Published on 12, July, 2020
I feel like I've been doing a lot of waffling in self discovery and questions in the barely a week I've been signed up here so far but I have get another subject of waffle that crossed my mind lately.
When thinking about my communication skills, or lack thereof, I've always gone the quiet route and often avoiding saying things. Even online I self censor/don't say anything if it's faster paced live chat and if it's longer paced such as a forum or email I re-read, edit, re-edit, fact check stuff I already know and rewrite about 50 times before hitting send (or just delete the whole post and give up) even though it doesn't likely measurably improve the actual posts quality in the end. I've been somewhat trying to avoid that here but in my attempts to avoid editing or fact checking too much (I still do a bit) I've often opted for just removing paragraphs entirely or just not get started on some subjects/posts at all (probably for the best, less waffle to worry about lol) but it can be annoying how a simple unassuming post could have taken me an hour to write when my typing words per minute is comfortably over 100. One of my most apparent forms of self censorship I'm self aware of is my vocabulary, I find myself dumbing down my vocabulary or Googling words I already *know* what they mean just to be absolutely sure before I hit send.
Anywho, something that's been crossing my mind is when I'm alone, I like to talk to myself as bizzare as that may sound (refreshing to hear my voice for once I guess lol), and I don't necessarily mean specifically talking TO myself but to an imaginary audience or person I know of, like a fantasy conversation. I'm not talking to an imaginary friend, I know full well no one is there, it's more like I'm practicing conversation whenever I'm alone. I don't even think about it, sometimes it's literally just a running commentary of what I'm doing/my feelings of sorts like there's someone watching, like vlogging to myself. Oftentimes the clarity, honesty/self awareness and flow I can have here is scary, talking to myself is sometimes my way of getting things off my chest and acts a bit like a therapist and there's times I've practiced a job interview question seemingly so well (but I get that exact same question in real life and I just can't replicate my imaginary practice session from earlier). Is this especially common in autism to still be able to do that privately?
I've often fantasised about being on a podcast (before they were a dime a dozen these days) and liked to play out those scenarios sometimes knowing full well I'd crumble as soon as I'm given the chance to talk.
I used to be a YouTuber in the early days, my videos were scripted but I actually appealed to a small demographic, saw some healthy natural growth and back then was offered partnerships with the companies that were offering partnerships to gaming content back then such as Machinima (which I rejected because my computer broke around that time so I gave it all up) but I always have an itch to do some kind of similar content, especially (quite bafflingly) voice work specifically. One turn off to jumping back in once I was thrusted away was slowly everything became much more about the person rather than a disembodied voice saying things, people wanted to see and get to know the person behind the voice to succeed and that was out of my comfort plus I was getting less and less time for privacy, and as I had noted in another discussion elsewhere on being observed, having someone else there makes stuff like that impossible for me. Also standards have rose significantly, I feel so inferior and I don't know if I have the creativity or talent to routinely come up with the content/scripts to actually voice nor edit to a high enough standard or manage the project as a whole. It feels like I'd take weeks to make a video someone else would make better and have uploaded lI've five or six of them in that same time. Plus I don't really have a deep or extensive knowledge on anything either.
One thing I have a habit of doing though is going through my gaming collections and talking to myself about the games and my experience with them, what they mean to me in a fairly open and transparent way. With a fair few hundred over my lifetime that is something I could never run out of if I get into doing that via a short form platform like TikTok, a game every other day, summarise, show off the case for a visual so I don't have to show my face. I don't think there's much of an audience for that and it's a dime a dozen but maybe putting it out into the aether could help me build some transitional confidence with speaking publicly being as its a hybrid between privately filmed yet publicly accessible to be seen. I dunno.
Also beginning to wonder, if I were to invest in better microphone equipment whether there's any realistic opportunities in voiceover work in a work from home capacity, scripted stuff like the clickbait top 10 video types where all I have to do is perform the lines behind a screen. Or reading adverts, audio description, whatever. When I did YouTube, bafflingly to me, people seemed to like my voice. I almost won a voice acting competition for a character in a YouTube animated series, but I couldn't commit to the schedule back when I was at college because of timezones.
I don't really know where this went, a bit off the rails, but basically I feel like alone and with no one around I can actually talk decently well and I would love to be able to evolve that into something practical that isn't just me talking to myself when I'm alone like a crazy person. Why can't I seem to just put my practice into the real world, it sucks.
I ussually edit and re-edit every thing I say online and look stuff up like you said. But what I like about this forum is for some reason I dont do that as much. I basically just say what I want to say. Sometimes I get nervous then I just delete everything I posted that day, but not even close to how often I do on other social medias.
I am constantly talking to myself. Mostly in my head when others are around, sometimes ill mouth it a bit of kinda whisper. But I have a few different talking to myselfs. One is more the imaginary friend thing (I do Anna. Does imaginary friend count if I didnt invent the character?) where ill just talk about all sorts of things. As an extention of that one, ill also talk as someone else and call it my "imagination time" (basically how I get everyone to leave me alone for a few hours while I talk to myself while laying on the floor lol) and for example I might decide "okay im going to have a story where a witch hunter comes to Arendelle" then I act it out in my head from Anna's perspective. Other people are in it too but shes like the main character. Then after that, I replay the exact same senario but from Elsas perspective, or from Honeymaren, my own, etc. The story changes each time wince different characters would behave differently and I find it facsinating and its something I can hyperfocus into. That isnt really talking to myself though (but also kinda of also I am).
Um lets see... I also have talking to myself as I actually am talking to myself, like my brain. This version annoys the heck out of me because its physically painful and confusing. Like I will say "That book is crooked" "I know its crooked, im your brain, so obviously I know" "yeah I know you know but I was just telling you" "stop thinking" "IM TRYING" "Then why are you responding?" "because you keep talking!!". And uh yeah I hate that kind.
I also plan out conversations. Example: I know that I have to ask a teacher a question before the end of the week. I then play out dozens of ways this could happen. I plan out what obsticals could be in my way like what if someone is walking in the path I am, then I have to go around them. What if the teacher is talking to someone else or what if he isnt there? How am I going to start the conversation? What will he say back and I plan many different types of possible responces for each step of the conversation. What should I wear? How should my tone of voice and body language be? How much water should I drink that day to make sure my voice is good, but I cant drink too much otherwise I will worry too much because I know im drinking more because of that interaction. And just stuff like that. I will plan days in advance for the most simple interaction yet when I actually get there then all my practice goes down the drain and I look like a total fool.I do simular things of thinking of all possible outcomes but with things that had happened already too. Like if someone walked past me and said hi and then I just smiled. Then I think what if I was on the other side of the hall, how would that have worked differently? What if I said hi back? etc.
Then the last kind I do is just like a general talking to nobody. To somebody but not anybody in particular, like how a public speaker would.
Idk if any of that is helpful but if anything at least you know you arent the only crazy one lolI wonder if it could be an autism related thing (if others can relate too)
I think it would be neat if you tried YT again, if you wanted to. Ive wanted to do YT, back in middle school I wanted to do a gaming channel but now I think a movie review/breakdown/theorys channel would be cool or even animation
One is more the imaginary friend thing (I do Anna. Does imaginary friend count if I didnt invent the character?) where ill just talk about all sorts of things.
I think it's different to an imaginary friend when it's a character or person that already exists but I guess it also kinda is an imaginary friend. I wonder if it makes much of a difference somehow, like maybe it means something else being something that already exists.
The talking to nobody/public speaker type thing seems like something that would be useful to be harnessed somehow like with the aforementioned YouTube, to try and build the confidence to record and hit upload on something you'd just say alone could very well be interesting to someone. The ability to edit or not upload at all if you're really unhappy with it I think helps give confidence to just speak as if you were all alone because it's all completely private until you make the move to upload it. I think it would be nice to try again, and maybe if you're interested in taking on reviews/breakdowns/theories you could give it a try too the thing that draws me to at least trying is that easy get-out of just not uploading it after I've recorded it, you never need to commit to putting the finished product out there.
Werther's Original said:I wonder if it makes much of a difference somehow, like maybe it means something else being something that already exists.
Hm im not sure
Werther's Original said:the thing that draws me to at least trying is that easy get-out of just not uploading it after I've recorded it, you never need to commit to putting the finished product out there.
Yes good point!