Was Desmond special before he activated the fail-safe?

Question

Warning, spoilers below!

In LOST, the character of Desmond is repeatably described as "special" and is shown to have various abilities, most notably a very high resistance to electromagnetism.

We first see this ability some time after he activated a fail-safe and destroyed the Swan.

What happened then?

1. Was he, unbeknownst to himself, special before the act, allowing him to survive the station's destruction?
2. Did he gain his abilities by being bathed in the Anomaly's energies during its destruction?
3. Did he have some powers (such as electromagnetic resistance) before the event but gained additional abilities (such as his time-related ones) from it?
4. Or did something else happen?

Answer 1

I don't think there is any evidence that he was special before the fail-safe. Remember that he gained his ability to see the future immediately after activating it, and also happened to be the only one on the boat (besides the communication officer) to experience actual time travel.

Nothing in his flashbacks indicate that he had a special ability or was anything but normal before he arrived to the island. So I think it's safe to say the fail-safe gave him the resistance to EM.