Aspergers and speaking (hfa)
Is there anyone else with Aspergers or high functioning autism here that could talk fine after the age of seven or younger/older and then just suddenly stopped talking altogether not because you couldn't speak but because you didn't find the need to speak even when people couldn't understand why you didn't want to talk?
For me it goes like this i was not verbally understood until the age of seven
although i could talk it was just from what people say hard to understand or interpret and it was different.
And by a certain point probably teen years i just stopped speaking to people conversations didn't matter to me and
i didn't enjoy them. The most people heard from me was when i wanted to go some place or was forced to respond to questions/work in school but i was still silent and it also outcasted me from others because nobody could get a response form me so a lot of kids just called me "Mute" when i wasn't. I stayed like this until i was 17.
Just curious if others have had the same thing happen
or have done the same thing. (sorry for my bad spelling and grammar)
dragonsanddemons
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Joined: 19 Mar 2011
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Location: The Labyrinth of Leviathan
To the best of my knowledge, I started speaking around the usual age (whatever that is - I don't know, but I wasn't diagnosed until about fourth grade or so, so I'm guessing I didn't start speaking late). I've never completely stopped speaking - my parents get very upset with me if I don't "use my words," so as long as I can speak, they'll make me. However, I did have a time during junior high/high school (most of both) where I would say as little as I could possibly get away with. I've had people ask if I'm mute, too. Also, when I'm overstimulated, tired, too nervous, or experiencing a strong emotion, it gets harder for me to speak - sometimes I can speak, but even more quietly/unclearly than usual, so people can barely understand me, or sometimes I can't get my vocal cords to respond at all. If it were up to me, I wouldn't talk much/at all and would use nonverbal communication and, when necessary, a text-to-speech app on my phone to communicate, because I find that much easier than actually speaking, but, well, I still live with my parents, and they're already annoyed at having to still take care of me at age 24 - I don't need to tick them off even more by not speaking. My official diagnosis is Asperger's syndrome.
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Yet in my new wildness and freedom I almost welcome the bitterness of alienage. For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.
-H. P. Lovecraft, "The Outsider"
I am mostly mute, and talking thoroughly drains me. I could not speak more than 4 words before I was 9; I also had trouble discerning anything that was longer than 4 words too. I still have a bit of trouble. By government standard, my vocabulary is extremely weak.
I prefer writing over speaking. My overall speech is not great, but I can talk for a bit before it's unbearable.
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Shedding your shell can be hard.
Diagnosed Level 1 autism, Tourettes + ADHD + OCD age 9, recovering Borderline personality disorder (age 16)