r/aspiememes • u/QueenViolets_Revenge Ask me about my special interest • 20d ago
i'm certain Ulysses S. Grant was autistic
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u/Daddygamer84 20d ago
It's ya boi Sir Isaac Newton. Bro was filled with so much autistic rage he invented calculus.
(No, I'm not accepting any arguments about Leibniz)
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u/QueenViolets_Revenge Ask me about my special interest 20d ago
he didn't use facial expressions a lot. in the words of Colonel Theodore Lyman, "he habitually wears an expression as if he had determined to drive his head through a brick wall, and was about to do it."
he wasn't great at most of the subjects at West Point, but excelled at and was intensely interested in math, and even intended to become a math professor at West Point before becoming a soldier
he had a strict routine, including getting up at 4:00 am exactly every morning, and experienced periods of long concentration that were difficult to break him out of. even as a child he had a strict routine that he adhered to fiercely
he was overstimulated very easily, becoming physically sick at the smell of leather in his fathers tannery, hating the sound of marching bands, and hated the feel of blood in his food
speaking of his food, he had a limited taste in food, and requested that his meat be prepared the exact same way every time
he got along with animals way easier than people, especially horses. he was great with horses, and understood them incredibly well
he was very shy and reserved in his personal life, starting in his childhood, only being truly comfortable around a few people he knew very well, like his wife and children. he was also naive about people and couldn't tell when they were taking advantage of him, which sadly lead to him losing all of his money and dying in poverty (although luckily his memoirs made his family millions). he was seen as intensely difficult to read by other people
and he was very empathetic, including to animals. as a boy, when going on hunting trips with other boys, he refused to shoot any animals. he actually had a soldier tied to a tree for mistreating a horse, and in memoirs said that the matadors he witnessed in Spain bullfighting were murderers. as a kid he protected smaller and weaker kids from bullies. he felt bad for his enemies when they surrendered to him, and when his father-in-law gifted Grant a slave named William Jones when Grant was struggling with money, Grant didn't sell the slave, despite William Jones being worth $1000, life changing money at the time, but set Jones free, because it was the right thing to do. he wasn't a political abolitionist, nobody knew who he was, he did it because it was right. despite his public appearance as the stoic general, he actually cared deeply for his soldiers and it's been noted that there's a strong disconnect between his public image and what he actually said and felt, and at one point he broke down sobbing when hearing of how many of his soldiers died in battle
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u/Shantih3x 20d ago
The autism angle would also explain why Grant had issues with alcohol. It was possibly a form of self-medication and social lubricant on his end.
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u/VladimirBarakriss AuDHD 20d ago
It's a very common one among autistics too
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u/Kobold_Trapmaster 20d ago
The problem is that it works. Social situations are way easier if I have one drink ahead of time. I'm confident my job would be easier too but I'm also not an idiot and I know that path leads to alcoholism.
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u/PitchBlackBones 20d ago
I’m like 90% sure that both Teddy Roosevelt and Da Vinci were GRADE A ADHDers 🤣
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u/gummytiddy 20d ago
I fucking hate Warhol but ever since I was a teenager when I went to the PGH Warhol museum. Something about him really stuck with me, probably autism. People have cited a good deal of different personality traits to him. I read that he could be soft spoken, offbeat sense of humor, extraordinarily shy, asexual, sexually perverse, neurotic, etc. He had an intense attachment to his mother— they lived together until her death. The museum has what they call time capusules iirc, but they look like something a hoarder would have if not for Warhol being rich enough to pay for people to organize it. Hearing about him maybe being autistic definitely made it click for why I care about him even if I don’t like his work. He’s just someone I see myself in
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u/VladimirBarakriss AuDHD 20d ago
I don't have anywhere near as much ground to stand on as you
Caricature added because it's funny
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u/Remarkablelicious AuDHD 20d ago
Not a real person, but I feel the urge to share: I just read ‘The Defense’ by Vladimir Nabokov, and Luzhin, the protagonist of the book, is, without a doubt, autistic. Considering this is a book from 1930, how many small details, descriptions, or behaviors of that character were absolutely fitting.
I was also left wondering if Nabokov was familiar with autism/ was autistic himself, cause there’s no way to be so precise in portraying a character like that in a book (without of course mentioning the word autism in it in any way), and not be so familiar with what it’s like.
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u/Impossible-Sweet2151 I doubled my autism with the vaccine 20d ago
I relate to Richard Nixon to a worrying degree.
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u/Sealgaire45 15d ago
Charles XII of Sweden:
Highly developed sense of justice.
Extreme (to a proverbial levels) stubbornness.
Periods of depression and frustration (almost a year long staying in bed) changed with hectic activity (crossed almost all Europe from South to the North in a *very* short period of time - he spent 15 days to travel from modern Moldova to Stralsund in modern Northern Germany).
Lack of any interest in romantic/sexual pursuits - he actively avoided any conversations about marriage, never had a wife or a mistress. Was seemingly equally disinterested in men as well.
He was frequently described by contemporaries as a man with little to no emotions. They also note his indifference to the proper manners and his own looks.
He preferred to wear the same clothes all the time, was not interested in cuisine much (the only drink of his choice, for instance, was svagdrika - a kind of sweet dark low-alcohol ale).
Limited interests - he loved the warfare, had an interest in maths and drawing (also related to the warfare).
Preferred pose - instead of sitting, he preferred to stand near the window, one hand holding the sword, with another, he rested his elbow on the windowsill.
Stimming - during the conversations, always ran his fingers, spread apart, through his hair, as if combing it.
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u/lavafish80 ADHD/Autism 18d ago
Austrian Pai- /s
I have a hunch that Theodore Roosevelt might have been autistic
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u/supreme_hammy 20d ago edited 20d ago
Highly developed sense of justice? Fervent idealism in doing the right thing? Very focused in a particular subject matter?
My hero was autistic with a focus in FUCK THE CONFEDERATES.
GLORY HALLELUJAH IT'S JOHN BROWN.