Are there some things you just can't grasp?

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I don't mean things like, "Why do so many women seem to enjoy having their toenails painted by some total stranger, in a smelly room, and then paying for the privilege?" I mean, do you have any specific concepts that, no matter how much someone tries to explain it to you, you just cannot wrap your head around it?

I'm a reasonably intelligent person. I did well in school, academically (aside from high school, which required me to be organized, and to give a flying rat's ass). But there are some things that my brain just can't seem to latch onto, and which always, always confuse me. When I try to think about them, I have to start at the bare basics each time.

Here are a few:

1. The word "pragmatics" or "pragmatic", and its use. It's not that I require a definition. It's more like, I need to look it up and spend sometime thinking about it every time I want to use it, or every time I hear being used. It won't stick.

2. The phrase "non-verbal learning disorder". I get stuck on it, and have trouble even beginning to think about it. Non-verbal mean not talking, or not having to do with words. And a learning disorder is trouble learning. So a non-verbal learning disorder should be trouble with math or something like that. But it's not.


3. Gears, like in an automobile transmission or bicycle. It makes sense when it's explained, and I can imagine and grasp that one rotation of the pedals will translate to x rotations of the wheel, depending on the gear ratio. But if I need to figure out when to shift up or down, my mind goes utterly blank. I simply cannot think about it.

4. Gambling and auctions. Again, I have taken a statistics class, and I was able to keep up and make sense of it. But when I'm watching a movie, and someone is gambling, I have to keep pausing the movie and asking my husband what just happened, and if it was a good thing or a bad thing. He has to explain it every single time, and I never seem to be able to grasp it longer than it takes to understand that one situation.

5. Bribery and blackmail. These are not things that crop up in my life, but again, it's something that I can't seem to wrap my head around while watching a movie. I understand what those things are, and even why a character might do those things, but for some reason I can't follow what's happening. If there is bribery or blackmail happening in a movie, I quickly get lost and lose track of what's happening, and need to have my husband explain it. I'm sure he must be wondering why I can seem so intelligent some of the time, but need to have these simple things explained.

5. Insurance. In particular health insurance. It's taken me years to get a reasonably decent grasp on a few basic terms like, "co-pay", and "deductible". Even now, when having to discuss those thing, my brain suddenly moves at the speed of cold molasses, and sometimes goes blank. I'm like, "Er...uh.....okay, wait a minute. Our deductible is $4000, so that means, er...uh....that someone pays the first $4000. Them? Us? Er...Oh, god, I can't think about it anymore!! I need chocolate!!

Does this make sense to anyone? It makes me feel brain damaged sometimes. I once told someone that we were thinking of buying a house, but I was dreading having to figure out all the mortgage stuff. He looked at me like that was a weird thing to say, and said, "Why? You aren't stupid?" It took me years to be able to fully grasp that "mortgage" is simply another word for "home loan". I had to study really hard to just get that basic concept to gel in my mind. Why??? Plenty of other things come easily and make sense without any problem.






There are other things, I'm sure, but those are the ones that come to mind. It's like, for some reason, my brain freezes up, or there is some kind of mental block keeping me from grasping certain things.

yes! defintely no matter how u explain it or how much u explain it or what u do, i cant grasp it, a lot said to me is jus words, i see the letters form words in my head, see the whole word form and be an actual word, then see it make a sentence, then that sentence is reread in my head a couple times, but theres never any meaning behind it, its like lookin at a scrabble board, all u see is letters forming some word or another but yet what is the meaning, no matter what there is no scrabble player telling u in my head jus the board with the letters, and i can have a ton of latters on that board and be able to form a whole game and puzzle with those letters, does any of it mean anything, nope. So with a lot i jus cant understand no grasp the concept no matter what unless some little tiny alien pops in my head and takes all those words and sentences and put a meaning behind them because right now its nothing. So i totally know what u mean! For me its even more simple things like seeing the word pull door, yet here i am pushing the door, i read the words pull and door, there they are in my head floating around, but does it connect or mean anything nope, still there pushin or ill jus be sitting there knockin on the door waiting for help idk, if help comes along great, if not ill still be standing there knocking. So yes i know what u mean?

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Being Normal Is Vastly Overrated

Yes. anything very complicated which is spoken - I'm fine if I can read it, instructions etc, but I get a block, especially when tired, if it's speech. I don't understand the phrase non-verbal learning disorder either.

There are probably lots of things I don't understand, but one which bugs me and always has done, is why people a. say things they don't mean and b. speak in an over-elaborate way instead of just saying what they mean. That drives me nuts. I tend to 'switch off' when people do that.

Yes. It has taken me years to understand some things. It takes about 20 minutes to explain things to me so I understand. Give me a short explanation, it is most likely I won't get it and lot of people don't have the patients for me.


Oh yeah here is a big one for me. Politics. No matter how much I hear about it, it just can't stay in my head. Everyone says that topic is complicated so maybe they have problems grasping it too.

Another one, money. I can do basic stuff but I have difficulty understanding taxes and and other things like loans and all. I know you pay it back and I know they charge you interest because it's how they make money. Not only are you paying them back, they are making more from you from interest. But why raise the interest? That I don't understand.

People getting credit cards and spending spending spending. How hard is it to not buy things? Why do people pay the minimum amount and allow their interests to build build build as months pass by even though they have the money? Why do they even think they will have the money by then so they spend it anyway and why do they repeat the sasme mistake?

How can people keep making the same mistakes over and over or not learn from them? I used to think it was due to stupidity but I learned it's the wiring in the brain that causes it. Okay so how does it cause them to make those same mistakes again? I think it can be learned can it?

It took me two years to understand my husband's feet. I knew they were bad and they hurt but I couldn't grasp that just because he can be on them at work doesn't mean he can be on them at home. Also the fact that if he can go to bed, then he can go to the kitchen also to put his plate in the sink. Also one time he crawled to the bathroom, that told me he can crawl everywhere else too in our home but he refused. I still don't understand why he would do it that one time but then refuse now. He says his feet hurt less when he walks on them so that's why he refuses to crawl. But why crawl to bed sometimes or crawl to the bathroom?

Why do people put on an act when they meet someone? They make themselves look better than they really are to impress their partner and then after 3-6 months, they start being their real selves. But wouldn't the partner not like the new them and then break it off? I mean why be someone you're not and then be your real self and have your partner dump if if he or she didn't like who you were? You should have done that at the beginning and you wouldn't be wasting your time with the wrong person.

Chess, no matter how many times it's been explained, it can't seem to stay in my head about what each piece does.

Yeah I have certain things that I always and will always get jumbled up.

1. I have trouble telling left from right and east from west unless I take at least 20 seconds to think about it without interruption or pressure. If I'm trying to do something that involves other people and I have to come up with an answer to one of these, I know that it's going to make me look stupid if I take the time to think about it so I panic and just pick a direction and if it ends up being wrong I look even dumber

Related to this is that I can't remember if my birthday is the 26th or 27th, I get March and May confused and August and October confused. It seems that once I have transposed two ideas, it is impossible to seperate them in my head. They will always be interchangable.

2. I have trouble reading an analog clock face. If I take the time to really think about it, I can get it. But I can't read it instantly like most people do. I tend to think of the hour as being the number that the hand is closest to. So 8:55 becomes 9:55 because the hand is closest to the 9 People stare at me like I've just grown a second head when I take a long time or incorrectly read a clock.

3. I can't read numbers. Meaning if I see this "954,343,000" I can't translate it into "nine hundred fifty-four million, three hundred fourty-three thousand." (Did I do that right? HAHA!!) Again, If I take time I might be able to get it but if I am reading something out loud to someone it is practically impossible. I end up just telling them the numbers "nine-five-four-three-four-three-zero-zero-zero" which also makes me look like an idiot.

I am a reletively intelligent person who got straight A's in school. I'm excellent with computers and good with math. I just cannot grasp these concepts.

It took me till age nine to learn to read a clock. I was learning it in second grade but I couldn't grasp it. Then when I was nine, my mom made me learn and it took me a week.

I still can't grasp algebra and it took me a while when I was eight to grasp the concepts of carrying and borrowing in math. But yet I grasped the concept of division when I was ten and square roots after a short explination about it. Took me over a year to grasp fractions. I knew I wasn't ready for them but my teacher said I was and it was at the end of 6th grade when I got it. But I might have forgotten how to do the problems because I only did them for a short bit on my own and there is so much to remember.

Yeah, some things just don't stick. Our car radio sometimes displays the letters AUX. I've asked dad about it 5+ times, but I still have no clue what they mean. The math symbols ∧∨∪∩ took me ages to learn, and they still slip away at times (otherwise I'm good at math).

How does a microchip keep information? HOW!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !

I alwayas forget what "EP" stands for....In terms of bands. I.e. EP album. What?

And I can't. Grasp. ALGEBRA!! !! !! Makes me feel liek a Ω00ß.

Driving a car with a manual transmission. I can't get the whole break-clutch-gas sequence right, and I am afraid that I would wreck someone's transmission trying to figure it out. I don't see the need to learn it; automatic transmission serves my driving purposes just fine.

I've never been able to understand meter in poetry. It makes absolutely no sense to me.

While I can't think of any examples right now (I might later in a future post) but I get where you are coming from I do get this issue aswell.

And calculus! But not understanding calculus is probably not unusual, haha.

the difference between lying and changing your mind.

clocks.

most math-related things. mortgage, anything financial, what does that even mean?

that other people have thoughts and feelings.

why people are so traumatized by abuse.

he sheer multitude and complexity of everything. too many people with thoughts and working organs. it's overwhelming.

how anyone can become bored and not just say they are because that's what everyone is supposed to say.