11:08am July 2, 2014

autism and being succinct

One of the biggest challenges with autism for me is being succinct. It sounds unimportant, but it is so much a part of everything and of being able to navigate life without getting stuck or bewildered. It’s part of discerning context. It’s part of filtering out the overwhelming quantity of superfluous detail that bombards my brain from moment to moment.

It’s also a huge part of communicating successfully. I have a tendency (as you may have noticed ;) of being excessively verbose. I feel like I have to explain everything in minute detail and then explain all THOSE details and so on ad infinitum.

But a useful tip i heard from a tedex talk was to start off in conversations and in relationships by using soundbites or sumaries. Decide on the bare essence of what you want to say and begin with that. Let others ASK fro more if they want to. Otherwise, let it go.

But I often have a really hard time KNOWING what the essence is. This is particularly hard in situations when I’m anxious. Most of all if someone asks a question.

When I was younger, a member of my family would always demand instant responses to questions. So i developed a habit of just saying the first thing that came to mind - true or not - because having an immediate answer was more important than taking the time to formulate a true one.

I still tend to feel that way when asked a question. Even if i stop myself responding immediately, i can’t always use the time to think because I’m too anxious to do so.

So i want to practise in non-stressful situations first. i’m going to practise with my mum. When we have a conversation, she’s going to help me work out a short (just one or two sentences) summary of what we were talking about - the heart of it, the main subject, the POINT!

Hopefully that will help with a lot of things, including the chaos and lack of cohesion i often feel in my head with all these seemingly disparate thoughts. And also with communicating my thoughts to others without overloading them or just being too vague to convey any kind of cohesive point.