Why communication can be exhausting

Alienatedhuman said:

trying to prepare my own sentence and trying to find the right moment to say it. Often it turns out, nobody pays even a bit attention to what I have said. As If I had no voice at all.

Well that happens to me all the time with friends, so called friends, family or strangers. I sometimes say things and it goes quiet then the conversation moves on like I never even contributed. This happened on Saturday just gone. 
It makes me feel so invisible and deflated. 

I was recently diagnosed with AuDHD & Mark Twain is my 1st cousin 8x-removed. Lots of Autism in my family, so connect those dots if you like.

Autisician said:

Mark twain said something along the lines of " I've lived through many troubles in my life, most of which never happened"

One of my favourite quotes from M.T. So true.

I've had those same thoughts stuck in my head for months and ruining every day after a really bad episode of trying to guess what I don't know from a situation, usually proven to be totally wrong afterwards too.

Mark twain said something along the lines of " I've lived through many troubles in my life, most of which never happened" , we can sometimes torture ourselves with intrusive repetitive thoughts.

Autisician said:

Then get paranoid after about what I did or didn't day, replaying conversations in my head.

That is totally me. That has me as the Matrix had Neo. When that kicks in, I go from "I said the wrong thing" to "they will use it against me". Then, all hell breaks loose.

Takes me days to come back from that place.

I'm the same with questions, I answer how/what I think I need to based on it being complete and accurate. Then get paranoid after about what I did or didn't day, replaying conversations in my head.

Apparently though the answer to "you ok?" Is "yep" , not a "no" followed by a well scripted detail account of why not.

One thing I keep hearing is how only a small percentage of communication is verbal, which means we're missing a lot in both directions.

Science says that in face to face communication its--

7% verbal/spoken.

55% body language.

38% tone and voice.

I wonder if it's also actually harder once we tell people we're autistic too, as you introduce the double empathy "problem". Not telling people and just masking , although exhausting, can get us through. Doesn't feel right that it's expected though.

It's particularly hurtful when you have these communication clashes with other autistic people, but then it is inevitable in a way.

I'm better at spoken conversations but it really depends who with. I am at my strongest when I'm talking to my therapist, but at my weakest when interacting with a stranger (well, obviously). 

I'm not good at confrontation, especially when I'm expected to respond immediately. Either in person or online. I often need time to go away and process it, but I'm not given the change to.

I also struggle to get my point across in communication whether it be b in a social or work situation. In fact at work I am often accused of being aggressive, passive aggressive or rude an arrogant. I have asked for help before to be told it was my fault and I had to communicate properly. Hence I have not been to my workplace for over a year. I was told when I requested adjustments that I should be well aware of my problems because I've been autistic all my life!!!!

I only got diagnosed a year ago today and was totally unaware before that so how could I know. I had spent my life masking to try and fit in and not stand out from the crowd, people pleasing and confused as to why life sucked.

Thank you, and yes, the lack of proper training with health professionals is adding an incredible weight, its degrading sometimes. This online forums are indeed helpful in many ways, and this one being focused on autism, its warm place. See you around the posts.

Thank you.

My words arent recieved in the way that they're intended. Thus unsuccessful communication becomes tiring.

Welcome to the tribe. I alss as o have negative experience with mental health professionals. I also fell in the cracks of the system. I’m happy we have this forum, in fact it’s only online but it’s also a big advantage of that. I hope you will enjoy connecting to the other members.

Hi Dont try, are you a new forum member? If so, welcome.

I'm sorry you had that experience. I avoid the medical profession as much as possible because of this, but sometimes you need meds and they're the only ones you can get them from.

Keep joining in with conversations if they interest you, and hope things get better for you.

I was roaming forums, trying to find something to get my attention, and this did it.

All my life, it seems people are deliberately sabotaging my conversations. I am 50 now, and this has become a lot more, exhausting, as you title it.

I had a fall out with my new GP last week. Made an appointment for my OCD. She started the call by prompting me to speak about another symptom, and totally blocked me. She then proceeded for 15 minutes to rapidly fire irrelevant questions, so fast, so different to each other... it was somewhat abusive if you ask me, she should know better from my record.

On top of all that she went and wrote the wrong things on the appointment report. Ridiculous things like my appointment was for Anxiety and marked it as a new condition whereas I get anti-anxiety medication since 1994.

I raised a complaint, and I will cut it short, I spoke to 5 different people, including my Counsellor. None of them made any effort to understand me. Instead they all went just manipulating, literally sabotaging what I was saying, it became surreal, and I just ran out of fuel, I gave up.

I think, in my case, at 50, this has become more problematic than it was in my youth. I am attributing that on the fact most health professionals are unaware what autism is. They may have done a Level 3 at best on mental health and somewhere amongst the conditions they read two pages of bullet points about ASD. But other than that, they either see a child in a tantrum or an older adult, like a grumpy old man.

So imagine the ordinary folks out there. Yeah...

What i'm trying to say is, eventually you get tired being exhausted, and sooner or later maybe see it's easier going numb and quite. And thats the problem I guess for any age, if you dont have people around you to take notice of that.

I grew up in the 80s, and there was no way to get involved with the autistic community as its possible to do today. Heck, I dont even think there was a community for autism in Greece in the 80s, just stigma. One word, a thousand wounds. Maybe the new generation is more fortunate, but then again, considering how Neurotypicals see us, truth is nothing changed since the beginning of time.

or maybe its everyone else around you that isnt human lol

I'm just tired of this , I don't feel I'm human 

yeah i totally fail at socially acceptable lol

i probably cant even give examples as ill likely be banned by my examples haha

Great post! Just another point to consider that can naturally result in conversations becoming exhausting is the fact that we process 42% more information than non autistic people at resting rate. 

If you want to explore autistic communication further, you may be interested in Rachel Cullen’s Autistic Communication Hypothesis:

https://www.youtube.com/live/qxjTIqrSp-o?si=wrr_CRyKM7Zw1Pne

Exactly! That’s why I prefer written communication. Less input, I can concentrate better and have more time to think what to write. 

Yeah, sometimes I wonder what the point of phrasing what I want to say in the exact way I wanted was if they were gonna twist my words or just assume things, or it might be that I use words that have different meanings for me from theirs.