, I was in the middle of writing a post (which is an almost sacred thing for me … I never interrupt writing) … when my body created a very physical “disruption” of its own. I KNEW I had to leave the house and head over to my favorite watering hole.
It was this “jolt” to my system that was so strong, I just knew to listen.
I then told my husband, I had to go … which was confusing to him because I didn’t extend an offer for company … I just bolted out the door, noting that I had my phone on me if he needed to reach me.
It was early in the week, so the place wasn’t necessarily “popping” or lively. As I went to sit down at the nearly empty bar, I heard from one of the corners, HEY!!! Come sit with us!!!
It was a group I had just met, and really liked talking to.
Before approaching their side, I said “I knew I needed to be here” out loud enough for me to validate myself, but quiet enough for no one else to know.
There are only a handful of seats on that side of the bar, so I pulled up the “tiny stool” that no one sits in because it’s literally the smallest stool in the bar and the only place it can fit is where the servers come and go to grab drinks. It’s a royal pain in the ass, and speaks to the commitment of being on that side of the bar.
I was then handed my drink as I wondered myself where this was going and why I was there.
Still keeping my cards close to my chest, I did the “polite small-talk” that neurotypicals love.
I could FEEL among the three of them that something was “off.”
But again, I didn’t know them very well, I just knew the space and for some reason it was “calling me.”
One of the three then indicated he had to grab something, and would be right back.
As he left, I honed in more on one of the two women.
As I did, I intuitively heard “talk about the plaques” not in what I call my “human ears” but in this voice that I have access to, that is sometimes my own and sometimes not.
I don’t know if that’s part of synesthesia, pattern recognition (she might have been looking down at them and I didn’t notice), or psychic-ness (which is common among women with synesthesia) or something totally different.
There are plaques that have been placed on the bar honoring fallen friends who were regulars.
One of the women happened to be sitting in the place where the plaque was for a friend of mine who had passed the year before.
I started to talk about the ceremony we had for him, the obvious placement (since that was his favorite seat), the fact that they are a very reasonable price of $25. I followed up with exactly who the person is at said watering hole who is in charge of dispersing the plaques.
(You have to ask for one if someone passes. It’s just something the regulars do, the bar doesn’t do it for you.)
Mind you, this conversation was ONE WAY; I recognized that “this was why I was here.”
I was talking SO FAST. It was as if information was flooding through my body as this very heavy and fast stream of water, and it was my job to filter it through and serve what was left (kinda like a colander … but like … a classy one from William Sonoma).
It’s a very physical “experience” that happens.
you can see my whole face and body changes.
Both women were totally engaged, as they were in shock as to why I was describing all of this to them.
I could tell that I was “hitting the nail, er plaque, on the head,” but had no idea why I was passionately giving them a step by step run down of what to do.
I didn’t stay long, as I wanted to get back to my writing.
A few days later, I went back (this time my husband was invited), and I unfortunately heard the news that a friend of mine, and a regular had unfortunately passed away.
WHAT?! I said in shock, knowing I had JUST talked to him the Friday before.
“He died on Super Bowl Sunday,” the friend said.
I then connected the dots, and said, when did everyone find out?
One of the two women from earlier in the week then ran over, and said, “how did you know?”
“I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WHEN YOU KNEW,” she said completely floored. Only one person knew, the woman who was sitting at my friend’s plaque.
“I KNEW I NEEDED TO BE HERE … I JUST DIDN’T UNDERSTAND,” I said with my jaw open and eyes as wide as saucers.
Let’s call this friend Miss Andy … Miss Andy, then passionately turns to my husband and goes “you need to know what happened here … so your wife comes in, sits down … and of course we invite her to sit with us. She then WITHOUT KNOWING our mutual friend had passed, she starts talking SO FAST, I thought she had taken a lot of Adderall (she joked) … but she was ACTUALLY saying EXACTLY what our friend needed to hear. Her first instinct (upon receiving shocking news) was that he needed a plaque and we needed to do a ceremony for him but she didn’t know who to talk to. SHE THEN TOLD HER EVERYTHING SHE NEEDED TO DO WITHOUT KNOWING ANYTHING.”
My husband just smiled, “I’m not surprised. She does this a lot,” he said with pride but also sadness that our friend had died so suddenly.
Miss Andy then bought me a drink as we got to know each other better.
So like, HOW THE HELL did you do that?! It’s not like he was sick, it wasn’t a known thing … yet you knew.
All I know is that I was writing, and knew to be here. I didn’t know the why, I just knew it needed to happen.
At the watering hole I had already earned a reputation as being one of the best Jeopardy players, but in that moment, there was a new era/ level of respect. Here was a community deeply hurting our friend’s very sudden passing, and there was a little “hug” if you will, that there was an undeniable force that I was able to pick up on and help out in a moment when it wasn’t even asked for yet.
A few weeks later, we all gathered for our fallen friend and paid our respects as the plaque was placed in front of “his seat” (which was two seats over from where I had to place the tiny seat that day).
There were a lot of steps that I took that also could have stopped me from following my intuition that day.
1) I received the information (even without truly “knowing” what it was).
2) I decoded it … it was that instinct of “I have to go - now.” If I had waited, they might not have still been there.
3) I “channeled” the information … and shockingly I still remember it (most times I don’t - it comes through my body so fast).
And then I went about my day.
Advanced cognitive abilities are mental skills that allow me to process information, think critically, and solve problems at a higher level than what is deemed “normal.”
It’s like my brain has special "upgraded" settings that let me think faster, more clearly, creatively, and in this case also intuitively.
I have a photographic memory that allows me (especially as I write this - to go back to that EXACT moment and remember what I was wearing, where I was sitting, and the overall “vibe”). I’m a creative problem solver and can VERY QUICKLY break down problems, analyze them from different angles, and come up with effective solutions, often faster than others.
In this situation, I “read it” and while I happened to hear an internal voice who said to mention the plaques, I was able to analyze immediately what was happening, without needing any more time to process it.
Again, this all happened VERY QUICKLY, which is why it was surprising that all of the sudden I started talking at an abnormally rapid pace. (I’m already a fast talker - so imagine THAT MUCH MORE in terms of speed.)
I live my life seeing connections between seemingly unrelated things and patterns others tend to miss.
I literally live my life marching to the beat of my own drummer, and I’m really proud now that I know that these diagnoses are gifts. Because of synesthesia and advanced cognitive abilities, I can think and learn in a powerful and efficient way. I (sometimes) make better decisions (hashtag freewill), solve tough problems, and am creative with an edge that obviously got me to people like Jerry Bruckheimer and Warner Brothers in the first place.
1 in 20 people have a sensory processing disorder.
It may not be easy having what I have, but now that I can regulate my nervous system (which was a journey all on its own) I get to now just enjoy my own life.
I have this ferocious understanding of how to harness my gifts, and thanks to shows like Pokerface, High Potential, and Brilliant Minds, there is now representation and space for others to come into their own.
