My superpowers are mild forms of DSM-V disorders.

I have this hypothesis that each one of us can look at the constellation of “disorders” in the?DSM-V ?and find insights into ourselves (and our family members) by looking at the “high-functioning” continuum for one or more of these diagnoses. For me, I see clear behavioral markers for anxiety on both sides of my family tree and on one side, clear markers for OCD & autistic behaviors.?

None of these are debilitating to the point that I’ve required a diagnosis, and in fact, the multiple traits may have helped balance out detrimental effects of a specific “neurotype”, but anecdotally, I can think of at least 3 other individuals who others would label “smart” (eg: attended Stanford, Harvard, Princeton undergrad) who shared recent personal or extended family diagnoses for anxiety, ADHD, bipolar or NPD disorder, which gave them insights into themselves and larger family patterns.?

For me, my superpowers (ability to read 4x the speed of other humans, ability to persevere, ability to remain calm under pressure, and ability to focus intensely on delivery/execution) each have clear neurobiological or environmental origins. I’ll dive into one here and I may expound on the others in a separate article if there's interest!

Ability to read 4x the speed of average readers

I first learned this about myself when I was in college at Stanford, playing a game called “Scene it?” where you watch a quick video from a movie, read a basic question and then buzz in to answer. (And these were simplistic questions like, “what was the number on the apartment door in the prior scene?”)??

I found myself consistently being the first or second to buzz in - which was puzzling to me until I realized I was?reading the question faster?than the other equally smart people around me. (I should also note that recall speed is a separate variable which also impacts speed to answer, and so is confidence in your own answer - but again, these were pretty straightforward, factual questions where recall and confidence should be similar).

In hindsight, I realized this skill made me spectacular at standardized testing, which is time-bound, because it literally gave me?more time to think?since I could read through all the questions (and accompanying essays) faster than most people.

Wait, why 4x? And how did you learn to speedread?

You might be wondering how I figured out 4x (vs some other multiple). Once the Kindle and e-books arrived, the Kindle team launched a feature called “time left in the book”, I would open the book and it’d say “16 hours left” and then after a few minutes of reading, it’d update the estimate to “4 hours left” based on my reading speed. Anecdotally, I read the final Harry Potter book in 4-5 hours and I read the entire LOTR trilogy in one weekend, starting Friday night and finishing Sunday morning or afternoon. (Caveats: I only do this with fiction; I read at a normal pace for business and other books, which allows my brain to process the new information (and encode it) on deeper levels.)

You may also be wondering how I developed this ability - the answer is both nature and nurture.?On the nurture or experience side: I intensely loved reading so I learned to read fast by just doing a?lot?of it (because how else does one get to read more books??).?I don’t read every word (ie: I skip articles like “the”); I read vertically rather than left to right (I go down the page and my eyes jump to key words like verbs).

On the nature side: A few years ago, I discovered that I’m?aphantasic ?- which means I don’t make mental pictures in my mind’s eye. (This blog post ?was my moment of epiphany. Read it. It’s mind-blowing.) Specifically, the advantage this gives me while reading is that I’m not spending any cognitive effort to construct pictures of the characters or the spaces, which apparently most people do. (I’ve never “envisioned” a character in my mind and have been disappointed by the actor chosen to play that character - because I don’t visualize characters!) My hypothesis is that I can read faster because I’m not constrained by “needing” to construct a mental representation in high-fidelity of what I’m reading.

I’ve had hilarious conversations about this with friends, who are shocked that I can't picture a beach when I close my eyes and try to, or that I don’t really have an internal monologue - I just have a stream of ideas. But it turns out, neither of my parents can do it either!?(I asked them earlier this year using the tests described in the blog post). A quick google search also shows that?aphantasia tends to correlate with autism . (My mom, who spent her entire career working with autistic children, self-identifies as someone with Asperger’s, which is categorized as an autism spectrum disorder in the DSM-V).?This may also explain how I can get into a meditative state quickly - apparently others have to ignore distracting images or flashbacks - I just see blackness!?This may also explain how I can intensely focus for 4-5 hours while reading or while studying.

So what’s the downside?

You might read this and think, “This all sounds great - what’s the downside?” For aphantasia specifically, I do have a hard time recalling faces and personal memories (because there’s no mental video to rewatch) - and in my twenties, I found my inability to remember most of my childhood disconcerting. (I can access emotional memories and if you give me an emotional prompt, I can recall memories.)?In hindsight, I do think I have milder versions of sensory processing disorders associated with autism, like noise sensitivity or overstimulation from crowds - which explains why I’ve long avoided loud concerts and live music festivals for much of adulthood!

As we understand the human brain more, I think we’ll find that neural pathways or configurations that are recognizable in the extreme as “X disorder”, exist in milder forms in the “neurotypical” - and the multiplicity of multiple overlapping neurotypes, together, make up what we call “intelligence” and “personality”.??And, that being neuro-atypical, like being on the autism spectrum, enables unique abilities that seem like superpowers when harnessed in the right work environment or directed at the right task.

Tiffany Teng is a graduate of Stanford University (BA Human Biology, concentration in neuroscience & psychology) and Stanford Graduate School of Business (MSx, Masters in Management). You can find her personal writing on Medium , her thoughts on business, management and life on Substack and by following on LinkedIn .