I can't take in too much "information density"

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Is it an Aspegers thing that I just can't take in anything written with too much "information density"?

Like my medical insurance paperwork.

Like somewaht technical magazine articles.

I'm going to have to call to speak to someone with a question I know is answered in the insurance paperwork, because when looking at the page it just becomes a grey monolithic mass of alphabet letters.

Yes!! !! ! Yes! Yes! Yes!! ! (I mean I have that experience. I don't know if it's an aspie thing, but to some extent I'm sure it must be.)


Medical insurance paperwork is the worst. You get this horrible, complicated thing that has a very large dollar amount written on it someplace, and words like, "It may or may not be your responsiblity to pay $6,431.26. Contact your health advocacy beaurcrat aristocrat parsnip agent". It's like, "What? What does this mean?" And if you call the number provided, you have to talk to a voice recognition menu thingy, and listen to hold music for three hours. Then you have to explain your question, but it's so complicated that you don't know what your question is or even who you are talking to. So awful.

Honestly, when I am confronted with that stuff, I get this mental image of myself cracking my head against something and having it open up like a pomegranite. I know that sounds disgusting, and self-harm really isn't one of my issues, nor is head-banging in particular. But that kind of stuff is so overwhelming, that it really gives me a feeling that I need to release some tension or something. I wouldn't really do that, but the mental image always occurs, and kind of makes me feel better. Ha ha! I guess that's kind of sick.

But geez, it's so friggin complicated.


Here's something I've figured out, though. Once you are speaking to an actual person on the phone, start out by saying, "I really don't know much about the correct terminology or how all this insurance stuff works, so please bear with me, because I don't really know what I'm talking about." I used to be afraid to say stuff like that, because people might cotton on that I was confused or nervous. But it's really okay to say that upfront, because medical insurance confuses everyone. If they know upfront that you have a particularly hard time understanding, AND that you can admit that in a semi-amusing way, they tend to be reasonably helpful. That's been my experience with Blue Cross, at least.

Don't know if it's specifically AS, but I know what you mean.

Tip that helped me with dull research papers is to get a spare copy, split the pages up , go through one at a time using another piece of paper to "mask" the upcoming bits of more dullness, and cross out and then throw away the bits I'd read and weren't of use.

I don't know anything that helps with unrelenting blocks of text on screen, enlarging display sometimes helps, but even on WP posts if there aren't frequent paragraph breaks i get "lost"and can't understand or find the important points.

Yes, nothing will reduce my brain to mush faster.

I get this a lot. That's why I don't ever read the terms of service but lot of people don't read them. Either they also get overloaded or they are just lazy.

I would just split it into small parts. Read little at a time. I think that's why some companies give you time to look it all over, so you can read little at a time so it's not so overwhelming.

Sometimes it helps to re-size the browser window to make the text into a narrow column (if the page is set up right to allow the text to wrap to the window.) It's much easier to scan text if the lines are shorter (like the columns in a newspaper.)

Also, if your computer has a speech synthesizer (Mac has one built-in), you can set it to read the text in question - which can help you focus.

For paper documents, I really like the idea of masking the extra text, to allow you to parse one sentence at a time. I've done that & it takes a long time - but for important documents, it's worth taking the time. I view this as a "translation" job - as I parse each sentence, I will write down what it means in plain English.

Thanks zeichner!

I think it's a paragraphs thing, I think I mentally link it with a writing style-something like when novelists do "stream of concsiousness" writing, I can't read that either.

Yes, this tends to overwhelm me actually.
I avoid paperwork like a plague.
I have in the past tried to force myself to read great chunks of technical text as I felt, I should be able to read this and understand it, but I had to give up in the end.
Mind you, I find it hard to read anything that isnt a particular interest to me.