Introduction
Since I discovered my autism, I’ve been trying to understand how it works in detail. Along the way, I’ve fallen into what might well be a new special interest: neurodivergence itself. The more I read, the more I map, the more I notice fascinating technical topics that shape my daily life. This shift has also changed how I look at myself. Instead of swinging between internal blaming and “offering myself flowers,” I now focus on observing and analysing my own patterns with curiosity.
One of those topics is patterns. They don’t just show up in maths or nature: they run through psychology, memory, rituals, and even ethics. And for me, they’ve become one of the clearest ways to explain how my autistic brain works.
If you’ve read my post When Intuition is Pattern Recognition in Disguise, you’ll know that what I once called “intuition” was really just pattern recognition happening beneath the surface. This post is a step further: looking at patterns not just as aha moments, but as a compass.
But before diving into anomaly detection, let’s pause on what patterns actually mean and why autistic and non-autistic brains sometimes experience them differently.
Patterns are everywhere, sometimes hidden, sometimes shouting.
For most people, patterns are a mix of practical shortcuts and aesthetic pleasures: a repeated rhythm in music, a sequence of numbers that looks neat, or the symmetry of a snowflake. They bring comfort, recognition, or beauty. Even chaotic weather events, such as a thunderstorm, actually follow meteorological patterns.
For autistic people, patterns go deeper: they are navigation maps. They can mean the difference between feeling grounded and feeling lost. A repeated routine, a consistent system, or a detail that “fits” where it belongs isn’t just pleasing — it’s regulating, even essential. And when something breaks the pattern? That’s when alarms go off, long before others notice.
More patterns
If you’re interested in learning more about general patterns, below is a selection of external introductions to patterns (for the encyclopaedic flavour):
- Wikipedia: Pattern
- Wikipedia: Pattern recognition (psychology)
- Veritasium: Why Patterns Are Everywhere
- Numberphile: Beautiful Patterns in Numbers
Anomaly Detection as a Core Strength
Among all the ways patterns show up, anomaly detection is the one I rely on the most. One of my deepest strengths is spotting when something is off, even before I know why.
In IT, this was literal: I built monitoring systems that didn’t just track obvious failures, but tiny irregularities most people would ignore. A temperature shift, a minor packet mismatch, a log entry out of place. To others, it looked like magic. To me, it was just my brain saying, “This doesn’t fit the map.“
It’s the same with people. I can often sense when a friend’s face isn’t “right”. Perhaps they’re upset, anxious, or masking something. The odd part? I can’t always put my finger on what’s happening. It’s like noticing the glitch in a picture but not having the vocabulary to describe the distortion. That gap between detection and interpretation is very autistic: hyper-precise pattern spotting paired with alexithymia (difficulty naming emotions).
And this is where the empathy paradox comes in. When someone has a visible injury or when emotions are intense, I don’t just notice, but I feel it in myself. The empathy is raw and physical. But when emotions are subtle, my detection system fires without a label. Should I ask what’s wrong? Or stay quiet because it’s not my business? My shyness, plus my need to avoid conflict, often keeps me silent. From the outside, that silence can appear to be detachment. But inside, I’m feeling too much, not too little.
What looks like intuition is anomaly detection — a map of how things should look, with alarms quietly firing when reality bends away from it.
Sometimes that gift feels heavy: once you’ve seen the anomaly, you can’t unsee it. But it’s also grounding. It means I can prepare, adjust, or act before things collapse — whether that’s a server cooling unit or a social interaction on the verge of breaking.
Closing Thought
Patterns are the compass that keep my world coherent — whether I’m monitoring a server, navigating emotions, or simply noticing when the map doesn’t match reality. They’re not just shapes or repetitions; they’re survival, empathy, and sometimes even joy.
In the future, I’ll try to explore another side of this: why my learning curve doesn’t look like a smooth slope, but comes in sudden bursts of progress. There’s a logical pattern behind it. And, as usual, once I spotted it, I couldn’t unsee it.
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