Are you Nonverbal by Choice/need? (Poll) *revised*

Page 2 of 2 [ 30 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2


Are you nonverbal by choice/need?
I am Nonverbal by need/choice 5%  5%  [ 3 ]
I am not nonverbal by choice or need, I am verbal but wish i could be nonverbal by choice but can't because it would not be accepted or supported by those around me 23%  23%  [ 13 ]
I am semi Verbal, but i choose/need 26%  26%  [ 15 ]
I am nonverbal because others perfer me to be nonverbal 2%  2%  [ 1 ]
I am natually nonverbal and did not choose to be, but am happy being nonverbal 2%  2%  [ 1 ]
I am natually nonverbal and did not choose to be, I wish I was verbal 4%  4%  [ 2 ]
I am naturally verbal and wouldnt want to be nonverbal 21%  21%  [ 12 ]
Other: (please explain) 18%  18%  [ 10 ]
Total votes : 57

ZombieBrideXD
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Jan 2013
Age: 26
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,507
Location: Canada

11 May 2014, 6:29 pm

Im fully Verbal but have some problems understanding language sometimes


_________________
Obsessing over Sonic the Hedgehog since 2009
Diagnosed with Aspergers' syndrome in 2012.
Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder Level 1 severity without intellectual disability and without language impairment in 2015.

DA: http://mephilesdark123.deviantart.com


ASdogGeek
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 8 Jul 2009
Age: 37
Gender: Female
Posts: 769

12 May 2014, 7:35 am

Callista wrote:
I feel forced to talk because it is expected of me, but it is exhausting. After a day of having to be "on call" verbally--having to be ready to talk at any moment--I am always tired. I'm fluent in speech... usually... but sometimes it's not communicative. It's just formulaic stuff, mostly scripted. I don't think people around me realize just how much I script things.

It's like language in a can, open it up and throw it at the nearest person. If I get tired, my speech can be entirely meaningless, but most people don't really notice because it's grammatically perfect and somewhat fits into the situation. Most often, it'll just be irrelevant stuff that fits in okay, but doesn't express what I'm thinking or feeling, or rambles on about a favorite topic. Sometimes it's wrong--more like confabulation than lying, stuff I say because I had to say whatever fit into the conversation and I didn't have time to think of how to say what I actually meant to say.

I think a lot of the lectures I end up giving nowadays are because I was tired and that's just what came out. They're rather different from the enthusiastic aspie-lecture style, in that they're mostly just repeating old information which I learned long ago, and may even have already told the person I'm talking to. They're a product of the pressure to talk forcing me to talk, but without the energy and ability to carry on a proper conversation, stuff just comes out for no particular reason.

I do like the shift to text messages over phone calls over the last few years. It's wonderful to be able to just write out what you want to say without having to worry about conversations. Sign langauge isn't very appealing to me because of how much movement it involves and how much I'd have to constantly start and stop movements, but I would love to have permission to communicate in text more often. E-mail, text messages, online forums...

Do you guys feel that constant pressure to talk, too? It really gets on my nerves.




Internally on occassion


From other people frequently bit not always


_________________
Autism Service Dogs - Everyday heroes
many people spend their live looking for a hero
My autism service dog IS my hero

http://autismdoggirl.blogspot.com/
http://stridersautismdogjourney.blogspot.com/


EzraS
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 24 Sep 2013
Gender: Male
Posts: 27,828
Location: Twin Peaks

12 May 2014, 8:08 am

I started out nonverbal and then progressed to monosyllabic around age 8. Technically i'm verbal, but that's more through forced effort i think then something that comes naturally to me. Basically no matter what, speaking requires a lot of effort. if there's stress, confusion, sensory overload going on, i'm really unable to speak intelligibly and it's just basically vocalizing gibberish. I would love to be able to talk in a regular way.



cannotthinkoff
Deinonychus
Deinonychus

User avatar

Joined: 27 Nov 2011
Age: 34
Gender: Female
Posts: 324

12 May 2014, 1:32 pm

fsuhunter wrote:
cannotthinkoff wrote:
I had no choice but to participate in the whole thing called life, and I hate it. I probably usually sound a bit dumb, but hey, being a girl that's fine. But I really don't do well with words, both in speaking and in writing. It's very frustrating, not being able to express yourself. It's absolutely not natural and exhausting.

I used to have mutism, and from time to time its creeping back up. Makes me sad :( Why cant I do the most basic thing people should be able to do? It's holding me back enormously.


You expressed yourself very well in this post! I am "NT" and am amazed by the quality of postings on Wrong Planet. If you don't mind me asking, how long does it take for you to make a post like the one you just did?

Now it doesn't take long at all, especially when I am "in the zone". It used to take a good 20min to write up something decent in the post. But when I need to write something more substantial it takes me a long, ridiculously long time. To finish up one page it can take me even as long as a week. And I find it's not so much a matter of content, but its more about the structure, and presentability. I believe the main factors, for me, are 1) anxiety, I have the weirdest anxieties regarding language and writing, and I only rarely am calm enough to write/speak fluently 2) its my second language 3) lack of practice because naturally I would avoid such unpleasant tasks 4) my mind often refuses to participate. It's hard for me to structure my thoughts, I am constantly thinking about a million things and this ambiguity of language, many ways of expressing the same thing with all the social nuances.. It requires careful, constant work which often remains undone therefore leaving me in confusion. I suppose some adequate education would've helped..

Now that said, I still aced my exams back in school. But the torture was unspeakable. I suppose thank god the level in schools is pretty basic and I have skills to avoid things. But now at uni I am seriously dying of all the writing, even though I usually have to write like a page per month.



bookwyrm
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 12 Jun 2010
Age: 59
Gender: Female
Posts: 53
Location: away with the rabbits

12 May 2014, 2:00 pm

I fantasize about being non verbal. I hate being forced to talk to people.
My family get upset with me because of it. I run away from strangers to avoid talking.

My son is completely comfortable with not responding to people which makes me envious but I find it embarrassing and so avoid instead.

I hate repeating myself even more and so often end up shouting as my mum and sister are both hard of hearing which is bad but they will persist in asking me questions. I can't make my voice loud without shouting as my throat sort of closes up. It closes up entirely if I try to talk about anything with any emotional component. That hurts.

I can't use a phone either.



ASdogGeek
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 8 Jul 2009
Age: 37
Gender: Female
Posts: 769

14 May 2014, 11:31 pm

bookwyrm wrote:
I fantasize about being non verbal. I hate being forced to talk to people.
My family get upset with me because of it. I run away from strangers to avoid talking.

My son is completely comfortable with not responding to people which makes me envious but I find it embarrassing and so avoid instead.

I hate repeating myself even more and so often end up shouting as my mum and sister are both hard of hearing which is bad but they will persist in asking me questions. I can't make my voice loud without shouting as my throat sort of closes up. It closes up entirely if I try to talk about anything with any emotional component. That hurts.

I can't use a phone either.



Could you slowly worki using aac apps in instead?


_________________
Autism Service Dogs - Everyday heroes
many people spend their live looking for a hero
My autism service dog IS my hero

http://autismdoggirl.blogspot.com/
http://stridersautismdogjourney.blogspot.com/


Mugen
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 13 May 2014
Age: 114
Gender: Male
Posts: 54

15 May 2014, 1:14 am

I was mostly non-verbal until somewhere in my late teens or early 20s. I am now verbal in small groups where I feel comfortable and otherwise minimally verbal or I guess semi-verbal mostly out of politeness and to meet people's expectations. When I was in primary school I thought for years about choosing to be non-verbal but I thought it might be misinterpreted as an attention seeking thing or otherwise bring attention I did not want or lead to me being bullied.

I have a lot of trouble expressing myself in spoken word but find it significantly easier in writing... I really do wish I could speak aloud like I can type, maybe then people wouldn't mistake me for an idiot. :lol: :oops:

In medium-small to large crowds I am almost non-verbal but there often comes a point in a discussion where I can't hold my opinion any longer and it all just kind of bursts out of me, often to then be misinterpreted or misunderstood... but I can find a lot of NT discussions frustrating even just to listen to unless I offer some input. Especially when people get into very specific and technical topics... if someone talks extensively about a scientific concept and the others are learning from them and they are entirely wrong about it, I am unlikely to stay quiet for long!



Dan_Undiagnosed
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 18 Jun 2011
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 645

15 May 2014, 3:02 am

The closest to my situation was 'I am semi verbal but I choose/need'. I think I was a selective mute as a kid and throughout my whole life people have always said stuff like 'you're so quiet!' or 'you don't talk much'. I hate the latter, the sheer arrogance that they expect me to respond to a statement that I don't talk much haha. I would normally just reply with 'yeah I know'.



Nonperson
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Jun 2012
Age: 45
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,258

15 May 2014, 6:40 pm

I am verbal but take planned days of silence because I feel like it's good for my mental health - speech feels alien and I need a break. On those days I neither speak nor write.



ASdogGeek
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 8 Jul 2009
Age: 37
Gender: Female
Posts: 769

16 May 2014, 1:27 pm

Nonperson wrote:
I am verbal but take planned days of silence because I feel like it's good for my mental health - speech feels alien and I need a break. On those days I neither speak nor write.




That makes a lot of sense


_________________
Autism Service Dogs - Everyday heroes
many people spend their live looking for a hero
My autism service dog IS my hero

http://autismdoggirl.blogspot.com/
http://stridersautismdogjourney.blogspot.com/


MiriMiriAru
Emu Egg
Emu Egg

User avatar

Joined: 4 Jun 2014
Age: 43
Gender: Female
Posts: 1

05 Jun 2014, 9:02 am

Callista wrote:
I feel forced to talk because it is expected of me, but it is exhausting. After a day of having to be "on call" verbally--having to be ready to talk at any moment--I am always tired. I'm fluent in speech... usually... but sometimes it's not communicative. It's just formulaic stuff, mostly scripted. I don't think people around me realize just how much I script things.

It's like language in a can, open it up and throw it at the nearest person. If I get tired, my speech can be entirely meaningless, but most people don't really notice because it's grammatically perfect and somewhat fits into the situation. Most often, it'll just be irrelevant stuff that fits in okay, but doesn't express what I'm thinking or feeling, or rambles on about a favorite topic. Sometimes it's wrong--more like confabulation than lying, stuff I say because I had to say whatever fit into the conversation and I didn't have time to think of how to say what I actually meant to say.

I think a lot of the lectures I end up giving nowadays are because I was tired and that's just what came out. They're rather different from the enthusiastic aspie-lecture style, in that they're mostly just repeating old information which I learned long ago, and may even have already told the person I'm talking to. They're a product of the pressure to talk forcing me to talk, but without the energy and ability to carry on a proper conversation, stuff just comes out for no particular reason.

I do like the shift to text messages over phone calls over the last few years. It's wonderful to be able to just write out what you want to say without having to worry about conversations. Sign langauge isn't very appealing to me because of how much movement it involves and how much I'd have to constantly start and stop movements, but I would love to have permission to communicate in text more often. E-mail, text messages, online forums...

Do you guys feel that constant pressure to talk, too? It really gets on my nerves.


I feel like you are writing my feelings here. This describes exactly how I feel.

I wish I was non-verbal. I want to stop speaking, and rely on text for communication. But... the word "choose" bothers me a lot. I think that people, especially those who know me, would be unwilling to accommodate my "choice". People suck, they're barely willing to make allowances for disabilities where there is no possibility of volition: where you *can* do something, even if it's alien, difficult, exhausting, or depressing, that willingness dries up. No one wants to be inconvenienced by having to read rather than listen, especially if it's not "necessary", nor are they willing to accept that what's normal for them might be all kinds of alien for others, particularly when their normal is the general norm. It's frustrating and depressing. I don't want to have to explain myself or beg for my needs to be accepted... I just want. to. not. talk.



Tuttle
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 26 Mar 2006
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,088
Location: Massachusetts

05 Jun 2014, 10:25 am

MiriMiriAru wrote:
I wish I was non-verbal. I want to stop speaking, and rely on text for communication. But... the word "choose" bothers me a lot. I think that people, especially those who know me, would be unwilling to accommodate my "choice". People suck, they're barely willing to make allowances for disabilities where there is no possibility of volition: where you *can* do something, even if it's alien, difficult, exhausting, or depressing, that willingness dries up. No one wants to be inconvenienced by having to read rather than listen, especially if it's not "necessary", nor are they willing to accept that what's normal for them might be all kinds of alien for others, particularly when their normal is the general norm. It's frustrating and depressing. I don't want to have to explain myself or beg for my needs to be accepted... I just want. to. not. talk.


Can you supplement you speech with an AAC app, so that you type into it, and they listen when it speaks, but you still get to type to communicate instead of speak? When its at the most exhausting, you'd have an alternative. When you can't deal with losing the energy, you'd have an alternative. You'd just use the combination based on situation.

Using a combination speech/AAC could work really well.


_________________
I has a blog (that isn't in lolspeak):
http://turtleisaverb.blogspot.com/


jetbuilder
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Feb 2012
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,172

05 Jun 2014, 10:08 pm

I can communicate so much better through text that I would have many more conversations with people if text was my primary form of communication, even when I'm actually with the person I'm "talking" to.

I can\do talk if I need to, but having any substantial verbal conversations isn't very easy for me.

I've pretty much let it be known to everyone I know that I prefer to communicate though text.


_________________
Standing on the fringes of life... offers a unique perspective. But there comes a time to see what it looks like from the dance floor.
---- Stephen Chbosky
ASD Diagnosis on 7-17-14
My Tumblr: http://jetbuilder.tumblr.com/


SoMissunderstood
Velociraptor
Velociraptor

User avatar

Joined: 18 Mar 2014
Age: 59
Gender: Female
Posts: 481
Location: Sydney, Australia

05 Jun 2014, 10:18 pm

At the moment, I am semi or selectively verbal (or else my family will start to think I am being rude and ignoring them), but I am a 'good girl' and don't talk to strangers (i.e anybody I do not know) and I am working towards the day when I can become fully non-verbal.

Part of that has to do with people not really caring for my opinions anyway so why offer them? and part of it has to do with me becoming more 'spiritual' in my quest, allowing my conscious awareness to turn inwards without introverting fully (working on it).