'Reality' of one's thoughts

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I often strongly feel my thoughts (particularly concerning opinions or decisions) are not 'real' or in someway 'complete' until I share them with someone else.

So then I have to push my thoughts across a boundary between myself and others. This can be hard to do and has several consequences, none of them good...

- I make decisions or form opinions much slower than I would otherwise
- I have to share something I might otherwise not wish to (or it would not be 'real')
- I don't share something and my thoughts remain somehow 'incomplete'

But I'm not sure if this is specific to AS? Maybe it is just a consequence of a chaotic mental life? Maybe everyone in the world feels like this to some degree (the 'human condition' if there is such a thing)?

Anyone else? What do people think?

maybe you don't feel complete in your existence because of the lack of a connection with the world? assuming you're AS, right? so building a bridge between your inner world and the world outside would give you a sense of connectivity and completion because you can finally enter this thing that is the container of all truths, now including yourself.

or maybe once upon a time you made the association real = tangible, a quite literal interpretation, and you just stuck with it.

sounds like you need to work on your own self worth. It seems to me that you dont believe your thoughts, and beliefs have any value unless confirmed by someone else. You need to believe that you are a whole person, just because you have AS does not mean you are less of a person. Part of accepting AS is accepting that is part of you, but that does not diminish you or make your beliefs, values, ideas less valuable. You are not sub-human because of AS.
There are also gifts of autism which make the way you see things or do things that are unique and valuable. You are not a disorder; you are a whole person who is entitled to your own views.

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I'd be surprised if I did not have AS, though I only recently found out about it when I learned two close family members had been diagnosed.

In my life so far, my connection with the world has been an intermittent series of sallies and retreats.



I hope so: I am hoping that understanding the particular manifestations of AS in me will give me something of a map of the world so that I can navigate it better. I am already coming to understand and accept some of my limitations: I am becoming more comfortable with myself.



I can be literal minded - I find that when I try to put thoughts on paper as a mind map and so make them tangible, they do become more coherent.

I hadn't thought of it like this but I think you are right that can gain something here by working on self worth. However I wouldn't go as far as to say that I disbelieve my thoughts - more that I mistrust them (admittedly often deeply mistrust them). Perhaps a fine distinction

That said, I think there is slightly more to it than this (actually I am adding this paragraph after I submitted this message and so pushed it across the boundary I mentioned in my earlier post): I am not sure I am always looking for validation (I don't necessarily always need someone to agree with what I am saying. The act of speech itself is the important thing). The thoughts just don't feel real It is more as if I am putting a stake in the ground or drawing a line in the sand: maybe it is not quite self-worth as much as confidence in the existence of my self (or as Duck says in my connection with the world: people do define themselves in relation to the world outside of themselves of course). Now I am confusing myself and I am not sure what I think lol.



After learning about AS, since I have many typical AS characteristics, I experienced some confusion about where the condition ends and where I begin. But then another way of looking at this is just to accept that the condition is part of me.



I absolutely agree that there is value here. In particular circumstances, I can focus my mind to an extraordinary extent and have accomplished things of value that I doubt I would have done if not for AS.

Right now I confess I do not feel completely whole but I believe I am capable of integrating the different aspects of my life - my life has been rather chaotic but I think much of that was due to missing pieces of self-knowledge. Looking back on life from this perspective, I suspect I am a far happier and more optimistic person than I thought I was, albeit one who has often completely missed the point of what was happening around him

Does talking aloud or writing it down work too? Or does it have to be feedback from another person?

not me, i require no one else to validate them

I've never thought about it that way before, but now that you mention it, I often feel the same way as you. A couple of years ago, when I was a lot more heavily involved in my imagination than I am now, I absolutely had to tell someone whenever I made a change to my imagination, such as which characters I had with me, which were leaving, which were pregnant, etc. If I didn't tell someone, it didn't feel "official". Nowadays I'm like that with my special interests, though my minor ones tend to shift around a lot and I feel embarrassed if I've made a big deal out of a particular interest one day and by the next day I don't care about it anymore.

Talking to another person is most effective. Maybe this is because it takes the most effort for me and if one puts effort into something, one tends to value it more because of the effort invested. But I'm not always looking for feedback - It wouldn't necessarily matter if the other person disagreed (though if someone convinces me that I am wrong, I am happy to accept that).

Talking aloud might work but since I'm not so comfortable talking to myself on my own (I might mutter the odd phrase to myself), I wouldn't talk enough for this to be useful. I find this last statement funny - I feel it implies that if I was more comfortable performing a stereotypically odd behavior, I might have a useful tool to control my thoughts. But I'm not planning to start...

Writing things down does help but usually I draw mind maps. These are easier for me to start as I can just draw and organize my thoughts as I go along. When I write I do a lot of editing and I have to be careful not to emphasize some minor point by writing myself into a corner.

Writing these posts is helpful though posting in a forum feels similar to "talking" since there is an audience. I am very conscious of organizing my thoughts and then pushing them over a boundary.

I'm glad to hear this

Ok you said a key phrase here that got my attention: " a useful tool in controling my thoughts"

I am going to play 20 questions with you:

When you say your thoughts...does this make it "feel right"?
Do you have thoughts that seem to be beyond your control?
Do you have thoughts that just come into your mind seemly out of nowhere...not halucinations, just thoughts?
Do you do anything to control them or make them go away?
Do you have thoughts that you use to contradict unwanted thoughts
Dp have thoughts that repeat often?
Do you do other things until it feels right?
Do you experience anxiety if you do not voice your thoughts, beliefs etc?

Answer those and I will tell you why I asked you.

That's a good description of what I do.

I don't do any other of the other things you noted, but I write down things to get it properly organized and thought out.

Hi Jojobean. If my answers appear rambling, I found more than one interpretation to some of the questions...

I'm not sure I get what is meant by "feel right". The thought would feel more concrete such that I feel I do really have that thought (as opposed to being unsure if I think it or not). The thought wouldn't necessarily feel more correct. I would feel more comfortable to have that thought once it is more concrete.



My thoughts can run away from me such that I loose perspective. But I believe a trigger for this has been confused perceptions of the world due to stress from living with AS without realizing that I was misinterpreting interactions with others.



If I examine one of my thoughts, I can generally explain where I think it came from (not that the explanation would always be rational with the benefit of hindsight). A thought might come to mind without an obvious trigger related to the particular situation that I am in.



I have learned a couple of tricks over the years. Unpleasant thoughts are bound up in unpleasant emotions. On the emotional side, I use a breathing exercise where you take deep breaths to pull air strongly up through your nostrils to stimulate nerves inside my nasal cavity: This can calm the mind. For thoughts themselves, I try a meditative technique for emptying the mind where one listens to one's thoughts, accepts that the thoughts exist then dismisses each thought one by one. I can't claim to have mastered this.



No (though I have heard of this technique).



Yes, if my thoughts have run away from me as I mention above.



I don't think so - but I wasn't really sure what you meant by "feels right" above. I can be a perfectionist.



Not from leaving thoughts unvoiced. But I might feel anxiety if I need to do something based on those thoughts and my thoughts do not feel sufficiently concrete for me to take action.

Ok based on your answers, I am about 75 percent sure that you dont have Ocd going on which is common with AS.
However your voicing your thoughts to make them concrete, I think, based on what evidence you have given me with the mind mapping, is a mental organization method that you use to compensate for the slight disorganization of your thought processes. I say slight because severe disorganization of thought processes is what you see with people who have some types of schizophrenia. I am not saying you have a schizoid mind, but that your manifestation of AS has caused a slightly disorganization of thoughts. To compensate for this disorganization, you collect together your thoughts and the voicing of them requires a certain amount of organizational skill to pull it all together. The barrier you speak of is the final result of your organization so it would come out more coherent when you speak it.

Am I right?? If I am not, dont be afraid to tell me. I am not you...so I need feedback.

I think what you are saying is very accurate.

Also, in an uncanny coincidence , when I came across the nose-breathing technique I mentioned, it was recommended for managing schizoid thoughts.

Thank you, now you have the reason you do this.
I was a psychology major in college, I could not graduate with that major because of one class that I knew I had no chance of passing. Psychological statistics...I cannot comprehend algerbra, let alone statistics, my brain just does not work that way.

If you feel your thoughts getting more disorganized than they are now, then you may want to consider getting treated for a slow onset schizophrenia. But as you are now, you seem to be coping with this without meds. I cant say for sure or not that you have a slow onset disorganized schizophrenia, but if it becomes bothersome get it checked out.

At what age did this thought pattern start, or do you always remember being this way?