Can you describe your thinking processes?

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Example: A train of "commentary" is always going on in my mind. Not other people's voices, just my own. I don't hear it as if it's coming from outside my mind, it's just like the soundtrack of my life. A narration of my thoughts. This type of thinking is fairly shallow and meaningless. When I want to think seriously about something, I enter information into my mind like putting a debit card into an ATM machine. I add a basic instruction (like choosing "I want $40. in cash") Something like, Please check this with the article I read two days ago and search for connections stored in the "I don't understand XYZ file."

I do this pretty much all the time. I don't consciously work on thinking. Answers, connections, ideas just pop out like cash from the ATM machine. Even though I'm a verbal person, most of my thinking takes place nonverbally. I then translate the nonverbal results into words, except sometimes the content just can't be expressed in words; it's entirely visual.

I do a "running commentary" all the time - it's exhausting and detracts from experience. It varies between first and third person, depending on social context and degree of stress.

I think my primary thinking process is almost exclusively verbal, though, if I manage to rest, it's mainly pictoral.

It's interesting that when you're tired you think verbally - could the reverse also be true - that when in a social context Aspies are forced to communicate verbally, and doing that is exhausting? I'm very good verbally, but even so, I find that casual chit-chat drains me. Writing, however, does not, unless I really overdo it.

Yes, there are times when I wish the internal narrative would stop! It quiets down some when I am focused mentally on a task or interest. Also, walks in the countryside dial it down.

I think in a combination of verbal and similes/metaphor, which is odd considering that other Aspies report being too literal. I started thinking about my computer at work--I got a new computer and I got really impatient waiting for the IT guys to set it up, so I did it myself. But the monitor wouldn't turn out. It turns out that I was missing a cable. So I started to think that my brian chemistry works a lot like that--I know how the computer is supposed to be set up, but sometimes things aren't wired correctly.

Go to the "Differences between the way NTs and Aspies Think" thread for some more info on this. It's quite fascinating.

Yes.

Hi, my name is John and I want a brain transplant, preferably a normal person's brain. Would you kindly find a donor for me? No? Alright then. I am very self-focused and I never have a moment of peace because I have too much talking going on in my head. Every. Second. It's like my life is a movie and somebody changed the sound of it to include director commentary. This is actually I believe why it is kind of difficult to be social, I am so wrapped up in my own head and thinking at a million miles an hour that I am not quite focused on other people and events going on around me. Luckily there is only one voice though, otherwise that would be a cause for concern. If I start becoming interested in something for a while then I will have trouble thinking of anything else and if someone pulls me back into reality then I don't like it and I want to go back to thinking about that one thing. I really don't know if this is due in part to my asperger's, (Why is there a red spellcheck line underneath asperger's by the way? Why isn't it a part of the dictionary in this web browser?) but I also play games in my head. For example, I will think of something and then challenge myself to remember that same thing the very next day and I never do remember it. If I am having a bad week and I take the same road every day to reach my destination then I somehow think that I will start having a better week if I take a different road. It's a very weird thinking process, mine is. I don't really know if it's because I am an aspie or not. Have I ever told you the definition of insanity? No? Well, my friend, asperger's isn't too far off.

John / TheOneWhoKnocks, The red spell check may have been activated because it wants you to capitalize "Asperger's".

That tells something about my thinking process, as I tend to focus very heavily on small details. Generalized overviews don't offer much to hold my interest. Because of this, I can tease out lots of information from very small details. I once identified the entire provenance of a museum specimen (bird) based on a tag marked only "McL" and two tiny holes in the beak.

I am interested that so many are noting a continuous internal commentary, as I have had this as long as I can recall. I started writing stories very early, which were often transcriptions of my interior monologues. Sometimes, though, I end up verbalizing part of the monologue without realizing I have done so, and that is embarrassing.

I do tend to obsess quite a bit about a single topic of interest, and am cross if interrupted.

Sometimes I get quite stuck in the same pattern of thoughts, and then I have to play my violin for a while before I can break out of that pattern. As in the previous post again, there actually is something to be said for doing something different to affect a different outcome, and I have played games like "taking a different route" or "wearing something different" in an attempt to change my frame of mind.

If you can accurately describe your thinking process you're most likely a verbal learner or primarily think with language.

No, I can not.

I was diagnosed bipolar 27 years ago. An important symptom is racing thoughts! Uncontrollable racing thoughts (and speech) that at first can be fun - but become a Tsunami of disorganized energy and words. A part of mania. People think mania is a silly happy euphoric experience, but when it really gets going it's chaos. Often at the peak it plummets into severe depression. I have been taking lithium for 27 years. It works. The running commentary has become slower and softer rather than obsessive. Unless I am super-stressed, it is not now a big problem. I have even learned tricks to suppress the chatter somewhat.

Only recently was Aspergers diagnosed as a prior and underlying condition. My therapist observed that even with bipolar under control I still have a boatload of socially-related problems, environmental sensitivities, and physical "quirks." Also my childhood history pointed to Aspergers. Problems labeled by psychiatrists, who only saw me as mentally ill, such as emotional dysfunctions, phobias, irrational fears, meltdowns (and resistance to their insulting paternalism and condescension), now have physical validity. It is no longer WEIRD that I avoid social situations, become overstimulated and prefer being alone. It's Aspergers!

I was curious about the bipolar-Asp. comorbidity before, but now I'm really going to look into it.