[Flipside]

Hi, everyone,

This is my first post out of the "introduce yourself" new member thread. I came to this site because I have been making some observations about myself that I really wanted to get opinions about - to see if anyone else felt the same way or had similar experiences. I'm not expecting to be diagnosed, and I would like to get professional help, but while I work myself out of debt, I'd like to get some peace with myself in the meantime. In a general sense, this isn't life or death, but I am getting older and this stuff affects my work and my personal relationships.

A few months ago, I took a part time job that I thought was perfectly suited to me. The job involves writing surveys for research purposes and I have difficulty with two parts of it. The first involves the selection of question topics (the surveys are about recalling moments from television shows and movies). The second involves making up incorrect but plausible multiple-choice answers to go along with each question.

On the first part, I have found myself having to rewatch or scrutinize sections of a show or movie to find a context that I can write about when there is no blatantly obvious memorable action. On the second part of generating answers, I struggle for minutes to just bring anything to mind and what I keep getting is too closely related to what I was watching.

I am pretty sure I'm the slowest person in the room at this. I'm one of the last writers done most nights and I know that I take up to three times as long as the target times given in training.

I have tried to get assistance and suggestions to help me break through my blocks and "see" how people who are good at this job do it. I've been told by more than one person that I'm "overthinking." I know I do have some trouble pushing through "acceptable" trying to reach "perfect" on some things in my life, but at this job, I'm sometimes not coming up with anything at all - I feel like my brain is just not working.

Also within the last several months, I started working with my friend on a podcast for the internet. We host a show, chat about certain topics and do interviews. I am the technical person, so I edit the show. What this has done as a side effect is really draw my attention to my really disjointed speech patterns. I tend to backtrack, restart sentences, or just jump sideways into another idea, because my brain has all these things going at once and I get distracted from making a straight progression from A to B to C, unless I have written things down and read from that.

This has been particularly troublesome to me when doing interviews, because I think it creates a little uneasiness when I would really like to be projecting the image of someone who can be trusted. I'm not saying I want to be a professional radio person overnight, that's not realistic and I know it.

All of these things all feel familiar and I've started connecting them with memories from the past. There was a time in high school when a teacher played some instrumental music and asked the students to write what kinds of thoughts or feelings came in their minds. I told her that the music wasn't making me think or feel anything, and I ended up writing exactly that. I've always been horrible at telling jokes or describing the plot of a movie or TV show. I can't get it all in the right order, I always remember some detail in the middle of doing it and the description becomes fragmented.

People tell me I take things too literally. I observe a lot of details that other people miss or don't think they need to worry about. I always seem to have difficulty earning respect and feel that people do not take me seriously.

With all of this, I started to wonder - does my brain just work a different way and I'm pushing hard at making it do things the "wrong" way? If I could find out how to change what I am doing to fit the way my brain actually works, would that help? Trouble is, I'm not really sure how my brain actually wants to work.

Does this seem familiar to other people? Does anyone have some experience with learning how to get past similar blocks in thinking or speaking? Ask questions if you need to know anything specific.

Thanks,
=D=

[Open Eyes]

Hi Flipside,

Gee, I honestly don't know. This is truely something you should ask a neurologist maybe? At least you are noticing something MAY be different in how you think compared to others so that IS a start. I would hate to say it sounds like anything because I would not want to lead you in the wrong direction. I am sure that if you consulted with a professional you might get a better more accurate answer.

There is a test I believe in the forum for Autism/Asbergers you can take, but you have to visit that forum and see. I am not saying you have either of those by the way but if there is a test you may want to see if anything there appiles to how you struggle.

Good Luck,
Open Eyes

[lizardlady]

Flipside, I don't see anything "wrong" with the things you described. My grandmother, bless her heart, couldn't tell a joke or a story to save her life. She couldn't organize the info to retell it and make sense. As far as I know she didn't have a mental health diagnosis.

As for taking things literally, IMHO here's a lot of variation in how concrete people are in how they see the world.

HOWEVER, if any of what you described has a negative impact on your life, how about seeing a professional to see if there is a problem?