Power From Disorders?

[Artemis Wolfang]

I, for one, know many people with mental disorders, and sometimes they can be the most powerful people in the world. I, for one, have emotional disibilites, and sometimes it can be very powerful. Thoughts?

[FireWitch]

I get what you're saying...
A lot of the best composers and artists have had dissabilities.
I wondered if Daryl was an avatar because he was autistic. Only someone who was that focused could handle that power?

[nitafan211]

I have never thought about it. Well, they said one of the reason's Daryl was so powerful was his innocence and being mentally dissabled has kept him that way for a while. Does anyone understand this, other than me?

[Artemis Wolfang]

Originally posted by nitafan211:
I have never thought about it. Well, they said one of the reason's Daryl was so powerful was his innocence and being mentally dissabled has kept him that way for a while. Does anyone understand this, other than me?

Yup.

[Artemis Wolfang]

Originally posted by FireWitch:
I get what you're saying...
A lot of the best composers and artists have had dissabilities.
I wondered if Daryl was an avatar because he was autistic. Only someone who was that focused could handle that power?

Yeah... some of the best people in the world, the most focused ones, come out of the woodwork just because they've had a hard life.

[Fox]

I think that due to the nature of Darlys illness he did not interact with people enough to be tarnehed in a way!! To be influanced by things happening in reality!! The nature of Autistic people are that they are not aware of other pople in a way! It's differant from person to person!! I work with a Autistic student and he interacts with people which is quite rare! But normally they live in there own world!! And the focused thing is a Autistic trate!! You will find most Autistic people are Obsessive about something untill they get it right!! Plus he can proberly handle that power because he has no concept of limits!! its only untill someone becomes aware of limits, then theres a problems beating them! thats my 2 cents worth
Fox

[Gryphon]

Could it be that the fact that he wasn't able to interact with people as much blocked about the bad influences and all that that real, ordinary people have? Ordinary people, influenced however slightly or greatly by the Lone Power. Because he couldn't interact with or see the real world that is tainted by the LP, he was only innocence.

Fox:
its only untill someone becomes aware of limits, then theres a problems beating them!

Well, isn't that what makes a younger wizard more powerful? Because they don't know all of the limits of reality, they can bend them. And the older/more knowledgable wizards see what is possible/isn't, so they know they can't possibly do this wizardry and now truly can't. So I suppose that pushed a bit further gives an autistic wizard a lot more power like Darryl.

But then you also have to see that he wasn't autistic from birth. He just suddenly became autisic, right?

[nitafan211]

Thats right, he did become autistic when he turned 8 or 9. Don't have the book on me.

[Tuttle]

I think some of the power from disorders relates into the disorders themselves. Usually people with them are stronger in other areas. I know specifically Asperger's has people really strong in the math and logic side of things. The stuff is all focused in one area.

So I think his autism didn't cause him to be stronger or more powerful, but allowed all the power he had to be focussed, making him appear to be even powerfuller than he was, which was already alot. He was already special but allowed it to come out easier.

[Moeen]

Originally posted by Artemis Wolfang:
I, for one, know many people with mental disorders, and sometimes they can be the most powerful people in the world. I, for one, have emotional disibilites, and sometimes it can be very powerful. Thoughts?

Well, it would help if you could clarify what you mean by "powerful," since someone can be powerful in many ways. If you mean that people with disabilities can be far more capable in certain mental tasks, then it is certainly possible. The reverse can also be true, for example, there are some mental disabilities, like Alzheimers, which provide little in the way of "power."

The idea that genius and insanity are close to one another somehow is a stereotype that has been around for quite a while, and is still around today. Being deranged doesn't necessarily make you smart (it probably won't) and being smart doesn't mean you're any more eccentric than the average person. In the case of autists, such people have a very different perspective on things, and the ability to think a lot differently from others probably gives them some advantage at doing some things. The conditions have many side effects, however, which make them eccentric to the rest of us, but the autist may not interpret this as a problem.

Concerning Darryl and his innocence, that I would say is due to his personality. Keep in mind that being smart or ingenious does not make someone a good person, and there are plenty of smart people who are not nice. Darryl's autism probably did make him more capable in defeating the Lone Power because he didn't feel the same way about the world as everyone else, and so, conventional methods of attack on him didn't work. Since he's now gotten rid of his autism, it'll be interesting to see how he deals with the Lone Power, my guess is that he still has an edge because he remembers his autism days clearly.

[Gigo]

I think the reason Darryl became autistic was because he started being an abadal/wizard (maybe he was an abadal when he was born) and saw the lone one in everyone, and retreated within himself.

But, yeah, it could be. I mean, people say that if you're disabled in the legs/arms, then you get double the strength in your legs/arms respectively. *bla bla bla* It's probably not double, but then you do get stronger with the extra effort. Or something. *shrugs*

There have been cases where certain people with mental disorders (such as being autistic) where they can preform amazing mental calculations in a blink of an eye, but are unable to walk to the store and make a small purchase.

It's something to do with focus or something. *shrugs* I just read something about it in passing.

[Caitlin]

I think it's partially a compensation thing.

Like how 80(ish)% of all gifted people have learning disorders of some sort. Like something compensates for the imbalance by coming up strong with summat else. Like, for instance, being an abdal. Or having mondo power.

[bluesalamanders]

Like how 80(ish)% of all gifted people have learning disorders of some sort.

1. Define gifted.
2. Show us a valid scientific source (or rather, several) that agrees with that statement.

Then I'll believe it. Maybe. Until then, I can't begin to imagine that that's true. Unless our definition of "learing disorders" has simply expanded to the point that anyone who learns at a different speed or in a different way from some so-called "norm" automatically has a "disorder", instead of simply learning in a different manner than the person who sits next to them.

~Pont

[Ankaa]

I think Darryl became autistic because he saw that everything was tainted by the LP, in one way or another. The stuff in his own worlds was being worn away, but that was by himself. His worlds seemed to be pretty much a closed system.
And I guess he didn't feel that it was worth it to come out until he found Kit and they confronted the LP. He knew that people loved him, but they still had the LP in them, and that scared him, because they didn't know it and they couldn't do anything. I think Nita and Kit could get him "out" because they had the LP in them, they had addressed that issue, and they were trying to do something about it.
(2 cents *clink clink* *cha-ching*)

[Caitlin]

Originally posted by bluesalamanders:

1. Define gifted.
2. Show us a valid scientific source (or rather, several) that agrees with that statement.

Aaugh. Someone at CTY quoted that to me, a while back. They had the research and everythingus. (CTY- or Center for Talented Youth, a summer program for gifted students- apparantly the top 1 1/2% in the nation, although I have my doubts- given how wierd everybody there was. If we're the future leaders of America- be afraid, be very, very afraid.) And while I can't cite scientific data, how's a personal observation work? Well, at CTY, the med cups in the morning (and evening) took up a rather large table. Some, like mine, only had a pill in it (and it was hard to find mine amidst the large numer of cups with concerta- adhd med- in it), while others were full, and kept on going after the cup ended (meds in plastic sealing). There were some kids there that had some serious issues with relating to the outside world. My first summer there was a kid who had an anxiety disorder coupled with dyslexia who, who would just go on and on about quarks and subatomic particles (I learned more from him in three weeks about every type of subatomic particle there is than from my chem teacher in the basis sub atomics in an entire year). It was all he could ever talk about. He was amazingly intelligent- you gave him a complicated math problem and he'd do it in his head almost instantaneoulsy, but all he ever focused on, when not doing something else, was sub atomic particles. Also, my mom used to teach at a high school for severely disabled kids who were also gifted. (Most notable- a nonverbal kid with dyslexia and disgraphia who had an IQ of 167. He was waay above everyone else in his head, but he couldn't communicate it with the outside world.)

o.o I found some! *hearts PubMed*
Feiring C, Taft LT. The gifted and learning disabled child: not a paradox. Pediatric Annals. 1985 Oct;14(10):729-32.
Illingworth RS. Clinical Pediatrics (Phila). 1965 Oct;4(10):615-8
The only problem is that they're both really old and impossible to find full-texts of online (unless, of course, you've hijacked your mother's access to a bunch of different college libraries. Then, not so much so.)

Also, this is a good resource. And this too. Actually, there's a TON of stuff out there. You've just gotta look in the right ways.