Brain "malfunction" feeling - do you get this?

Post Reply New Topic

I don't understand anything beyond third-level theory of mind, no matter how much people try to explain it to me. Even third-level only works on my good days. Also, things with high emotional content or fast topic changes are incomprehensible to me. What happens is exactly what you've described... my brain just experiences a sort of a dead end and I have nothing to say. The same thing happens when there is too much emotion being expressed.

I can't express emotions in words, either. I can draw what I'm feeling, but not say it. Even a simple emotionally-based question, like "how are you", shuts me down unless I can just avoid answering it.

I feel the exact same way

And another thing is, that high emotions from others (especially the tears and needing support type) make me panic. I don't know exactly why, but I just want to run away, and also if I offer solutions and they still keep crying and going on about it I start to feel really irritated in the end.

Not sure if it's because I don't have enough empathy or whether it's because it seems illogical that they should be that upset or that it's too intense for me, or what it is. It's kind of bizarre because I can be very emotional myself and I'm sure I can ramble on if something has upset me. It's rather contrary.

Yes, where I just can't link up with the concept discussed, where I cannot find the grounding under the concept that allows me to understand, leaving me in a state of perplexity.

Yes I do. I get that all the time in all situations.
Especially when I'm in a social environment. I used to think of it as some sort of ADHD but it turned out to be much more complicated than that.
Whirlingmind---yes, it actually feels physical. I'd put it this way. My brain is a perfectly fine machine running Windows Vista. Each time a blockage like this happens, I have to restart.

I get that "brick wall" feeling sometimes, too. It often happens when I'm trying to do something like pack my belongings to move, for example. Can't think of other examples off the top of my head (I just woke up), but I definitely get that when it comes to tasks that I see as unpleasant/overwhelming. Things like cleaning my room and packing. I'm sure there are probably other times I get that , too. It's certainly a frustrating feeling, especially when the people around me can't see or understand that.

I used to get that, my stepfather would explain some complicated theory of maths and then ask me to repeat what he just said, he might as well have been speaking Chinese to me, my brain just didn't work.

What then made it worst was he would then smash me with his fist in the side of my head thinking that would help my brain work better or something, it never did so I just had to stand there as a little boy punching bag until he gave up.

is it information overload?

am only able to understand things if simple easy language is used with the key points,if this doesnt happen; am left reeling in what feels like agony,it is information overload and its akin to may be opening a load of laggy programs on a crappy computer,it just stalls;hangs there and cant let anything else through.
at the same time am trying so hard to understand that others say am stood there completely unresponsive and drooling they have to give a bear hug, and eventualy it reboots and starts working again but am so knackered after it.

I, too, can relate to having a brain "blockage" or "blank" at times when asked questions such as "are you okay"
"how are you doing", etc. Certain times i just go blank i cannot even think let alone answer them.
There are no physical discomfort that i recall during times. it's frustrating not being able to describe or say something
that seems so simple. This happens in normal situations where its just me and my gf, no one else, not stress, in my own home. So i don't think it's completely stress related. It is just how my brain is wired.

There are also a lot of times where i will forget what i was saying mid-sentence and not remember. I am going to go to a neurologist again eventually (its absense seizures likely aka petit mals) yet i don't see what they can do. My psych thought i have Aphasia due to stress at times, however he is still being filled in on my background. (Moved)

This is a very interesting topic, as it seems many on the spectrum are familiar with this experience. It would be neat if someone ran an experiment with brain scans and the like to see if similar areas on different peoples' brains are being affected when we go "blank or have a blockage".

I think what I've always done is to try to hide my disablility. Put up a facade that was intended to make me seem OK and normal. Now I begin to see what's below that false mask. I feel real me hidden below is surprisingly low-functioning.

That feeling of hardware failure and agony is something I get a lot. My normal thought then is "I'm being too verbal". Then I try to be and do things more nonverbally. And I'm once more fine.

I get the same feeling when I'm facing a complicated task. I get through it by breaking the task into small pieces and putting them together. Sometimes the pieces need some revision but overall this works well at my job. School usually had more stress so it doesn't work as well.

This happens to me, sometimes with things involving taking other people's perspective. It happened to me last night but now I can't even remember what triggered it.

I think some of it might be information overload as KingdomOfRats describes, although I am not as vulnerable to it as she describes.

Sometimes it feels like there's pressure building in my head, like the prelude to a tension headache, when I am trying to understand information that won't process properly.