Imagining what to say

Post Reply New Topic

Something that I do quite often is ponder on what I would say in certain scenarios, particularly when they're difficult. For example, I will go over specific lines and then mentally revise them, and then recite them nearly verbatim in person, if that scenario does actually occur. I suppose it reflects some of the obsessive tendencies of aspergers. Anyone else do this?

I do do this but not half as often as I used to do it.

I believe this is called scripting and is quite common.

I do that all the time. I figure it's because I have trouble with language processing which makes it hard to come up with what to say on the spot, I often have images in my mind of what I want to say but I struggle to find the words so I need to come up with words before hand to sound normal. As Grahzmann said, it's called stripping and it's quite a common thing among autistic people. I have also talked to my technically NT sister and mom (who both have some autistic tendencies) and they say that they do this type of thing sometimes too, so it's not exclusive to autism either.

I normally do it when I sense confrontation.

I do that as well.
Like right now I have to prepare myself for what to say to my friends in school when they will ask me what I did over the weekend tomorrow... If I don't prepare myself for what to say I just stand there waiting and thinking to come up with a decent answer for the question. Even when it's considered to be quite a simple question like 'What did you do over the weekend'.

It's like I'm coming up with a script in my mind.

Doesn't everyone do that? I think a lot in pictures, so I need to write things down so I remember what to say in a phone call or when meeting the person. I also tend to try and talk to my wife to see if I can get into words what I want to say. Conversations doesn't always go as I expect it, and it kind of gets me in tough situations, so I REALLY need to prepare myself to all different scenarios of the conversation.

Also, I constantly go over many different non-verbal scenarios in my head. Like an action happens, and I go through all the different possibilities of what that action will lead to. That is a bit connected with my catastrophic obsessive thinking.

I script all of my conversations. When they go off track, I'm lost and I mess up completely.

Scripting doesn't completely solve the issue as many of the words get lost on the way out and often what I see is a jumbled and significantly shortened version of what's in my head, but it is a definite improvement on the nonsensical, jumbled and sometimes (mildly) inappropriate things that I say when I'm caught off-guard and haven't had chance to script (or, often, when I'm around people that I consider to be friends and start to relax and get involved in the conversation a bit too much, rather than focusing on what I'm saying).

I do this a lot

I do this for a very large percentage of the verbal interactions that I have. I've been doing it since I was a kid.

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,"

I am merely an actor of the play that is 'Life', practising one's lines before the big performance.

yes, it's called scripting. a common trait/behavior among autistic individuals.

It's kind of necessary when it comes to confrontation situations. Other people do the same thing, but in a seemingly more automated way. So after a while responses become somewhat predictable, which allows for preparation to handle those responses.

There is usually some recycled BS that you have to get out of the way whenever trying to resolve a situation with someone, especially in the workplace, for example. Trying to figure out how to get past the recycled BS phase without being dragged into 5,000 side-arguments can require some experimenting in my own mind, trying to play both sides and poke holes in my strategies until I think I have come up with something solid.

For me the alternative is to just be completely uncooperative and ignore people/problems, but then if I'm suddenly forced into a confrontation situation, without preparation my agitation level quickly goes through the roof. The aftermath results is that I will then spend the following days/weeks obsessing over what I should have said, but didn't. It might even pop up randomly to haunt me like 5 years later.