Do You Find It Useful To Write To Yourself?

Last year before my diagnosis I started to make videos talking about my thoughts / experiences with autism and the way that it impacts me. I'm not sure I ever planned to share them but save them on my phone for me to refer back to. 

I just watched a couple of them from last year and realised that the things I was struggling with then I am still struggling with. I just made one about how I now understand that as a child I'd cry every night and not be able to calm myself down to sleep and now I realise those were meltdowns. 

When I want to communicate with other people about how autism impacts my life I usually share a video of an autistic content creator talking about their experience, and when it's the same as my experience, I'll send it to my mum or partner. I find that I am unable to word things the way that would make sense and this has helped so far.

I think I am lucky that I don't need to communicate complex things for work, etc. 

Unknown said:

Do you prefer verbal presentation of technical matters, or written?

Always written when conveying the request as it gives me the chance to check there are no ambiguities, omissions or errors.

For checking that someone has understood the request it is verbal - making them confirm they have read and understood it often makes them put in that bit of extra effort as they know I will take them to task if they claim they didn't really understand it when I gave them the chance to ask for more info, tell me it wasn't clear or that they were not sure about it.

I definitely relate to this... Just existing for myself is so tiring! And explaining it to someone else in Neurotypical is just another extra level of tiring. That said, sometimes talking helps to figure out what's going on for me, but having time to write things down would be amazing.

The very fact I cannot prioritise what to post here as a response tells me the answer could be - verbally. This enables one to play around more if back and forth is available. However written obviously gives more processing time for presentation and content........

If I can get thoughts in a row in my head of something I know, I am able to explain well verbally. It is frustrating when I have to "dive in" when the situation requires no other way. The latter I usually pick up on micro confusions of the receiver which isn't a problem but makes me uncomfortable.

In written form,  my words are precise which one would think would make a concise text (it's not without trying and often removing extraneous words or phrases),  however this often may not be the case. I'm very aware of "how much" I write. There's a fine line between communicating the necessities in a satisfactory way and dumbing them down. In professional contexts it's important the receiver has understood so they know what expectations may lie ahead.

My natural vernacular means I tend to use "every day" language although this is peppered with some obscurities (!) I don't think we should change what's natural to us.

In some instances with 'relatively' complex information (but not technical), I start off with simpler terms and assess what is understood and build on that. Using prior knowledge of the receiver with familiar examples as a way in. Also using pictures, doing and finding out for themselves.

Complex information can mean different things to different people both communicator and receiver, and be spoons dependant. Apologies if any of this is off the mark as you are asking about technical matters.

Like you, I script a lot of conversations - but usually only do this in my head, very rarely writing the "workings" down (so I guess 'scripting' is a misnomer for my process?!)

Like you, I believe a picture is worth at least a 1000 words......although peoples inability to "read" drawings or "see" pictures/photographs is an endless source of amazement to me.

Your process seems a lot like mine, although sometimes the iterations extend into double figures.

Do you prefer verbal presentation of technical matters, or written?

Unknown said:

How do you, most successfully, communicate complex things to other people

I use mind mapping to lay out the subject I am trying to convey and lay out all the full scope of what it covers.

From this I highlight the core elements I need to covey - the rest is now captured on paper should I need to refer to it in follow up conversations and somehow seeing it all on paper helps me believe I have it captured in my own mind.

From the core elements I consider the audience technical ability and will write several drafts of the communication, each time reviewing it to see if I have caught all the key facts, in a logical order and written in a way that is easy to read.

By the 4th or 5th iteration it is normally about as good as it is going to get - this is the one I send

I suppose I write to myself in a number of contexts.

I’ve kept a journal since I was 17 and first experiencing mental health challenges. It’s mostly just a record of the events of my day (which is an immensely useful thing to have) but when something difficult has happened it can be useful to put it into words. Explaining something to myself is a good way to properly order my thoughts about it.

I also script lots of conversations about difficult issues. I’ll write multiple drafts. And in the vast majority of cases I will eventually delete it and never have the conversation. This is often because exploring the different paths the conversation might take gives me enough understanding of the issue that no further action is necessary.

But communicating complex things is an absolutely key part of my job and, in order, these are my preferred methods:

• A picture
• A slide deck
• Prose