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The Strange Skill Many Autistic People Have (you may not realise your powers)

Elena Carroll

30,524 views

Hi there, I'm Elena! I was diagnosed with autism at 25, and ever since, I've been piecing my life together. My videos are a space for late-diagnosed individuals navigating their own journeys 🌈

Have you ever walked into a room and instantly felt that something was “off” before anyone even said a word? For a long time, I thought this was just anxiety or hypersensitivity, but I’ve since become really interested in the idea of clairsentience, heightened perception, and the ways many neurodivergent people seem to deeply absorb emotional and environmental energy. In this video, I talk about hyper-awareness, emotional sensitivity, nervous system perception, and why some neurodivergent people feel everything so intensely.

If you’re navigating a late autism diagnosis and don’t know where to start, I’ve built something to support you ❤️‍🩹 A coaching app designed to help you understand yourself and move forward
You can check it out here: studio.com/elena-1/rebuildyourlife

Thank you so much for supporting my channel with your views, likes, comments, and subscription! It truly means the world to me. If you'd like to see more of my content:

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Intro Music Used:
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
Music promoted by Copyright Free Music - Background Music For Videos 👉 / @podcastbackgroundmusic

Disclaimer: I am not a medical or mental health professional, just a late-diagnosed autistic person sharing my personal experiences and opinions. My content is meant to be relatable, not a substitute for professional advice. I also acknowledge that my diagnosis journey has been a privileged one, and everyone’s experience with accessing support is different.

20 Comments

@zumaone3692 9 days ago (edited)

I discovered I was autistic at age 57, I am now 61, and had to start all over again. It is and has been a difficult journey but at least the million and one questions I had have been answered. I am deeply grateful for the people that have made videos like this one because they have been life saving and encouraging beyond words.

@helenwhite2957 8 days ago

And I also feel incredible bouts of empathy for others. That can be extremely hard.

@Fleischkopf 9 days ago

what i also experienced is the ability to predict the future quite accurately. and that purely through observation, analytic thinking and logic conclusions. The problem is, that if it is a future, that (nt) people dont want to hear, they just dont listen. and in the worst case they act like its your fault when the predicted future arrives. thats the curse of cassandra :( its so frustrating

@MagiciteHeart 8 days ago

Coming from a trauma background, that also causes extreme hypervigilance. I learned to tell how people felt even before they did. I can tell if someone is trying to be manipulative the second they open their mouths, and it creates this very uncomfortable sitiation where i know for a fact they are about to screw me but i can't call them out on it until they actually do it because i have no "proof" and i am just "being crazy". I am also autistic and its definitely a combination of hypervigilance and deep intuition and it is extremely isolating. I am about to turn 45 and have never met another human being in my entire life who thinks like me. If it werent for videos like this amd my therapist, i truly would have thought there was something horrifying and singulalry wrong with me. I just wish i could meet others like this IRL because i dont don't think online interaction is an appropriate substitute for real connection.

@Tormekia 8 days ago

The thing that throws me is how so many toxic and aggressive people think THEY can feel the mood and read people.

They act as if people are making them feel things and will yell at you what you are thinking and feeling and what you really meant and it's like no. That's all you, Horrible Person.

But they will go around telling people a story and then other Horrible People will offer their analytics and things turn into this huge ugly mess.

Meanwhile Sensitive Kid over there KNOWS the room is a mess of uglies and just wants to go home.

We get pushed to be "less sensitive" so that Horrible People can stomp around unchallenged. We are supposed to just ignore them or pretend they were joking.

A whole lot of social rules are made by enablers who go around cleaning up after Horrible People.

@helenwhite2957 8 days ago

I’m autistic and I can feel other people’s energy but also see other people’s auras. My dad calls that my superpower.

@TheChatMan3583 9 days ago

Yes to a video on boundaries please 🙏

@BenCG 9 days ago (edited)

It's a really interesting observation, and of course not every autistic person will experience this, but there's a funny interaction between possibly experiencing this and also feeling like (or being told) you can't read social rules and cues. I'll tell you what though, videos like this make me proud of the autistic community as a whole. We are so bloody brilliant and smart, we should be running the world, and it sometimes feels like a curse that our minds are in these cages that disrupt the journey of our thoughts to our ability to communicate on the spot.

@Aiden_Noah 9 days ago

I've literally had word for word conversations with people, or seen something, that I have somehow "imagined" up to a day before, sometimes in a dream, sometimes whilst awake. They're never long, and it's not the same as deja vu, it's really weird and I've never been able to explain it to anyone.

@gphx 8 days ago

My 6th sense is more the collective. I could tell when the Dotcom crash was coming, when the housing bubble was going to pop, etc. and I'm getting that feeling about everything now.

@adriasorensen2249 8 days ago

I remember using the analogy of rain being other people's energies/emotions. The clairvoyant is wearing a rain jacket telling you just to "brush off" other people's bad moods. The clairsentinent is a sponge soaking up all the rain or other people's who's thinking in response to the clairvoyant's remark "that's easy for you to say"

@6Jillybeans 8 days ago

I hate the fact that ALL workplaces now want fast-paced, minimal supervision environments even for permanent members of staff. They are NOT conducive to our personality types.

@t.terrell7037 7 days ago

Imagine being like this and being a teacher..long term…it might also explain why many find it hard to work a traditional job in most environments and deal with extensive burnout…

@HomemakerDaze 9 days ago

The one time i was the most intuitive with someone was with this guy i liked who had schizophrenia. So that was interesting!

@Thelanguageofthebirds 9 days ago

I call this my “unwanted superpower.” This is why I went into studying human beings through psychology and counselling. My empathy and intuition are truly off the charts. I was assessed and met the criteria for autism earlier this year. I already have a diagnosis of ADHD & CPTSD. My sensory sensitivity to my environment was so profound when I was assessed. It's like living with the volume turned up on everything.

@dmanzawsome 7 days ago

I always thought it was so lazy that people claim autism gives you low empathy. Especially looking at the the allistic psychopaths ruling the world. We actually have an disorientingly strong sense of empathy to an alarming extent at times.

@gothboschincarnate3931 9 days ago (edited)

You need to be fully in your own body and be self differentiated to control it/limit it (grounded)

@SandWitch-y6m 9 days ago

Interesting Elena how your mental trick of a bubble of protection made me think of a witches protective circle, they form the same mental trick of regulating what you cannot access or controle with what you can - your brain. Nice that you intuited a way to balance yourself like this. No supprise then that neurodivergent and spirituality, magic, the occult have such a high matched relationship, even I've seen the meme 'oh, your not a witch your just Autistic'.

@dmanzawsome 7 days ago

I believe that the emotional leakage you feel being around others can go both ways as an autistic person.
I think that we are very sensitive to the signals. But also I think we send out emotions to others too.
I think one reason neurotypical people feel so uncomfortable around autistic people is because we feel emotions so insensly that it leaks back out back to them. So you get a feedback loop of they make you anxious then you increase everyone else's anxiety.
It almost feels to me like autistic people are emotion conduits and amplifiers.

@rebartstudio 7 days ago

Well in my people's Indigenous traditions (Anishinaabeg) my Elders lament the loss of knowledge of what to do with those that have neurodivergence. My people would literally train these skills or talents to enhance them using ceremony and plant based medicines. Just two generations back they knew what to do. My Elders Elder knew but my Elder didn't have their training and knowledge, which made her really sad. Our gifts are that our spirit, intuitive, empathetic side is stronger then our physical bodies, which really burns us out. Neurotypicals have to weaken their physical side in order to let out the spiritual more intuitive side. I don't do physically hard ceremonies anymore (Sweats and fasting) because it is too easy for my physical side to break down faster. What you said about choosing your environments carefully is very true. I would see wild stuff in ceremony that others did not and I found it too overwhelming.