Scripting and rehearsing conversations

I think the ideal is to do enough scripting to be prepared while not overdoing it into obsession. If it is possible to find the balance!

I do this exactly. I find though, that it's exhausting. Recently, I've been using the CBT mindfulness techniques to break the habit. What I am finding now is that the stammer I had as a child is aggressively back, along with huge pauses during the conversation while I try to find the words for the idea I have.

So while this has helped with the over-taxation of the brain lol, it doesn't exactly help with witty repartee. Not to mention the sighs and eye rolls while everyone else's waits for you to finish (if you're lucky and they don't just finish your sentences for you)

Yeh I do the same. every day b for school i think about different things i might b asked n if any conversation come up and plan out what 2 say. it takes ages but it reduces the anxiety so works for me

i do the same thing if i no were gonna see family as well. Going in 2 a conventional with a plan of what to say makes it a little more bearable 

Yes.  I used to script a lot more and I'm sure it was linked to masking, especially when feeling unsafe but then radiating out into even "safe" situations, simply because I forgot where I ended and the mask began.

Some of this was memorised phrases, anecdotes and questions but I also wrote things down quite a bit and planned important conversations by noting down bullet points or drawing mindmaps to help me along if this was over the phone.  Underlying all this was always great fear - of not being accepted, of being judged or viewed as incompetent or weak - whilst trying to throw people off the scent by projecting the exact opposite, a confident person, comfortable in the world.  

To an extent it's been useful for me, keeping me in employment or in valued relationships, but as I got older, I found myself feeling angry that I'd not really felt OK to just be myself.  So, although I still do this to some extent, I'm better at managing without my "safety net" and choosing when it's really needed. 

I script a lot of the time if I have something important to say, especially if I can't do it straight away. Sometimes I write things down otherwise I keep myself awake at night rehearsing. I do it if I have phone calls to make at work and the worst thing with this is if I get an ansaphone as I then panic. I have been known to call back again when I have rehearsed the message 

Also when I go on a walk I keep a list in my head of interesting things I saw whilst out. I understand that my observations of unusual things are probably an autistic trait. Maybe that is why not many other people I know do the same.

So many forms of humour, so subjective, and tempered by our conditioning. If I make myself smile with my own humour, I would have least have broken my 'duck' per attempt at this 'humour thing' 

No, it’s just my feeble attempt at humour!

I went a little off script, I can't say anymore than that. I am wondering though if I am answering a rhetorical question here?? 

Did you just rehearse that?

I Love/Prefer verbal communication (Of the Electronic/Digital kind.) - De Niro in Taxi Driver, comes to mind, I rehearse conversations all the time. But I don't know if that was something that I should really keep to myself. The proverbial Cat is Out of the Bag, now!

I could have written this myself. Even with all the preparation in the world, nothing can quite prepare you for the spike of adrenaline that happens when someone does actually answer and you realise that you are locked in to a conversation.

AuTriker said:

do not know how I would cope without his help.

I’m much the same with my wife. I’m so grateful for her help. And I’m glad you have someone who knows your difficulties and helps too. My wife and I sometimes misunderstand each other, but she is always willing to help me in areas like this.

AuTriker said:

analysing old ones

I do that too, to discern true motivations behind what people said, and why they did what they did. I'm alexithymic so i can't do it on a spot, and i can't interpret their body language correctly either, I can make some sense of what happened only in retrospection. Later I often verify my conclusions with one of my friends.

Me too. I don't always write them down, only if there are too many things to remember. And I have recently realised I probably also have ADHD so even if I think I will remember I do not actually do so reliably so have started to write down more. But I feel the need to rehearse what if this or that and how I should respond and think through all the variables. Then you make the call and get an answerphone! So then I have to hang up and plan what to say to the answerphone and then call back prepared to say that only to be completely thrown when that time someone answers! Or you get put on hold for 3 years and have to hold it all in your head...

I get so stressed by phone calls that my husband usually offers to do them for me, but I can't trust him to follow my script so that is just as bad! The other day we tried it and I wrote him out a script but was not at all sure he would follow it even though we practiced, as he got bored and even though he kept getting it wrong he refused to practice any more! Fortunately it went OK as the more complex part was not needed.

Usually what we end up doing is he will do the first part of a call, pressing all the buttons and options and sitting through any holding and then he hands me the phone when we get to a real person. Still mega stressful, especially if the wait is long, but better than me doing it. I do not know how I would cope without his help.

I do also think through other conversations, but mostly for practice or analysing old ones to learn how to improve. I can manage conversation, but it is very energy intensive and tiring.

I can very much relate to this post and the comments in reply. Like many here, I didn’t realise this was something that not many others did too. I thought everyone did it. My main instance of this now is in preparation to make a phone call. If ever I need to speak on the phone, I role play the scenarios and try to predict responses etc. I even make notes on what to say if they say something that I anticipate they will, but I also come up with plan b and c in case of an alternate response to the one I was initially expecting. It can become quite complicated. A flow diagram of variables and responses is probably the best way I can describe it.

I run numerous scenarios when I need to have a social or business meeting.  This gets me prepared to every foreseeable eventuality.  Key sentences are delivered verbatim from my script.  I never write them down, just hold the options in my head ready for use.

I do a similar level of planning and drafting for written communication.

WARNING - I have faced some very embarrassing situations where I have I thought that I have delivered some of this scripted content from my head (or drafted written content) to a recipient - but have not.  This is one of the risks of thinking and preparing too much!  It has happened in my head - not in reality.  Care is required with prep.

Dawn said:

They sit absorbing each other's presence before next speaking. The cultural imperative is think before you speak

Oh I really like that!!

I work alone so fortunately don’t have a lot of contact with people. I did have a customer spend a morning with me last week which was exhausting. My memory is very much a filing cabinet so he has a file with his wife and children's names also  his hobbies and work background . I work though that first. I do try to sound interested. 

Yes.

I have done this. 
It is useful to prepare as long as one allows for flexibility in case weather reports get things wrong. 

I do exactly the same. Especially if I know I will be meeting someone I try to plan the entire event. I guess it's part of the masking.

Also, I will have conversations that I know will never happen, because the event they are about never occurred. I get this a lot when I'm driving. If I have some sort of near miss with another driver, for example, I find myself living out the event and interaction with the other person. Sometimes I have to tell myself off out loud because it's distracting me from the road

NAS81317 said:

I have fake conversations in my head all the time

it sums it up pretty much. I invent jokes as well. I started doing it around 15y.o when I begun learning english, so primarly in english, than I noticed how useful it is to have ready phrases