My Mom says I "drain" people

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I've been told by several people that I'm very intense. A different way of saying the same thing.

I agree with this actually. It's true of my mother, and she's admitted it. so it's not just me.

Me too! The rare social excursion can leave me very zapped and sleepy. Its very weird, I keep to myself but if you give me a window to open up I love to say something. I'm realizing this more recently with my folks, I'll tire myself out. With others its a mix of fatigue from controlling myself, fighting the urge to stim (which I've been made fun of before) and trying to be a normal as possible and to say as little as possible. Whenever I do speak up around others I get ignored anyway.

I talked to mom later, discussed some stuff. Believe it or not she actually loves talking to me even if I can go on and on sometimes but I asked her about what you guys said, to tune of "Mom, the thing you said about draining..do you mean I just tend to dominate a conversation and tire you out when you really don't want to hear stuff anymore?" She is a very, very honest lady and an RN, she told me it was something different she couldn't quite explain. She said it was linked to how when I was very small I would talk while being recorded and make little presentations on my favorite dinosaurs but I would talk so fast my mouth couldn't process the words..or something. I'm not quite stating everything to what she said, my memory is fuzzy. The word thing is part of why I had a ton of speech therapy as a kid..though I wonder how much it helped me. I still have trouble pronouncing a lot of words and it makes me feel very dumb.


Anyways, thanks for all the comments and words everyone.

i don't think it has to mean the same thing but sure can. One of my exes said i was intense, not as an insult or anthing. I'm fairly happy that i don't do the whole one sided conversation thing too much

Wow! Your mom sounds really nice. You guys have great communication together.

So she meant that it's "draining" to try to understand what you are saying when you're talking too fast? Or something? That makes sense. It probably takes a little extra effort for her to understand what you're saying, just like it takes you effort to express yourself clearly. She obviously values what you're trying to communicate.

I just have to repeat that I love how you asked her about that--you guys have awesome communication.

I once made my own mother cry with my stark realism. I have a kind of contagious sadness: I suspect because I am never sad about personal problems, but rather all-encompassing things that affect everyone. I also tend to corrupt people, for example, I started some of my friends off on my own brand of dark, racist, sexist, satirical comedy. I just hope that in my last judgement I am not asked to answer about all of the nasty things I passively and unintentionally do to people.

I don't often want to talk to people, but when I do I prefer lengthly discussions that sometimes border on intense. Unfortunately, people often don't want to talk about in-depth serious stuff. Some people want to do feel-good small talk and that's just irritating.
It works both ways. People drain me and I drain them. This is probably because I am an introvert.

Yes I used to be quite the drainer as well but I've learned how to tone down my behavior significantly. There is a time and place for personal jabbering. Not to follow someone around in a store or cafeteria and ask them question after question, going on and on and on about super personal issues to the point of irritation. I find us aspies often fall into the hopeless pity me cycle where we get so emotionally messed up. We continue to mess it up even further by continuously draining everyone around us.

THIS.

We drain other people because of the repetitiveness, the same questions, the inability to deal with loudness/etc., intense discussions, and everything else.

We drain ourselves, too.

Me too.

We tend to be obsessive about certain topics or interests.
We tend to lecture.
We've memorized so much about our interests that our minds move so fast our mouths can't keep up.

Someone talking fast is tiring to listen to.
Someone talking about the same interests for a long time is tiring.
Someone being overly intense about a topic is tiring.

Add to that other quirks, like our being tired after social conversations, etc., and it's rough on them and us.

Exactly. This is 100% how I feel. Its one of those things I'd rather just learn to deal with and accept, its part of me but it does get lonely sometimes but feels really good when someone does reciprocate or relate, those rare situations. I don't blame people for feeling drained by it though.