Over-Explaining

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I sometimes seem to over-explain things and say the same things in several different ways, because I'm afraid I won't be understood or that I'll leave out some important part. This has occasionally caused others to complain or otherwise express irritation with me. I find this interesting, in light of the fact that I also sometimes under-explain, as though someone should know what I'm thinking or feeling just because I do.

Is over-explaining a kind of perseveration? Is under-explaining due to a lack of theory of mind?

In writing I am a chronic over-explainer. In speech I am a chronic under-explainer. Both irritate others. I can't get it right!

I just looked on Wikipedia and it seems like perseveration is connected to Asperger's Syndrome. Your over-explaining, when it seems like your point was already made and fully interpreted, is an ASD trait which - for all intents and purposes - are normal for us.

I've always had the same problem. The difficulty is finding the correct depth of explanations to give people and I often misjudge and either over-explain or under-explain. I also have the habit of repeating myself, expressing the same thing in a different way because the person hasn't given me adequate feedback that they understood me the first time around - but possibly it is because I can't read their body language so don't know if they understood me or not unless they verbally tell me one way or the other.

I do that myself quite frequently and it xannoys many people. Then other times they tell me I should haeve explained (to me) obvious things more extensively because nobody understood what I meant and that it was quite arrogant to assume they would know all the terms, etc.

In conversation I find I tend to make the same point over and over, or I keep coming back to the same thing. In writing, I tend to over-explain in some situations to remove any trace of doubt about what I'm trying to say. This leads to lots of asides and parentheticals in my writing.

When I try to verbalize something and try to leave out the fluff I get told I'm speaking in riddles, something like writing street direction I'll tend to throw in extra landmarks. In emails I find myself reiterating 3 different ways

I have always tended to over explain things. It is definitely an aspie trait. If it bothers people, there is not much I can do about it.

I do this too.

Eberrything has huge amounts of detail in my mind, and all the details are connected together in many different ways, so there is no end to the eggsplaining of this verry merry berry large mass.

This is exactly why I keep coming back to this web site.

I do the same thing.

If I'm not an Aspie, I'm near Aspie.

Dumming down, over explaining, no friends, etc.

All but the stims and some other sensation symptoms.

Thanks for sharing.

Over-explaining and under-explaining could be an indicator of your "care" level.

When you care alot, you explain alot.

When you are ambivalent you explain less.

Yes? No? Maybe so?

Yes, I do this all the time, frequently right here even. And sometimes my posts are much too long-winded and someone comes along and says something that took me 3 large paragraphs, in a couple of sentences. That drives me nuts. It's commendable but infuriating at the same time.

I overexplain frequently. Last week my tendency to overexplain that I am not at risk of killing myself in the near future nearly got me hospitalized for being suicidal. The frustrating part was the person I was talking to interpreted my motives as "not wanting to answer" when I thought I had answered.

In text, I am a lot better about it, although there are times I have to lay out as many details as possible to feel comfortable I am communicating what I need to communicate.

Yes, I over-explain a lot. My boss one time laughed and said she could always tell when it was me that had sent her a text message because her phone had to break it into six messages. I asked if I was writing too much and she just laughed and said "No, you're just 'thorough'". Since she also gets paragraph long emails now too, I'm not sure she'd still be so easy going about it.

Funny thing is, though, that I can also take yards-long complex info from someone or something else, and bring it down to a simple few sentences for others. I just can't do it on my own stuff.