Slow awareness/recognition

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Since at least the past 20 years I have noticed that my awareness is slow. When I look at something, it actually takes me time to understand what I am looking at. In the past I felt this was strange, but nowadays it is even worse. It causes me problems with working, I can not drive because of it, even on a bike I have to be carefull because it takes to long to understand the constantly changing traffic around me. I try to understand what this is, and I guess it has something to do with sensory processing problems. Is there anyone who can relate to this, and may have some tips to handle it?

I have this too, but it's not a problem while I'm driving because I know what to look for. If I look at something and try to understand it, it will probably take a bit longer than the average person, but if I understand something and try to look for it, that isn't an issue as much.

Hi SammichEater, thanks for your reply. Do you mean when you drive it is ok because you are used to the route that you take? I know in my case that it makes a lot of difference if I take the standard route, or a new one. Also some things are easier, like highways where not a lot is happening. Rush hour in the city is a problem though too many things to look out for.

When you say "but if I understand something and try to look for it, that isn't an issue as much", does that mean that anticipation makes it easier to handle?

This is a processing speed issue. A person can be born with it or it can be acquired. If you haven't always had it, or it's gotten notably worse over the past few years, you should have a full thyroid panel done, your vitamin levels checked, heavy metal levels checked, and if that all comes back fine then you should be seen by a neurologist.

I do have this problem, and it does often make me feel stupid. I haven't started driving yet, and this is one of the main reasons that I haven't so far, because it means slower reaction times, which is a very bad thing as far as driving goes. I do go biking though but because of the same thing I try to stay off busy areas, because of too many unknown factors. My way of working through this, is planning everything ahead in my mind, and with something as volatile as traffic, that's just not going to work.

Sometimes, specially if I'm focused on something else, I'd need to get something that is right in front of me, but I simply can't see it and might have to go over all the objects in front of me, one by one, to find it.
Another instance is that for example someone tells me something, and even though I've heard it and I know I've heard it, it takes me a few moments to realize what it was and what the appropriate response to it would be, which often is too late. Same thing goes for seeing things.

I can keep up well if I'm having a one-on-one conversation, but when there are several people I struggle very much to keep up.

I don't know if this makes any sense, but reacting to things and interacting, seems like an unnatural state to my brain and body most times. I feel stuck inside my own head and bubble, and when there is a reaction expected of me that I was not prepared for, it just distresses me, because often times I don't know how I'm supposed to response to what has arisen, and if it's not in the rulebook I have to go through, I end up with: a. delayed reaction b. wrong reaction or c. none at all.

I feel like there is definitely some sort of delay in my brain between receiving input, processing and producing output. But I believe my problem with switching attention is also a great factor in this. Upon self-study, I seem to be in a constant state of hyper-focus on one single thing( which could be a thought stream or daydream), so my brain ends up filtering-out too much information as irreverent, so if I have to keep up, I have to "watch" and "listen", rather than naturally see and hear. Of course I do much better if I'm putting much mental effort into it, but I can only do that for so long.

You know that Intense World Syndrome theory? I think that totally applies to me. Makes me find the world and just living too much taxing, but I do not talk to people in my life about such things and try very hard to function at the same level as others when the need arises( though not as much I used to), which make people rather unsympathetic about it, because they just don't understand the extra effort I have to put in.

This has lead to two things in my case .One is serious anxiety issues, even in day-to-day things. I have a deep fear of failure, even though I know it is quite irrational. But this is what got me through school and college. I would simply not allow myself to fail. the other one is that, it has made me avoidant, which though it does make me happier in general, it gives me less chance to practice my life skills.

I lived a month by myself, with as little as interaction as possible, where I could follow my own routines, and almost everything was predictable as I followed my own plans and ran my life in the order I wanted, and that was one of the happiest times of my life, I was just at peace and relaxed. And during and for a while after that period, I could handle interactions with people much better, because I wasn't being constantly overwhelmed.

there's nothing more volatile and unpredictable to me than people of course. Reading and watching fiction and documentaries about people extensively, has made me understand them as an abstract model quite well, but applying it in real life is not as easy.

I wish it wasn't as much an effort to just "keep up". I am such a perfectionist and do a good job of not showing people the struggles, that when it just becomes too much for me, it's rather a shock to them as what is it that's causing this seemingly overreaction in me. And of course it doesn't help that the over-filtering of input( which is my brain's way of functioning), just makes me oblivious to a lot of things I should pay attention to.

I'm not sure if it's even remotely the same thing with you, about the processing and reacting to things , so I'm very interested to hear from you and others here if they experience the same things or not, and how they handle it.

Thanks for the advice, Chronos. I have done this in the past already: thyroid (ok), vitamins (small deficiency, taken care of), neurologist (twice, some reflex issues, no cause found). The heavy metal levels check is a good point, I don't think this was done, although I am not sure about all the tests they have been doing with my blood samples. Could be more then I know about.

Do you find when you do this that you see things as a collection of smaller parts that you can't quite perceive as a whole until you can somehow process each part? Or even misinterpret what each part is for a few moments?

Hi M_LibertyGirl, thanks for the very detailed post. This is exactly what I mean, like looking in a mirror Never thought there would be people with almost identical issues. I was not able to come up with a good description, but just about everything you describe I can relate to. Describing things is probably also part of the issue: how do you describe this to a doctor?? I think in general the term Sensory Processing Disorder would come closest, but as far as I know, most therapies are for children, not so much adults.

What seems for my feeling is an input/output problem. It takes effort to get information in, and to get information out, like there is a huge wall that I have to pass every time. Or what it seems sometimes, is like information from outside is alien to my 'system' and needs to be converted to something 'natural to me' first, before I can process it. And then back again for the output. Needless to say that I can not keep up. In my work I am outperformed by people who are 10-15 years younger. But even in secondary school this was an issue already. Teachers would suggest that I did not study the material simply because it takes to long to answer the question. And school exams even worse, never have enough time to finish...

Anyway, thanks for the post. I hope we may find a way to deal with this.

Thanks Vervandi...

Difficult to say. There are too situations, as far as I can understand:
1. Sometimes it is like a blur, too many details and no overview. Then I need to sort out the stuff to get to the important details, start connecting the points and come to some sort of conclusion. This sounds the same as the first part you describe.
2. Sometimes it is more like I have an overview, but I just need time to recognize what I see. I just did this little test: look to my left into the livingroom, see what is there, then look to the right, see what is there. When I turn my head to the new position, I can see what is there, but it seems like my mind is blank for a moment, and slightly after that it says "oh right, that's the door I'm looking at".

Do you also recognize the second part?

i just talk about pot a lot so that people will excuse me as a pot-head or druggie who had a very bad trip and never quite recovered... because I sometimes come off as one, when really, it's just sensory overload, especially in social situations, and my body doesn't know how to react so I end up not reacting very much.

It works... sort of lol, at least I'm not called slow, or ret*d. that would take an emotional toll that I'm not willing to bare at this point in my life.

Yeah, that sounds similar. For me Isometimes see objects that have no meaning, and then I assemble them as having meaning, but it is often incorrect, and it takes several more moments (or longer) to sort out what I'm looking at. Like I once saw a neon sign (off) that my brain took to be rubber snakes randomly nailed to a board, and I couldn't even make sense of the letters they formed. Once they clicked into place, it made sense again and I could see what it actually was.



I do actually recognize this, although I don't think it's consistently true for me, and I don't think I ever thought it was remarkable. I had issues when I was learning to drive that if I looked at one thing, then I'd stop interpreting what the other things were - like looking at the road the objects on the road ceased to have meaning, but if I looked at the objects, then I'd lose track of the road. For some reason I never seemed to make it past a couple of driving lessons with anyone due to this. I'm not sure if it's still true, but I have no intention of learning how to drive.

Do you find this is easier to cope with in familiar surroundings? I know one thing that makes it happen is, say, when people rearrange furniture without warning. I didn't really think much of it, but it's pretty routine that when I walk into a room where the furniture's been moved I just freeze and start trying to make sense of what I'm seeing. It's noticeable enough that someone will usually make a point to explain that everything's been moved around.

I think both of these may be aspects of the same thing - a form of visual agnosia, perhaps?

When driving I had that not so strong in the past, but now it is a real problem. I have to mentally prepare to shift my attention from the road in front to the read mirror. Prepare to look into the mirror, prepare to react to what I may see, prepare to move back to the road ahead, and again be able to react to what has changed there. I can do that when prepared, but it is so stressful. Like M_LibertyGirl said, with concentration things can be done, but only for a short period of time.


In familiar surroundings it is a bit different. I can rely on habit more, making it less of a problem. On the plus side, an unknown environment forces me to pay more attention. Even though it is more intensive, it is sometimes also more rewarding. I had that same shock reaction when an office was rearranged. Even when I was part of the group who helped rearrange it, I would still feel weird when coming back into the office.


I will look into it, never heard of it so far.


hahaha I guess my reputation would not improve when I start doing that

I believe this was actually the first time I've truly attempted to verbalize this, so thank you . It is the first time I see someone with more or less the same issue as mine. I actually did not talk about this to either of the psychiatrists and one neurologist( very short visit) I saw some years ago. It's much easier in writing, because I can take my time in wording and then rearranging things without the stress of talking in person. Sorry if it was too long, summarizing is a skill that unfortunately, I lack entirely.



That is quite true about me too.
I've only worked for about one year when I was 19 so far, and that was a bad experience. This problem combined with executive dysfunction, makes for very bad organizational skills on my own. Add to that being very young, inexperienced and unskilled, when your boss expects you to design an ERP! of all things, with next to nothing as far as help and supervision goes. It ended badly, but that was only one of the reasons I quit. Of course I only took that job, because My psychiatrist and my mother pushed me into it, saying it would make me more social and less anxious ( as apparently this happens with a lot of people, including my own husband) and I could really use the money. Needless to say that did not happen. My boss kept complaining about me still not socializing with my coworkers and hardly saying even hi/bye most times, even though I thought I was being friendly to people when I did interact with them. Almost everyday I came home crying, and begging my family to let me quit. Most of my colleagues were really nice people, and except for one of the managers, no one was ever really mean to me, but it was just the wrong place/wrong time for me.

Except for 6th and 9th grade(big changes of environment both among other things), I did excel in k12. But that was in Iran, and I think the school system is quite different. I was considered academically bright and among the top students(if not "the" top student) and hardly ever got into any sort of trouble, so most times teachers and school staff gave me quite a bit of leeway with any oddities. College was a whole other story. You had to do your own organizing, and the amount of material that you had to do by yourself was huge, and even when I knew the material, I was so slow in doing exams that I was usually the last person to turn it in, almost always when the time was up. so I struggled much more to keep up, And I fell from being a straight A student to nearly failing classes a few times. Of course it didn't help that I was struggling with severe anxiety and mild depression at the time.

I don't know if there are medical tests for this sort of thing, like an fMRI or something, let alone treatment for adults. Even for kids I believe it's more teaching them how to handle it better, rather than any treatment for the underlying problem, as it is a brain processing issue. I couldn't afford it anyway if something was available right now.

I'm the same with all this - in fact for many years I've been telling people outright: "it takes me a few moments to make sense of what I'm looking at".

I've always been that way tho it's gotten worse in the last 5 years since I had an accute attack of "Benign Paroxysmal Vertigo" ( I don't know what's benign about it as I couldn't walk for a month and nothings been the same since) - so I've assumed that adds to the basic problem - ie. not only the "jumble sorting effect" but now everything sort of constantly moves around a bit - ie. I feel all the time like I'm on a boat.

I can relate to the vertigo issue. I have it since about 3 years, but only now and then. It is caused in my case by visual disturbance (moving objects). Don't know if there is a relation to the slow awareness.

I know work sucks so much if you have this executive dysfunction. I struggle with it too at work. I end up being scolded a lot lately, keep making more and more mistakes, running out of excuses. I am realy thinking about quiting and trying to build up a new life somewhere else, trying to survive on my earnings (have been working about 15 years now). Sometimes I get to work with customers that can be very worth while, but that is only temporarily. Some even don't mind about me being so slow. Sometimes slow can be better. But unfortunately lately it sucks more and more...

It would be nice if there is a way to get the problem solved or managed somehow. Maybe if I try to put it on paper and hand it to my GP, he would be able to decide about some follow-up tests. A neurological exam, I have had it in the past. It did not reveal anything special, except for some problem with missing reflexes (Babinski). A CT scan did not show any issues.