Verbal/communication impairments

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I've mentioned this on other threads, but never really tried to put it all in one place before.

I still don't think I fully understand what, precisely my communication problems are, but I have identified several due to interacting with mental health professionals who stake more on what I say than most people.

One of my problems is something that was described to me as circumstantial speech:

I do this a lot. Part of my problem is I think things are relevant when they are not, and sometimes skip relevant details because I don't see why they're relevant. I only know this because I actually dissected this a bit with my therapist. Sometimes I think I actually was relevant, but because I did not give an immediate answer that could be used as a soundbite, it's dismissed anyway. If I am able to get to my point, perhaps the point will be understood as relevant, but then the question is whether the additional information is necessary. When I'm in the moment during a conversation, I usually think it is.

This leads to another problem in that it's very easy for people to pull me off track. Most people think nothing of talking right over me while I'm talking, often because they assume they understand what I am trying to say. Unfortunately, this sets the conversation back a lot for me and I will end up getting lost in a new set of details that may or may not be relevant.

I can get stuck in irrelevancies for long periods of time - like at my last appointment with my mental health case manager (not a therapist) I ended up going on about cats and dogs for a good 45 minutes before realizing I hadn't said a single thing I had come in to say. Not to say that my case manager didn't participate in this as well (she totally did) but the topic was of interest to her as well.

Another issue is not being able to compose novel statements in most social situations. I am not completely unable to do this, but I find it can be extremely difficult under some circumstances, and take several minutes to compose something, if at all. This often means that by the time I can say something, the subject has moved on. This doesn't always stop me. Very often, I come up with something hours or even days later. If I want to discuss something more fluently, it helps considerably for me to type out and print the information, and read it before the discussion. At that point, it's not really "novel" but more akin to "rehearsed."

And sometimes I lose speech altogether, for hours or days. This is - for me - related directly to shutdowns. It makes life significantly harder as people don't seem to take it seriously, and I don't have any accommodations in place to handle being mute. Currently I'm on three and a half days of being almost completely unable to speak, and I need to make phone calls soon. So frustrating. I could ask someone else to do it for me, but I don't like having other people speak for me in situations where I really need the ability to respond in my own words (as problematic as that can be).

Mostly, it's the other stuff. I'm still trying to understand it, although I think it is far from complete. I have bits and pieces all over the place without the ability to draw a complete picture yet. Things like, how does my lack of social imagination play into this? I don't know.

On forums, I have more time to work out how to present my words, and have an easier time both getting to the point and filtering out irrelevant information. I can still end up with overly long explanations, but it's easier to avoid than it is verbally. The frustrating thing about this is that people assume that my ability to write must in some way reflect my ability to speak, and I get to read their theories on how I am really far more socially adept than I appear to be.

I wonder if this sounds normal, unusual, weird, etc. to others? The social/communication aspects of autism have been the most difficult for me to understand or often even notice.

Depending on the situation, I will engage in both types of conversations. When you engage in circumstantial speech, are you doing it intentionally, or do you find yourself going off on tangents until the person you're speaking to asks you to get to the point? (I find a LOT of people do this; I get impatient waiting for them to GET TO THE POINT. If you let them carry on they tend to forget what their point actually was) I will tell people a lot stuff that seems unrelated and irrelevant initially, but if I'm allowed to carry on, they're all things that help them to understand my point better. I get interrupted all the time as well. And then there are occasions when I'm feeling impatient or anxious or hurried and I will give very terse, precise responses (in my opinion) that no one seems to understand.

Both types? What's the second type of conversation?

I think everything I say is relevant and will make sense when I work my way through it, but sometimes people hear nothing of relevance no matter what. A month ago or so I posted about how I nearly got hospitalized as a suicide risk due to trying to exhaustively explain why I was not going to kill myself.

I don't think a lot of people do the circumstantial thing. I think a lot of people can do something that is similar but I think if it's to the point of diagnosing a speech disorder or a formal thought disorder (like mine appears to be - except it's explained by autism and not schizophrenia) that it's not nearly as common. I do find a lot of people don't get to the point fast enough for my patience, though, and say things that truly do seem irrelevant to me.

If you let me ramble, I will go on and on and on, and yes, I get lost in tangents. I just have so much that I want to say and so little time to say it. And I have a compulsive need to say my opinions, so I often have a true need to interrupt others or to address something as soon as I think of it (and thus, go off on tangents). This is a large reason why therapy/CBT didn't do anything for me. I would have an hour-long appointment, I would start talking about my life and special interests as soon as I sat down, I'd talk for the entire hour without the therapist ever interrupting me and getting me back on track, and I'd have to be pulled out of the office after the hour because I still wasn't done talking. I like when people speak up and get me back on track. Otherwise, I have no idea when to quit.

As for putting in too much detail when explaining something, that is more because, when I learn, details are absolutely essential for my understanding. So, it's hard for me to understand that other people get CONFUSED by extra details. And it's also hard for me to know WHAT other people will need to know and want to know when I consider all details important. My best friend likes explanations to be short and sweet, which is hard for me, but at least I know how to condense things for her. But most people just don't tell you.

Now that I am starting therapy again, I had them put in my file: Tends to ramble on, please interrupt to redirect to original topic.

I went through similar during my last round of therapy. I'd spend the hour talking about my life and interests, and occasionally things directly relevant to therapy. The therapist was pretty accommodating and it did help me, as I worked out a lot of stuff with her that I don't think I could have done alone. It had its frustrating bits, too. Like when I was explicitly trying to get her to help me understand my social impairments, she kept saying emotive supportive things with no real informational content.

And yes to needing to understand details to understand a topic. I need all those details to build something that even comes close to resembling a big picture (but maybe isn't really a big picture). Without the details, I can't hold it together or really understand it properly. I hate it when people want me to explain things in generalizations, broad strokes, and big pictures because I have no idea where to start. Generalizations aren't impossible, but I usually work my way to them through categorizing details.

CBT failed with me for a lot of reasons in general. I think one of the biggest reasons was because of how I've had OCD since I was a preschooler and went undiagnosed so long. Having OCD for so long and having it start so early means that I've essentially never known what it's like to not live with chronic anxiety. And that means that most of my compulsions don't even actually eliminate anxiety. And my panic attacks last hours and will not stop until the anxiety-inducing event is over. So, I just don't experience "desensitization." If I "sit with" my anxiety, it will stay the same, hour after hour, until the stimulus is gone. Not much to go off of there!

One thing about needing to know details that always irked me in school was HOW many teachers I had tell me, "Oh, you don't need to know that. It's beyond the scope of this course." Or, "We'll learn that in the future. Don't go ahead. It will only confuse you." It's mostly with science, probably because that's my special interest. But I hate how so many science textbooks or journal articles leave ambiguity in describing how processes work. The way my brain works is that it gets stuck on the "why?" part that they don't explain, and I can't focus on anything else. I just wish that more science texts would come out and either say that we just don't KNOW yet how the fine details work or offer additional/advanced reading for those interested.

A good example of this that bugged me for many years was when I first learned about cellular respiration in 10th grade biology. Even though it was an honors-level course, there was too much left unsaid for me. The one thing that particularly annoyed me was how nobody ever explained WHERE the H+ ions for the Electron Transport Chain ATP-ase gradient/pump came from. It wasn't until I read a college-level biochemistry text the summer after my sophomore year in college that I learned the full scope of details. I was capable of understanding all of these details in 10th grade, and it certainly would have made me less irritated!

I never even let my therapist start CBT. I planned to do it, but I'd go in wanting to talk about a specific thing and she'd ask "Want to do some CBT?" and I wouldn't because I had this other thing. I tried to explain if we plan them the session before it'd be easier for me, but we never managed to coordinate such a thing.

I agree with you about leaving processes ambiguous. If you're going to explain a process, then explain the process. Don't leave important things out or big blanks. Fill it all in. How can that be a bad thing?

Sorry, it seems I extrapolated from your comments about not being able to come up with quick answers in novel social situations, to my "second type" of conversations. In those situations I tend to answer with only what I consider necessary/relevant, and I come across as pedantic, literal ,terse, rude, confusing, etc.

A lot of my conversations are rehearsed. If something is important or interesting to me, or if I feel I've been misunderstood, I will sometimes spend hours figuring out a way to explain things as clearly as I can. But it's frustrating when people hear one sentence and think they know where I'm going. It seems to me that everyone needs the details in order to understand something, but most people are too impatient to hear them. I suppose conversation is less about the exchange of ideas.....

Oh, yes. I forgot to elaborate on that - I tend to rely on scripted replies, but as a consequence I may end up agreeing with things I don't really agree with or just using answers to appear as if I understand while I'm trying to work on assembling a response. It can get me in trouble - literal, terse, rude, confusing, pedantic, etc.



Yes, so much this. Rehearsing and scripting. I really dislike people who hear very little and assume they know too.

I like your point that I bolded.

For me it sounds perfectly normal. I noticed that most other people can communicate effortlessly real time, but for some, including autistics (at least a major part of them) it is difficult. I guess it is at least due to a more remote approach of everyday matters, simply not being tuned to communicate our thoughts so effortlessly and not being able to estimate the other person's perspective well enough. Some physiological differences can be suspected, too.

Speaking and listening real time require more brain work and consequently more time to figure out stuff. When I write posts like the one I'm typing I have time to think about it, so presumably it will make more sense than if I made an attempt at putting my thoughts in speech.

I think there's at least one factor that counteracts with this: You can make corrections easier real time based on reading some body language and other types of metacommunication.

True to all of that.

I relate with your post a lot - when I am talking about something for any length, very often I will go off on tangents like that. I also can go mute for days (and in many specific situations, like talking with unfamiliar people) or often speak nothing but random words/phrases and gibberish.

Yes, there are situations where I won't talk. Often in conversations with people I just met, for example, I won't say anything for at least an hour, and sometimes not at all. If I know the person from online or there is someone present I do know, that's when I might be able to talk during the conversation.

In some contexts - such as dealing with medical people - I've found it easy to talk to them since I had some issues several years ago. Prior to that, though, I didn't really talk to them. Even now I find it hard to explain my problems as clearly as I would like, or express how serious they are to me, as people always seem to think stuff is milder than it really is.

I don't think I have huge problems with that, but it can be annoying when you think you're describing the right details, when NT people see the important details as something else. If you want to stick to more relevant details, perhaps listen to other people having conversations and hear how people answer questions? I dunno.



That is annoying. NT's think they know what you're going to say, but they don't, because you're Aspie/Autistic and express things in a different way. Argh.



NT's can have this problem as well, but usually they just let the novel statement go if the moment's passed.

For me, circumstantial communication is caused by the way I think. I think in details, pictures, videos, sensory eggsperience, concepts, and associations, anything but words, so when I translate my thoughts into words, what I have is circumstantial communication. When speaking, I don't take into account what other people are thinking, such as whether or not they want me to give them a soundbite or tell them a coherent story. Instead, the topic and my thoughts relating to it and associated topics are paramount, and I translate my thoughts into words. If they want to know a specific piece of information from me, then they have to ask a specific question. Otherwise, they have to wait until I reach the piece that they want to know in my ramblings, which sound incoherent to others, but make sense to me with my thinking in my mind. Chances are that I will not reach the piece that they want, but they will also not ask the specific questions for whatever social reason or whatever other reason, and sh***y communication will result.

In situations involving hoooman interaction, my mind is often blank, because I don't think in words, and it takes a lot of effort to translate my thoughts into words for speaking. Thinking of the words to match the thoughts is hard, and so is arranging the words into a linear sequence to make sentences, and so is maintaining this linear sequence at the higher level of the story. Usually, the last one is not done at all. When I was little, I didn't know how to make these translations, so I did not speak.

My problems with going mute are related to sensory overload and shutdowns, I think. Since speaking is a difficult function for me, it is the first function that I lose when I am overloaded. Usually, my speaking gets worse as the day goes on, so I speak best in the morning. I have found that I speak bester when my mind has not processed much of the speaking of others. If I have to listen to someone talk for an hour, then I will not be able to speak at the end. I cannot handle meetings in which I have to hear people talk for at least an hour. I cannot answer any questions or say anything substantive during these meetings.

Also, my communication problems are most obvious when talking to people I don't know in unfamiliar places. It is because my brain is occupied processing all the new stuff, and fewer resources remain for me to generate communication. I have problems speaking, and when speaking, I often say things like, "What was I saying?" and "I forgot what I was talking about", so others have to remind me to get back on track. As I get moar familiar with the new people and the new places, my communication improves, and I speak moar easily, think moar easily, and appear less autistic over time. I have read that some people can fake NT well, such that you cannot tell that they have any social or communication problems until you get to know them bester, but I am just the opposite. I appear quite off initially, but my social and communication problems ameliorate over time as people get to know me bester, or rather, as my brain gets to know people bester.

I have a hard time expressing myself in words also so I practice coversations in my head that I might want to talk about in the future, and then it is easier. I think that sometimes things I say may seem a little irelevant or off to other people though. It also takes me a long time to write something.