Talking drains me

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Background on myself, I was nonverbal as a child and had not started speaking until age 9. I remember what people told me, but I never was able to respond, I was screaming in my head what I wanted, but was distressed nobody heard me and wild usually meltdown most days.
As childhood passed, I still struggle to speak. I feel drained talking to people so a lot of what I say is obsessive rant or terse responses. Does anybody else feel this way?

Do you find that it's easier to respond to conversations in your mind, but speaking out loud is draining?
I've felt that a lot even though I was never non-verbal.

When I'm tired or stressed, I actively struggle to understand what other people are saying, and to formulate a coherent response.

I've been 100% verbal since age three, but talking can be draining sometimes. It's hard to turn thoughts into words when I'm stressed or tired. I end up stuttering, and then people just want more details even though I think it's pretty obvious I'm having trouble. Pretty funny considering most of the time people wish I'd just shut up!

Yup. The thing is, conversations you create in your head are totally predictable and understandable.

My ability to speak is fragile. When I am tired and/or overloaded, half of the things I say make little sense, can misrepresent my true knowledge, and/or can lead to people not trusting me. It's dangerous.

Yes, if I talk for a while, I get exhausted and need to take a break. That happens a lot with therapy sessions or interviews. I'm not that much of a social person, either. I'd much rather communicate by email or text than verbalize with somebody. I can express myself better that way anyway. So you're not alone.

That's a great point. Sometimes at work, the boss asks me why I didn't get task "x" done. I want to explain how I was doing "y" and "z" and neither would be done if I did the less-important "x", but it comes out as "I don't know". Luckily there's evidence that explains this better than my brain/mouth sometimes does.

It gets harder for my mouth to form words after I talk for a long time. But even when I'm rested my brain has trouble finding words for my thoughts. When I don't have enough time to form a response, I tend to overuse "thing" and "stuff" and my sentences can seem like something a younger child will say.

I started speaking early.

I feel much better if I don't talk. I've done it a few times for short periods (a day or so), but would be punished by my parents and could not continue. Talking makes me stressed, because I express things wrongly, have misunderstandings etc. and don't know how to fix it. I just wish that I could be accepted as a non-verbal person, but my parents would get very angry at me.

I oscillate between very simple and childish expression, and fairly complex expression with a large vocabulary.

I can sometimes be unable to recognise talking as words - it just sounds like meaningless noise. It can take me about 5 seconds after I hear something to recognise the words, and then the meaning.

I'm able to talk these days, but poorly. A lot of the time when I'm verbal is when uttering terse comments and expletives. It's usually a matter of something triggering me, rather than deciding to talk. It's still basically impossible to have a regular conversation with me.

^ I always find that inconsistency interesting about you Ezra, as you're more coherent than many others I know, autistic or not, in writing.
I too hate talking. I hate it even more since I have to go back to speech therapy soon and I hate that.
Verbal speech creates a kind of mental blur, a white noise distortion, for me. If I am allowed to be silent, suddenly my mind clears a great deal and I feel a lot more comfortable. My voice is also highly uncontrollable, so it makes me uneasy as I don't actually have a lot of control over what it does, and have no idea how it'll sound when I speak. I have also had a mild stutter which is horrifyingly embarrassing when it happens.
I'm eager to progress with sign for this reason, but professional instruction is so damn expensive. I am much more comfortable signing, but then you have the problem that sign language is not commonly understood and thus, the general public will still not know what you're saying. Though, I have had successful interactions using even rudimentary, nonstandard sign before, when I couldn't speak but still needed medication.
I too much prefer text or email. People know I will not answer my phone, so they have to text me if they want a response. The talking issue is worse on phones.

This probably why I don't talk too much. I wish other people would understand why I don't talk too much.

Its not draining all the time, for me it just depends on what it is. Like if I have to deal with new people or something then that's tiring.

I have so many issues with communication that I could not gather my thoughts together. So I hope you do not mind that I borrowed from all of your posts. You all did a great job describing the different aspects.

•When dealing with selective mutism, I hear what people say, but I can not respond, I scream in my head what I want to say, am distressed nobody hears me.
•I find that it is easier to respond to conversations in my mind, but actually speaking out loud is difficult.

•When I am tired or stressed, I struggle to even understand what people are saying.
•I may be unable to recognise words in their speech - it sounds like meaningless noise - or, if I can, I may still have difficulty remembering the meaning of those words.
•When I am tired or stressed, I also struggle to turn my thoughts into words, or just find any words to formulate a coherent response.
•At best, I use placeholders like "thing" and "do stuff"; other times, another, wrong word gets stuck in my mind, preventing me from thinking of the right word; at worst, my whole mind goes blank.
•People always want more details when it is obvious that I am having difficulty responding.

•Even if what I say makes any sense, it can misrepresent my true knowledge, understanding, feelings, or intent.
•Even when I am capable, I still struggle to speak, and I feel drained afterward, and need to take a break.
•Most of my successful attempts to speak are terse responses or obsessive rants.

•Verbal speech creates a mental blur or white noise distortion. If I am allowed to be silent, my mind clears.
•I can express myself better, and prefer to communicate by email or text, pen and paper, or through an "interpreter" (I know American Sign Language) than to speak with somebody.
•I feel better if I am not forced to talk.
•I have done it a few times for short periods, but would be forced by my parents to start speaking.
•I just wish that I could be accepted as a non-verbal person, but my parents would get very angry.

Right now, I'm using 2 sounds to communicate vocally: "Hm" for yes and "Ppppbbb" for no.

It's been a long day at school.