Anyone else feel like it takes too long to think?

Honestly, you just described me. I take forever to respond to people, and people have been giving me grief over it since I was a small child. And ironically, when people are mean to me about it, I just become even slower at responding because my anxiety then becomes worse. Honestly, it has gotten to a point where sometimes I just tell people before I start a conversation with them, that I take a long time to respond and that if I'm taking a long time to respond, it's not because I'm not listening, I'm just thinking about what to say. Also, stimulants are not gonna help. I'm very sensitive to caffeine so even if I have a small amount it makes me very jittery. But it does not speed up my thought process at all.

Yes, I know the feeling, I always take a while to think about what someone is saying, even when I am looking at them and there is no distraction, I always feel bad about it, becasue I sometimes need to ask someone to repeat what they said, And sometimes in their tone of voice they repeat what they say but always sounds a little bit agresive and that itself always made me feel bad and sometimes I just feel like not talking at all. 

I do say, no thank you, but suggesting somewhere else is usualy wrong too, and people wonder why I'm curmudgeonly and misanthropic?

It takes me longer to process my thoughts than most non autistic people, and that is one of the characteristics of ASD which leads to communication problems. It is also why I have difficulty joining in when part of a group of two or more other people. 

It would work better if you thanked them for the suggestion and offered an alternative. It is ok to decline and offer a counterproposal. That is not ungrateful.

The problem is with the framing of it as a question when it's actually not a question at all but someone trying to tell me what is going to happen. By framing as a request rather than a statement, they can make me the bad guy for saying no. This seems to be quite a common way for men to say things to women, they can appear generous by offering to take us to expensive and glamourous places, all the while knowing that the offer will be kindly rejected, then they can complain that you're ungrateful, never want to do anything or go anywhere, are boring etc. It's a form of bullying and gaslighting.

Perfectly reasonable responses. I'm not sure what the issue is.

Most of the time I think very quickly but converting thought to words can take a little while. I get quite frustrated listening to others taking ages to finish a sentence when I already know what they’re going to say.

Saza, I don't waffle on about my interests at the expense of others. I often get asked if I'd like to do/have something, only to then be questioned as to why, I've given the wrong answer, or rather not the answer the questioner was wanting. So, would you like a a fabric stick on watefall mural for an old bit of wall to which my answer was no I wouldn't thanks, was the wrong answer, I was supposed to say yes how wonderful. Or 'would you like to go to Thailand on holiday?' 'No thankyou, why not, because I can't do long haul flights, it's to hot and humid for me and I don't like the food. Is this the sort of thing you mean? Obviously anything I suggest as an alternative is also wrong.

I used to vaguely feel like what I'm assuming you're feeling like. Learning semantic analysis and formal logic helped me a lot.

It sounds like whatever you may be talking about at those times TheCatWoman, you're talking about things which are important to you? Maybe no so important to them - the short answer or more elaborate one are at extremes and it almost sounds like, if no short answer is correct then before you've started you're at odds with the person you're talking to somehow?   You have your view, they have theirs. What does resolution look like? Is it even possible? 

Ooh, I'd ask the therapist next week how they perceived the silence, clarify with them what came across from what you said  to the therapist? 'I'd like to know what you understood from what I said' type thing and then discuss management techniques.... also then consider 'am I making more of this than I need to, am I ruminating/over thinking this?' I say that because you said you' cant get it out of your head - like a bad song.... I definitely ruminate and my understanding of conversations can be eaons miles and lightyears away from how the other perceives it.... as well as those 'blank' moments where its like the entire thread is lost...

I'm a wordy person and tend to be a bit long winded, other people often can't be bothered to listen to the end of what I'm trying to say.

Do you think people are often too impatient to actually listen and listen to the silences in our conversations? The silences tell us as much as the speech. I often find that people are far to keen to finish my sentences for me before I've 3 or 4 words out, the usually get in wrong and then theres confusion and accusations, if they'd just shut up long enough to actually hear what I said none of the confusion would have happened. Yet if I answer yes/no/or don't know this is also wrong.

All the time. I even had an awkward moment at the end of my therapy session yesterday, it has left me constantly trying to process it since, it’s like a bad song that I can’t get out of my head. I didn’t have anything to say back and things probably came across completely different to what I intended. I would love to know of a way of managing this myself but know you’re not alone. 

I can relate - not sure what it is or why it is or what triggers it or of a good management strategy - we should try and figure one out? 

Yes. This is the central cause of all my social anxiety lol.

This usually crops up in conversations when I forget a certain word but I know the meaning of the word I want to say. I can clearly envision what the word is like, but it takes me minutes to hours to finally think of what the word is.

I feel that with stimulants it is a little better in my case, but it doesn’t fully solve the problem.

I guess that's accurate to say. I struggle to remember the past with any kind of real clarity, and the future always feels unpredictable, so the here and now is the only time that feels meaningful. I can't really talk on hunger right now because I'm on a mounjaro assisted keto diet. Most of my diet is adding butter and cream to coffee to keep my metabolism kicking while maintaining the highest calorie deficit I can. Before the diet though, decision paralysis would often make me default to ordering the same meals over JustEat for from Dominos... hence the need for a diet.

Interesting, so in a sense you live totally in  the moment? Do you feel hungry and know what you want to eat, or do you have to think about that to much too?

It's basically all the time. Even when I'm sitting by myself just having my own thoughts. I'll try to make a decision on what I want to do today and stare into space for ages just trying to have that thought. I'm 32 and this is how life has always been, so I don't think it's a phase or depression or anything like that. I basically only make decisions on immediate needs, because everything else feels too complicated.

I can't say its a problem I have, does it happen when you're writing too, or only when speaking and listening?