Hypergraphia

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Anyone else here have it? Mine was out of control when I was a child...was trained out of it more or less in my early teens, but notice that it starts returning when I am particularly stressed. Lately, I've been very stressed for various reasons, and find I sometimes cannot talk myself out of writing where I shouldn't be, or not realising I'm doing it in the first place.

I had this very much . Before computers, I would carry around a notebook all the time. I would write in it all the time.

I havekept a didary for more than 26 years. Scary, that. Ihave loads and loads of poems and stories and novels and pages and pages of crap.

When computers came around, it changed things. I still keep a diary. But the urge to write is not so strong. Typing is NOT like writing. Typing is a different kind of action, and I need to do that in order to complete work, etc. So it takes time from writing in earnest.

Writing is like doing art work. Typing is like a stim.

I am curious, did computers effect yhour drive to write? I am not sure it would if that is all yhou knew. I was in the trnasition group that had to go from paper to computers.

Yes, i have hypergraphia and typing is like a stim to me.

I have journalled since I was 5. I still have all of them, which amounts at this point to an entire storage room full of notebooks. I did continue carrying a notebook with me at all times, but over the years it became less of a compulsive activity, and more of a typical writing tool....I've written freelance since I was in my late teens.

Typing isn't quite the same for me as writing, but I do sometimes find that furious typing is a very calming form of stimming. Although I'm 40, and didn't actually own a computer till 2001, I did become obsessed with typing (a totally separate thing from my writing compulsion) very early on. Not only did I love the sensation and sound of typing, I was also obsessed (and still am) aesthtically with typewriters, particularly old Underwood models and similar types from the late 1800s to early 1900s.

My writing compulsion as a child was out of control, I would write on walls, furniture, myself....and lord knows there isn't a single book left in my parents' house that was there while I lived there that doesn't have my handwriting all over the inner front and back covers and in the margins. While I haven't gotten to the point where I'm writing on walls, furniture, and other people's books (and hope I never DO get back there), I have caught myself quite a few times recently writing on napkins, placemats, bar coasters.....and even once, last week, on the back of a document that belonged to a client....I actually had to re-print it for him, I'd destroyed it so badly before even realising what I was doing.

Haaa. I used to write on the walls, too! I never linked the two. Oh, did I get into trouble for that.

I also write all over margines of books I am reading. I also never linked that, but I guess it is.

My friend has a while wall that is only a chalk board. That would have been nice, eh?!

I am glad to know that there are others that do this. I never really though of it as part of my aut until one year I underwent a trauma and then it was TOTALLY out of control. I would write and write and write and re write and rewrite. It was so bizarre my therapist wanted to see it all and then wanted me to write a book with her.

I said no.

I also have hypergraphia.. typing is a stim for me also.. as is handwriting (even though my handwriting is appauling).

My handwriting can best be described as chickenscratch. It's everywhere, but no one (myself included much of the time) has any idea what the hell it says...

For awhile, I had one that was about half the size of the wall in my bedroom. That was fun. I really need to get one of those again...




I've had a few therapists try and help themselves to my writing over the years....I told each and every one to get bent.

I had hyperlexia and have read since age 3, I've also started adding numbers very early and it drove me into a world of day-dreaming and continuos-fantasy.

Hyperlexia led me to hypergraphia, and I developed a neuropathy at the wrist called carpal tunnel syndrome. My doctor told me I'd be on theraphy for the rest of my life and that I can no longer handwrite, but use my laptop to do it.

I don't know why; and if it's a general caracteristic of AS, but when I laugh I lose my hand movements, I've had this since when I was a kid and it made me so mad. I don't actually "laugh", I jiggle and can no longer write.

When I am not writting or doing any hand work, I get obsessed/anxious and go into pervasive disorders and manias, for we all tend to transfer our compulsion to other area. Hypergraphia is related to the boderline euphoric behavior and of course, our necessity to communicate to *ourselves*. Huh??? Due our poor social skills or lack of interest in a social life. I prefer writting than being with people. I am hand-skilled myself and I show disfunctions in my spacial IQ and short memory. I'm fascinatated with letters, and writting them to "anyone" has always been my door to the real world.

I read everything I can, and write more than I should.

I've never been into "poems" or anything "girly".

I have never heard of hypergraphia... I had to go take a google detour here for a minute... Am I understanding this correctly, it is a writing compulsion? If so, then I would say that I have had this, and still do now and then though not like I did as a younger person. My mother found me a roll of paper that was about four feet thick and three feet wide when I was four because I continually exhausted the paper supply in the house. Then I would go to paper grocery bags, napkins, kleenex, myself, then walls. I have filled moving boxes with journals. Heh... the table next to me has three different notebooks of mine right now.

I had no idea that this was a named thing... I just always figured I like to write. My dad is a writer, my mother is an artist so it never seemed odd to me. Hm... must look into this more.

hypergraphic...me
I too..kept obsessive journals for years...or would write letters to people that ended up resembling books...and then I doodle on everything. The notebooks I have fill one large plastic tub and several smaller boxes...and this is after my cleaning out a bit....Computers changed a lot for me...but I still have a few notebooks going...often feel compelled to start new ones...legal pads are like candy to me...When I was young, my mom encouraged my hypergraphia. She always made sure I at least had scratch pads around...and enough paper...(she's an ASish artist herself)
In school I had to have one at my desk so I could doodle and write down ideas. They were constantly confiscated by my 4th grade teacher who at some point called my mom in to talk about it....and I think my mom tried to defend my right to doodle at my desk if I wanted to.
I would try to write stories, but could seldom get past the beginnings...so I had notebooks full of the beginnings of stories over and over again...and doodles with the same subject matter over and over again...When I was in my early teens, I recall hanging out at the mall (my dad worked there)...and sitting near the food court fountain scrawling in notebooks...Sometimes I would scrawl really fast and wildly anything that would pop into my head...
Whenever I would fill out job applications, I would always write in the margins and fill up all empty space....

I also wrote on the wall. I confined it to the corner of the wall by my bed as a teenager....it was covered in doodles and phrases and such...
As a kid I had a big chalkboard that I wrote on...and I loved marker boards, but when I was little, my mom actually encouraged my sister and me to write on the walls because they were going to be painted anyway....not realizing that the magic markers would show up through the paint.

so yeah..I guess I would count as hypergraphic...( a term I did not know until WP)
I might have been hyperlexic when I was younger, but I am not anymore

Also known as "The Midnight Disease". That's what Edgar Allen Poe called it.

I have it. Tons of notebooks in boxes, in bins, under my bed, on my shelves, in my backpack. I always carry one or two with me. Just one isn't good enough, because certain subject matter must be kept separate from other subject matter. It's like keeping Kosher. We use to have a grafitti wall in the house and I encouraged everyone to write whatever they wanted on it, especially their phone numbers. Although, I don't suppose that is really hypergraphia, but it is write up a hypergraphic's alley. (Couldn't resist the opportunity to play with words).

Anyhow, I also have to have the "perfect" pen and won't write with the common bic. There are things that should be written in blue ink, things that should be written in black ink, and things that should be written in red ink. Note books have to be carefully selected and up to my standards as well.

I saw a documentary on television about Alice Flaherty, a neurologist, who developed Hypergraphia after a traumatic experience. She has studied it and written a book about it, focusing on her own particular hypergraphic journey.

Here is a link to an interview with her on NPR:

The Midnight Disease


Here is a link to a pdf file of a transcript of a round table discussion of Hypergraphia and Hypographia composed of writers, professors of language arts and neurologists. Alice Flaherty is among them.

Two Diseases of the Written Word

Wow... I never knew there was actually a name for something like that. I literally around my desk have about 10 notebooks, some written in, some not... always buying more for different things.

Even with my computer, I used to still write everything I wanted to categorize down on notebook paper, it was especially bad while I was pregnant with my daughter. I would sit there and write for hours and hours.

I thought it was just something included in my obsessions and that is why I felt the need to do it.

I have a ton of notebooks filled with stuff. Always have. Back after my first marriage I destroyed a lot of them, but then I was paranoid about other people reading them. Never leave the house without one. Always have one beside my bed in case I think of something during the night. (I can write at least short sentences in total darkness.)

Also, my Emails always turn into epics. I never mastered the art of concise communication.

Mine, too.