[Loial]

So, over the past couple of years especially (since my second episode of psychosis started) ... I sometimes have a tendency to take things a bit literally.

That is often something associated with AS but I believe it can happen with schizophrenia too. Something to do with cognitive impairments & not processing information quite as well I think.

There's a passage on it in Surviving Schizophrenia:

Originally Posted by E. Fuller Torrey

Another characteristic of schizophrenia thinking is concreteness. This can be tested by asking the person to give the meaning of proverbs, which require an ability to abstract, to move from specific to general. When most people are asked what "People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones" means, they will answer "if you're not perfect yourself, don't criticize others." They move without difficulty from the specific glass house and stones to the general concept.

But the person with schizophrenia frequently loses the ability to abstract. I asked a hundred patients with schizophrenia to explain the proverb above; less than one-third were able to think abstractly about it. The majority answered simply something like: "It might break the windows."

That's sort of what I'm like... I do know there is another meaning but just can't quite grasp it sometimes. It's like my brain is compensating by trying to find a meaning for something I don't quite understand, which means looking for understanding in the words... which is obviously going to be taking things literally.

I find it very frustrating sometimes. Mostly when people are telling abstract jokes, or being deadpan about something.

Although ages ago sometimes I found my CPN would ask me the most simple question & I end up asking what she means. Had a few instances of that type recently too.

It kinda seems I need specifics for my brain the function right these days.

Anyone else have similar issues?

[A18793715]

Originally Posted by Loial

So, over the past couple of years especially (since my second episode of psychosis started) ... I sometimes have a tendency to take things a bit literally.


That is often something associated with AS but I believe it can happen with schizophrenia too. Something to do with cognitive impairments & not processing information quite as well I think.


There's a passage on it in Surviving Schizophrenia:





That's sort of what I'm like... I do know there is another meaning but just can't quite grasp it sometimes. It's like my brain is compensating by trying to find a meaning for something I don't quite understand, which means looking for understanding in the words... which is obviously going to be taking things literally.


I find it very frustrating sometimes. Mostly when people are telling abstract jokes, or being deadpan about something.


Although ages ago sometimes I found my CPN would ask me the most simple question & I end up asking what she means. Had a few instances of that type recently too.


It kinda seems I need specifics for my brain the function right these days.


Anyone else have similar issues?

I know your pain too well. It's like my brain takes everything literal so I never know when someone is being sarcastic and joking or being serious.

Sometimes I'll start saying something and by the end of a few sentences, I forget what the main point was.

[12AM]

I think I am a bit different. When I heard that question, yes, my answer was "it might break the windows". When someone ask me an abstract question I would give a literal answer but, when I talk to someone or it is me who ask a question or give explanation, I would talk in abstract that people would need more explanation to understand my sentences. And I am not sure why, I am better with conversation via text (written) than a direct conversation (speaking). I am a different person when I write and when I speak

[junkDNA]

i think i think too abstractly. i dont have a problem understanding figures of speech. my problem lies in analyzing everything down to the minute details which can be words, actions, things said and left unsaid, body movement/language...etc....
i also think abstractly about life in general and reality...the objective consensual reality...what that means to others and to myself

i notice when i get ill i spend a large amount of my time trying to figure abstract things

[Takeshi]

They definitely should throw more things, I volunteer for the glass house experiment.

Birds chirping outside, I need to go check them. Good luck with the studies, if you're stressed out from studying, that's time for desserts!

Maybe time to stop living in glass houses?....

[mtnannie]

I have a problem with questions. Someone asks me "Where are we?" I give them the address. Somehow that isn't what they want. I don't know why. Then when I ask, "What is the weather?" I want to know if it is raining or cold right now, not what the forcast is. If I wanted the forcast I would have asked for it!

I agree, people who are worried about their glass breaking should get rid of their glass.

[sandgroper]

Originally Posted by Loial

So, over the past couple of years especially (since my second episode of psychosis started) ... I sometimes have a tendency to take things a bit literally.

<SNIP>

Anyone else have similar issues?

Hi,

I really hate these personality tests purporting to be modern medicine.

And Fuller Torrey should be struck off for perpetuating this myth.

All this rubbish comes from a 1950's statistical survey of hospitalised US war veterans. They found that these people were more likely to interpret things literally than people who were not hospitalised US war veterans.

They linked this to mental illness - not schizophrenia - just any mental illness.

It then just got assimilated into the other APA mantra and DSM garbage like homosexuality, as a sign of schizophrenia. Go figure.

I work in IT. I am extremely analytical, and that means when I am working I take everything literally. I mean EVERYTHING. There are no figures of speech in computer logic.

When I go home, I listen to music and songs in which everything is a metaphor, and I mean EVERYTHING. There is nothing literal about modern musical lyrics.

When you are in a stress situation, you will naturally become more focussed on the literal. Its a defence mechanism. When a mistake can cost you dearly, you do not let your imagination drift. No, you focus.

When you are more relaxed, when you can drift a little, use your imagine and dream, then you become more adept at making analogies.

That these idiotic questions have become psychiatric tests highlights the appalling state of modern psychiatry. Psychiatry has advanced very little in the last 100 years, and these questions highlight the insanity of the profession itself.

These questions are nothing more than personality tests. You'd get just as much sense from the Scientologists personality meter as anything an answer to these questions is likely to provide.

Stop worrying about it. If you take things literally, then you are the analytical type, go ahead and let your literal genius loose. If you take things figuratively, then you are the expressive type, go ahead and let you figurative genius free.

Be who you are, and what you want to be.

SandGroper.

[greentires4me]

People always tell me to stop being so literal but that's who I am, I am not going to change for them. It's crazy people should really stop throwing stones all together/words around like it's spaghetti it's unfair and not needed it's actually discriminatory towards us.