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Autistic Vocabulary

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duke666
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02 Sep 2009, 1:50 am

marshall wrote:
I think there needs to be another word for the tense/irritable feeling I get when there's a lot of distracting commotion going on around me. It's not quite the same as normal anxiety because I'm not worried about anything, I just can't relax or get comfortable enough to think. The harder I try to think the worse the feeling gets.

Is that a brown-out?

I've been using 'time-shifting' to refer to two different things. One is the processing time delay in social & sensory situations, usually half a second to two seconds. The other is when I'm focussed on something and so someone says something, and when I'm done, I answer the question as if they had just asked it, because my brain has just played it back. Sometimes it's days later.

I've started using 'time-warp', cuz it's more fun. I think time-warp would be the processing delay, and time-shift would be the longer one, like time-shifting a TV show with Tivo.


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Tahitiii
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02 Sep 2009, 8:22 am

What would you call it when a memory sequence is all broken up or distorted?
Like I can’t retrieve all the links in the chain of a memory. Rather than replaying a video, it’s more like flipping through a stack of snap shots that’s been shuffled.

For example, I can take the same route every day to work for two years, to the point where it’s on automatic pilot. (The horse knows the way.) The route includes a five-mile stretch of a local highway. I can tell you the landmark at the beginning of that stretch and at the end, but I can’t tell you what’s in the middle, unless I’ve had a reason to go there. Where, along that route, is the convenience store or a certain strip mall? I know it’s around somewhere, but I can’t tell you where it is in the sequence, or even whether it’s on the west-bound or east-bound side.

Also, while driving along this over-familiar stretch, sometimes I’ll “wake up” in an unremarkable, unmemorable area and have no idea where I am, except that it’s vaguely familiar. I have to think, “It’s morning, so I must be heading west.” It’s not a panic situation because it happens all the time, and I know that I’ll figure it out in another mile or two. It’s just generally disturbing.

If someone is trying to give me directions and asks, “Do you know where the diner is?” I’ll have to say, “not exactly.” Yes, I’ve seen it a million times and know that it’s along there somewhere, but I have no idea where.



duke666
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02 Sep 2009, 10:53 am

Tahitiii: I'm similar that way. I'll 'see' the different places I turn on the route in my mind, but they'll be flat, instead of in sequence. When I focus on the last decision point (instead of where I currently am), they pop into order.

haha ... OK, "I did a 52 pick-up for a second there", refering to when kids just throw a deck of cards in the air.

I have to re-trace my steps to find where I parked the car, and only know the next leg of the journey. I call it following the trail of slime, but that's because of an album by the SlugLords called "Trails of Slime". It's more like ants following their pheromone trail, so I'll call it ant-walking, as in "I gotta ant-walk back to the car now". Ant is also like anti, as in reverse.


_________________
"Yeah, I've always been myself, even when I was ill.
Only now I seem myself. And that's the important thing.
I have remembered how to seem."
-The Madness of King George


Rordiway
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02 Sep 2009, 12:18 pm

Tahitiii wrote:
What would you call it when a memory sequence is all broken up or distorted?
Like I can’t retrieve all the links in the chain of a memory. Rather than replaying a video, it’s more like flipping through a stack of snap shots that’s been shuffled.

For example, I can take the same route every day to work for two years, to the point where it’s on automatic pilot. (The horse knows the way.) The route includes a five-mile stretch of a local highway. I can tell you the landmark at the beginning of that stretch and at the end, but I can’t tell you what’s in the middle, unless I’ve had a reason to go there. Where, along that route, is the convenience store or a certain strip mall? I know it’s around somewhere, but I can’t tell you where it is in the sequence, or even whether it’s on the west-bound or east-bound side.

Also, while driving along this over-familiar stretch, sometimes I’ll “wake up” in an unremarkable, unmemorable area and have no idea where I am, except that it’s vaguely familiar. I have to think, “It’s morning, so I must be heading west.” It’s not a panic situation because it happens all the time, and I know that I’ll figure it out in another mile or two. It’s just generally disturbing.

If someone is trying to give me directions and asks, “Do you know where the diner is?” I’ll have to say, “not exactly.” Yes, I’ve seen it a million times and know that it’s along there somewhere, but I have no idea where.


I think you may have just uncovered the secret to why routine is so important to us. We see the familiar landmark and even though we aren't processing it it isn't causing sensory distress or anxiety. Routine removes the spacial/time sequencing anxiety that many of us feel. Spacial/time sequencing anxiety? Is the a documented type of anxiety anywhere, or are we breaking down and defining anxiety?