Repeating yourself and inability to summarize

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i also notice my short term memory problems when speaking. if someone asks a question i will forget what it was before really answering it. or if i use too long and complex a sentence i will forget how i've started it and don't know how to end it properly.

i actually do some of the same things when i write.

Wow. I have most of these problems with communicating. A lot of the time, I'll get this feeling of dread because I know i'm starting to talk in circles, repeat myself, or what I'm saying has nothing to do with what I'm trying to convey. Most of the time, I'm not sure which of these things is happening, but I know it's all gone wrong.

That happens in most conversations I have at least once. The phrase "What are you saying to me right now?" is one those few who are close to me are very used to hearing.

Even worse are the people who tell me that I am "very good at expressing myself". To me, that phrase sounds like "I know what is going on in your mind, and thus I can compare it to what you have said".
Bahhhh.

yes, i ask my OH if he's done something several times too

or give him an instruction several times,m or give him unneccessary instructions (like how to do somehting he does every day)

he thinks im treating him like he's stupid, but im not, i just dont think im coming across clearly and im not sure he is listening

im making a conscience effort to stop doing it and put some trust in him

I always think all the details matter to me, even if they don't matter to anyone else. I perceive the world in a great deal of detail and therefore I often write with a great deal of detail, at great length. I cannot make my long writing shorter or summarize it, and I cannot make my short writing longer.

I even got in trouble on this board once with someone who was convinced that I really could write shorter but just wasn't doing it to spite her. I asked in general if anyone could help me summarize it and she made it sound like I was demanding it in a spoiled-child kind of way because I refused to do the work myself. This was after I spent hours agonizing over trying to write things short enough. I didn't know how to convince her, I actually agonized over it until I realized I should just let it go because she'd never believe me. And it was at that point I realized that like... if it's something I can't control, then if someone won't believe me that I can't control it, that's their problem, it shouldn't be mine. I have various impairments (not all related to autism) that make my stamina extremely low, so my entire day was shot just because I wanted too badly to convince someone that I couldn't help writing things long when they come out long like that, and just because half of me believed that if she was so insistent that I really could write shorter, then I really could. And... that's wrong of her, but it's also wrong of me to take a person like that so seriously that I do inadvertent injury to myself from trying too hard to justify myself to them. So from then on, I just write whatever I write, I'll tell people it's not on purpose that I don't summarize (I also have comprehension issues such that I can't even read my longer writing, so I understand when people can't! It's just that I'm not capable of it...), but I won't run myself into the ground trying to summarize when the summaries just aren't coming. I know it's not necessarily "good writing" to write in such detail and at such length, repeating over and over just to convey tiny differences that are only interesting to me and those like me, but I can't avoid it when it happens, so it's a choice really between writing that way and not communicating in writing at all at times like that.

Ironically this post is coming out much shorter than some of my more novel-length posts. Go figure. At any rate, I've been there and have no suggestions on how to stop because I can't myself stop. I just write what I write, it comes out whatever length it comes out, I may apologize for my inability to do it (but won't push myself to do what I can't do), and that's that, that's all I can do.

SAME, it's the most annoying thing. If I say something that's at least four sentences long I will forget the first too. When I'm talking to someone I have to constantly ask them what did I say before and why am I saying this now.

Um.



See my post on this thread:


http://www.wrongplanet.net/posts135100-start75.html

For a particularly alarming example.

At least on that one I worked out that if I bolded some key parts of it maybe people would be able to skim it more easily.

But gah I hate it sometimes when I do it that obviously, it makes me worry a lot.

I do the same thing. One time I was buying a Zippo lighter for someone during the Christmas Season, as a gift, and I wanted it engraved. The woman doing the engraving asked me what I wanted on it. Instead of telling her I danced around the question with excuses for why I wanted it engraved. A friend was with me and she got annoyed and chewed me out after we were finished paying for the lighter. She told me I should have just told the lady what I wanted engraved as soon as she asked and that she was looking irritated and busy since it was Christmas and didn't have time for my shenanigans.

I do it all the time and even my boss was wondering why I just couldn't give him the short version of what he just needed to know-well now he knows why.

I think I know what you mean. I'll start explaining something, and somehow I have no faith in the capacity of my words to do the job, so after my first attempt I'll try giving a different example or analogy, then another one........I don't keep asking them if they know what I mean though - I just assume they don't. My father used to do the same thing, and I'd be practically crawling up the wall after a few minutes of it. I guess that gave me a clue about how difficult it is to listen to somebody like me.

These days I tend to notice when I'm about to go into "overkill mode." One coping strategy is simply to keep quiet (not very satisfying). Another is to try to think of a short, concise sentence or two......not too difficult if I'm writing, but in real life I don't always have the time or the energy. One helpful thing I noticed is that the first couple of sentences I come out with usually contain the gist of what I'm trying to say, so if I just stop myself after that bit, my meaning is still clear.

What's interesting is my lack of faith in my capacity to explain clearly. I can't understand why I doubt that......I've often been complimented on my ability to express myself clearly, and my GP said he thought I had a well-organised mind.

There's an educational theory that's very similar to this. Apparently educationalists finally realised some time ago that the traditional way of teaching - seeing kids as being empty vessels into which the teacher could pour ideas and facts - was hopelessly flawed, and they proposed a new approach that would begin by asking the kids what they already knew about the subject, and it would then be the teacher's job to help them to map the new ideas onto their existing ones, so they're teaching on the pupil's terms rather than simply lecturing. It's very much a 2-way process. The teacher's words are tailored to what the pupil has just said.

I noticed that the same rules can be applied to conversations. Just as the old teachers failed to appreciate who they were talking to, I was failing to appreciate who I was talking to. I don't say I'm particularly good at it, but on a good day I can get somewhere near to the ideal. The method seems to be: look at what you're saying - is it dynamically modelled around the psyche of the listener, or is it just a general tome that would be better as a book?

It's hard to make the switch, but the benefits are probably pretty good. My father would occasionally indicate that he felt lonely and isolated. Then I would wonder why he wanted friends, when all he ever did with them was to pour out his words regardless of the listener's interest and understanding.....surely a stuffed dummy would have worked just as well? I realised that I too was treating my friends like stuffed dummies instead of real people, and that I didn't deserve their attention because I wasn't willing to give it. In those days I thought I'd got the answer, but I didn't know that my father and I were autistic. The brain wiring makes it a lot more difficult to do this "relating" thing rather than simply talking at people. But the world won't beat a path to my door unless I relate to them.

The bizarre thing is that I can clearly remember being the best in my class at summarizing ideas, when I was about 6 years old, and I actually had difficulty in expanding ideas enough to make a decent-sized essay. Maybe there was more time to process the data than there is in a typical conversation, or maybe my autism didn't really take hold till I was older.

my mother does that sort of thing. she can't pick out the important parts. but she just has inattentive ADD.

no amount of effort helps either. the more stressed she is, the less able to get to the point.

it irritated me when i was young because i would want to keep interactions (for example, with sales people) as short as possible.

Yes, one of my friends told me that I do this a lot in conversation. I didn't even know I was doing it until she mentioned it. She said that it was okay because people should be accepted as they are and should not have to change. While I agree with that, I still do not want to annoy people constantly by incessantly repeating myself. Anyways, I do it to convey different angles of a situation that I would normally convey to myself in my head. I go over and over things again to look for any sliver of light, and then I finish the "equation" so to speak. Doing this has made me super smart, but as well as super annoying. Most people do not care about the topics I find interesting.

I'm writing a novel and the people who have read some of what I've written say I do this repeating and unnecessary repetition quite a bit. And yet when I read it again, I don't see it AT ALL. I'm wondering if I should get someone who's good at editing and also understands Asperger's to help me do a final edit before I submit it for publishing.

Yeah, like everyone else, I cannot give the "short" version of what I have to say I have to include every single unnecessary little detail, even if its not relevant. Although, in my head it seems relevant. But then I tend to go off on a tangeant mid explanation and start telling them something that's completely different, but to me seems linked in. needless to say, people get bored easily.

I'm the "anti-Aspie" in that people tell me I have a talent for summarizing and getting straight to the point.

But, I do blurt out random things that may or may not be related to the current conversation. I have no "verbal filter."

This is why I daren't create a book on Social Rules (using microsoft office word, not to be published), because I know I will start gabbling on and end up off the subject instead of just sticking to the point of the current section.

I do a lot of the things outlined in this thread as well. I am horrible when it comes to repeating myself. I can never get a good sense of whether I am being understood by people or not. Mainly when there is a conflict. I always feel like people are not allowing me to be heard. That is one of my number one problems in life. I am never satisfied that somebody is hearing me because often times the same issues seem to keep popping up. I don't know if has more to with people I meet in life or if it is me.