Aspies=Tangent Monsters

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I do this sometimes.....I'm sure I've seen looks of relief on people's faces on the rare occasions when I've realised what I've done and managed to steer back onto the original subject. I seem to see all kinds of connections in my mind, and then I find it very hard to not voice them.....it's like I'm trying to give them everything I can dream up that's in any way connected to the subject, no matter how convoluted the connection might be.

My father had a similar habit, but he stuck more to the original subject, and all he was trying to do was to explain the thing as clearly as he could (being probably an Aspie, he presumably felt that people needed very clear explanations). Unfortunately in trying to be clear, he came out with way too many needless analogies and clarifications, paying no heed to the fact that what he'd said had been clear in the first place, so the effect was very tiring. He'd explain a thing and then it was as if he couldn't believe that what he'd said could work, so he'd explain again in a different way. He could also get quite upset if anybody tried to shut him up or interfere with his process. I don't think he ever realised that to be clear, sometimes you need to use just a few words, or that you need to be scanning the other person to find out how well they're picking up the material so you can tailor what you say to where they're at. It was a completely one-way conversation.

On the other hand, I've also been known to "stick" on one idea that everybody else has long left behind....meanwhile I'm thinking about it, trying to get it clear. Then when I try to take them back to that thought and discuss it in more depth, they see it as inappropriate for me to do that. So these days I don't usually bother to share my deeper thoughts with them so much. They seem to get annoyed when I do because it breaks their flow, which they find frustrating, though I don't see it as any more inconvenient than my having to keep up with what they're saying.

I do this when I think on my own or the rare occassions when I go on a rant, but when I'm in dialogue with another person my mind is a blank so it doesn't happen a lot.

Yes, I'm a total "Tangent Monster". (Better stop typing now before I get sidetracked.)

I do this all the time especially when i'm on wikipedia.

A lot of times I go off into tangents while speaking, but other times while describing things I am totally linear. Sometimes the subjects have an association other times no, not at all. This is due to stress, anxiety and bipolar (they say schizoaffective but I ain't agree, I'm not nuts!) and its very common in these ..right now I can't think because I am too depressed. My mom is sick like always. I can barely read a single line and sometimes lately forgetting the names of objects. My mind goes blank from a lack of brain. Anencephaly as it is called in medical terms. Old Age Syndrome at work. I am turning 27 on Friday.

I'm a tangent monster. It's been confirmed. I am now a certified tangent monster, as I've demonstrated over the past few days. I think I need some anti-tangents to pop.

Part of the problem for me is that I'm a visual thinker with a very short working memory (apparently)...

I go off on my tangents because I see a pic in my mind that is associated VISUALLY in some manner to whatever the pic of stuff we're talking about. Can be a video clip of a movie or just some nonsequiter representation to trigger a memory about whatever. Oftentimes there is a loose connection to the conversation for which I often to have to backtrack and explain in detail cause I even find when I loosely try to describe the connection (while trying to preserve the social tempo) I still tend to lose people's train of thought. But for me, it's risky to have to explain in general cause I will forget the connection sometimes... and people just HAVE to know why we're now talking about this side topic.


But I can generalize this phenomenon in a way as visual slapstick cause there IS a LOGICAL reason my brain will cluster these two ideas together~ via some degree of visual representation... It's just hard cause even though I realize that I am guilty of being tangential... I still really have no clue when I am derailing the conversation or whether it's taken as funny (because they see the connection) or whether I need to stop, take a breath and explain myself... or more often than not, just stop myself all together and say 'forget it' and let the other people move forward.

Even if I manage to hold my tongue and not interject my weirdness into the immediate conversation... People can tell I want to say something and once there is closure to the topic at hand, they'll ask me what I wanted to say. Half the time I've forgotten... The other half, by that point, even my tangent just seems to out of context to bother cause I find that even if I say it at that point, all I get is an 'oh'. >.>

Happens to me too. When I met my first husband (also aspie) he was the first person I'd met who thought the way I did, and it was amazing. The pancakes from the Godfather might be to do with the scene where they're chopping garlic finely with a razor blade, that's what I thought of when you said "pancakes with scallions." But I could be wrong...

The first conversation I had with my son's father, we sat up all night talking, and were surprised to realise it was morning. We ranged all over the place, and we followed the mental connections so well that it's no wonder we ended up married. (Also no wonder we ended up breaking up... but that's another sadder story.) I'm still friends with him, and he's one of the few people I know who follows my leaps. (The other one, of course, being our son.)

My second husband was NT, and found it harder to understand my sideways leaps... but he more than compensated in every other way.

I was known for this in college. My friends would always laugh at my "random" comments (not really random, they just weren't privy to my personal set of associations), and as a result, I tried pretty hard to reign myself in, so I don't know that I do it much anymore.

Im not sure any one recalls, but there was a series on Discovery I think called "Connections," and it pretty much states how the one set of findings links itself to something completely different down the timeline. Im sure a lot of us have done this (to one degree or another) and wind up confusing our friends/family/co-workers in the process. Hell, i tend to do that a lot in my head where i'll be thinking of a song, then another song with the same tone/lines comes to mind, followed by a movie where i heard it . . . etc. In a way, its a very useful ability seeing as how Einstein came up with relativity while watching trains at a railroad (could make a joke from this ). I guess its our way of being abstract . . . NTs require spur of the moment to inspire them, but we require something quantifiable to link us into the physically possible. I think its rather handy . . . once one manages to control it.

When I used to listen to analogue radio as a child, I thought that the crackling sounded like me eating cornflakes for breakfast. Which sounded sort of like gravel; which sort of sounded like walking on snow; which was sort of like analogue TV interference “snow”; which reminded me of Christmas; which reminded me of snowmen; which reminded me that the radio presenter's warm friendly voice was warm like a winter log fire; which reminded me that log fires crackle; which reminded me that the song on the radio had a fiery theme too it; that reminded me of anger; which reminded me of the hot and cold taps at home; which reminded me of the scent of coal tar soap; which reminded me that coal’s burned on fires…

I saw vivid images in my imagination and as thought about these things.

I felt deep emotional connection with the radio when I had this endless chain of silent, divergent thoughts. But I find these kind of insights very hard to communicate to other people in a coherent way.

Does that answer your question?

Not me. Then again, I don't really talk.

Mr. Kimball (county agent) on Green Acres couldn't finish a sentence without going off on at least 3 different tangents.

A good trait for the study of things. I use it to fix machines, question after question as I study, which does lead to figuring out what is not working.

I have also applied it to plants, how they grow, and running around and around, I keep discovering new things, the relationship between things, for my tangents stay within one field.

Doing the same within my mind, or trying to tell another something, it has the usual effect.

Something about the parts of things in the Dx, inside I have a dozen screens running, focused outside, I can lose all other perception, all screens focused on a single object.

Conversation is not my best action.

My perception is insect like, or the eyes of a spyder, multi image, each passing through a filter of it's own.

With machines I can watch many parts at one time, which shows the relation of motion through the system, Most watch one at a time.

Outward directed it is a great way to see, unless I am dealing with the parts of a person.

We are good at things.