Verbalizing Thoughts

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I totally share your struggle. There are many many interesting things that go through my mind all the time, but getting them out the way I am thinking them is quite possibly the hardest challenge I have ever come across. Sometimes even when I try to get something out, my brain just kind of shuts down from going on overload and I can't even form words correctly (totally humiliating!). Most of the time though, I just end up sounding like I don't know what I'm talking about when if fact I had everything in my head, I just couldn't retrieve the correct words to describe what I'm thinking.

Yes, I have trouble turning my thoughts into words. And I find the more that I try to force the words out, the more trouble that I have in getting them out, which is to say I basically keep my thoughts to myself.

Yes, I have this trouble. I don't think my thoughts materialize in true word form. It's almost like there is an extra step, in order to translate, that most don't have to deal with. That's the best description/explanation that I've come up with so far.

I have great difficulty verbalising my thoughts. It doesn't just happen when I'm nervous but pretty much whenever I open my mouth. I jumble my words, say the opposite word, mispronounce and stutter. I don't think I properly explain myself to people. Sometimes my brain just can't think of the right word to say too. Someone said that they think very fast - yes, that's my problem too.
I'm much better at writing my thoughts down.

I'm much better at writing too. I often have trouble verbalising what I mean. If I have something to say, usually it's better for me to have thought about it first and have it clear in my head, otherwise when I try to explain it, I end up confusing myself and the other person and forgetting what I mean. Sometimes I even end up saying things I don't believe or agreeing with people when I don't.

Sometimes I lose words when I'm talking as well. It can be difficult trying to talk around the lost word and find a replacement.

My thoughts don't translate easily to spoken words. ("Translate" is the right word here; trying to get from thoughts to words is like trying to translate between two languages that don't share many concepts.) When I talk, if I can get words out, I often forget words, lose my place in my sentence, or get words the wrong way round.
It doesn't happen when I write.

That's how it is for me, too. Which is one of the reasons why I prefer chatting and writing letters rather than talking IRL.

I'm never sure about what to say in a face-to-face conversation. Verbalizing my feelings is really no different than verbalizing my political or philosopical viewpoints - if someone honestly wants to know, they're going to have to read them on paper.

That is exactly how I would describe it TBH.




This happens to me sometimes also.

I am a fact puker because when I speak I try to say everything at once. When I write or IM I get my thoughts in order. I even IM with my family in the house.

Exactly, that is a problem I have struggled with since whenever. I also can realte to what jetlag has said, I often keep my thoughts to myself, unless out poor conversational skills I end up talking about one of those obsessions in my head, after which i just go on and on and on. In such a situation the conversation is just verbalsiing the overload of theoughts in my brain. In reality is just me speaking to myself and I would contradict myself or go over the same point twice, not because I am making conversation, but in reality its just verbalising a thought process and going over different aspects of a subject I am thinking about. It confuses people, but it is just impulse, I am working to change it. Also another dimension is that it takes me much more longer to get my thoughts going, it just processes slow, and then it comes out in bursts, and in live conersations everything is in the moment and that is another problem.

The real problem for me is that I have trouble verbalizing new thoughts and ideas. That's why I usually try to explain new ideas to myself first, so that I don't have that much trouble, when I actually tell it to someone (I am making up actual conversations I might have with potential listeners). If I don't do this I start mumbling, stuttering and I will lose sentence coherence, which is really embarrassing and annoying... It gets worse the more people I am talking to at that moment or if there's a lot of noise.

I do that soooo often, the conversations in my head that is, and I often don't say them to other people ever, even though I deeply want to.

I have a terrible time expressing my thoughts in words. It is so bad time that sometimes I leave my wife a note explaining my thoughts. When I try to express my feelings or thoughts I usually lock up and can't get them out effectively. And when I do, I usually say something a bit different than what I intended. The worst disaster for me was when my wife and I went to an Elton John concert. A TV newswoman came up to us along with the big old TV camera and asked us how we liked Elton John's concert. In my wonderful austistic way I said, "Well, I think it was a very honorable thing for him to do." The newswoman looked at me in a funny way and said, "Thank you." Afterwards, my wife commented on my unusual reply. I didn't watch the news that night. But that's how I am. I am currently undergoing some therapy to deal with this. My therapist has told me to take what I am feeling, and try to act it out like an actor would. Ok, take 1...take 2...take 3...take 278...

Last edited by glider18 on 15 Jan 2009, 1:21 am, edited 2 times in total.

It seems like I have a certain understanding of what I want to say to the person which goes beyond words, and I don't realize the effort that it will take to describe that understanding until I start speaking.

I picture myself standing in a bathroom with a towel on the shelf. I see the towel and know that it is there and what it is for, but I don't see it in terms of "pink towel"; I see it in terms of its purpose. If someone walked in and asked me what it was, I would hesitate for a moment before saying "Uhhmm...a towel...and it is pink". This is the way I speak in almost every situation where I don't plan out exactly what I'm going to say beforehand.

I find it very easy to express my thoughts online though.

Sorry if that was difficult to understand - it's past midnight for me tbh.

Yes yes, I do this too. In fact, it's the only time I can think in words, so I have to do it quite regularly, otherwise I wouldn't be able to say anything. And yes, it is like another language which shares very few concepts. Do people find that it goes the other way too, I mean, that it's sometimes hard to translate other people's words into your own thoughts?

Yeah, I find it hard to translate othe peoples words into my thoughts, but that is mostly due to delay in auditory processing. I also find it hard to tell people what I am thinking, then throw in that I am somewhat emotionaly unstable, and you've got one hell of a mess.