Problem with communication seems not to be anxiety

Post Reply New Topic

Therapists and psychiatrists have told me with great confidence that the reason I often find it difficult to communicate on the phone or email (or at all, sometimes) is based in anxiety. They convinced me to take various mess to ease this.

But it turns out not to work. The meds kill my anxiety, which is lovely, but I sti have problems communicating.

Recently I had a conversation with my wife that may open a new perspective on this problem. She asked me to phone a consultant to discuss something we are undertaking that I know little about. I found it hard to make this call. She asked why and I realized that I did not know what to say. I have no questions to ask. No idea what he would say. It's terra incognita. I was not stressed about this, it just was a fact. I don't know what to say, so I can't start.

I think this is often the problem with communication unless its one on one. I treat conversations like road trips: I study the route ahead of time and have alternates and contingencies in mind.

Does anyone else have this kind of difficulty and have you found ways to get around it?

Anxiety is likely not the root cause of problems with communication - the anxiety is more likely due to problems with communication.

Communication is all about being social. That's why we as autistics can have great difficulty with it. The solution is to "become" more social.

Being social is about relating the world to yourself, or in other words, only relating the parts of the world to yourself that may serve your own self-interest.

So to make a conversation, ask yourself: "What do I want from the conversation, what is the goal of it? What do I want from the other person in the conversation? Friendship? A favour?"

This may sound selfish, but that's how it should be, because healthy humans (and animals) act in selfish ways (that is, serve their own self-interest).

Well put . . . I view conversations as an exchange of information - once this is done I have nothing left to say.

The social aspect of conversations is often everything but the information exchanged - it's about the exchange of social energy. Took a long time for me to realize (and especially apply) that knowledge.

True. Unfortunately for me I loose energy rather than gain it. It makes me sad that this avenue is closed to me. People seem to get so much enjoyment from these exchanges and for me they're just painful.

I felt the same way until I learned that these energy exchanges basically are enjoyed through mutual serving of self-interest.

Put two NT people in a room who both exclusively try to serve their own interest and you'll soon see such an exchange of social energy.

I have similar difficulties, I think. Never talked about it nor heard it talked about before (and can't find similar things to use as models) = No words and no script/conversation-pattern = No conversation.

I sometimes ask people to help me create written scripts for conversations I don't know how to have, or try to write down questions or statements I want to get out at some point. Neither of these things is a foolproof solution, though; The person I'm conversing with may not stick to the script and then the whole thing falls apart; Writing down what I want to say may not work because I can't find a place in the conversation to say the things I've written down, or because the other person doesn't understand what I mean when I say something and I can't fix the misunderstanding.

I'm not sure this counts as "ways to get around it", but it's the best I've been able to do.

It's hard to make productive phone call if you know nothing about the topic that you are calling about.

Most people would have this problem, which is not caused by anxiety.

One way to get something out of this kind of call is to have other person the consultant eggsplain a few basics to you, then you can say that you will get back to them later about whatever you are undertaking.

Yup, that's me. I have to have conversations rehearsed ahead of time, and if it goes off in another direction I didn't plan for I get lost in it fast.

A good current example is that I need to visit the dentist, but I can't think of everything they are going to ask me, or how I should start, so I am hesitating making the appointment.

This makes sense. It is what I would suggest to someone else. Why can't I think of it for myself when faced with this kind of task? I feel like a rabbit in headlights. I think I am going to have to write up some generic instructions to get things going, much as you describe. Then when I am stuck, I can take a checklist approach.