Is it normal to have trouble explaining my thoughts?

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29 Comments

This is frustrating. When I try to put my thoughts into words, I don't know how. The more complicated or abstract they are, the more likely this is to be a problem, but I regularly have trouble with ones that should be easy enough to relay.

In fact I've written this post before and never submitted it because I didn't feel like I'd gotten the nature of the problem across well enough. I still don't think I have, but at this rate I'll never ask my question, so I might as well just go ahead and ask it.

It's not that I don't know exactly what I want to communicate, but the communication tunnel between my brain and my mouth or my hands when I'm writing seems to be blocked off or out of order. I just don't know how to say it. I'm at a loss.

Seems like the more important it is to me to say something, the worse this gets. Maybe it's some kind of mental block. Pressure pushing my metaphorical "clear all" button.

Anyone know what I mean?

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94% Normal
Based on 34 votes (32 yes)
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Comments ( 29 )
  • NotFloydzie
    11 years ago

    Perhaps you think you have a problem communicating when you don't. You mentioned how you haven't gotten the nature of the problem across well enough and I certainly think you did. Try to communicate with others as much as you can, it can be online or outside or even try to communicate with yourself by grabbing a notebook and a pencil and writing your thoughts down. The more you express yourself the better you master it.

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  • [Old Memory]
    11 years ago

    There, I deleted my comment because it wasn't good enough.

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    • Anonymous Post Author
      11 years ago

      Oh, I wish you would've left it. Like VioletTrees said, I don't think it's entirely a social/confidence issue, but you weren't off base in your assumption that (at least in my case) that's a significant factor in it. I didn't mention it, but I struggle a lot with social anxiety, so I found your insight into that aspect of this to be interesting and I appreciate that you took the time to comment in the first place.

      I can identify with the urge to delete, but there was no need.

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      • [Old Memory]
        11 years ago

        Thank you.

        Obviously, I did a lousy job of communicating how I felt about it, otherwise it would not have been interpreted the way that had been.

        I was only trying to point out that confidence and experience could be one aspect (layer) of it and I listed several others. I also wanted to share some things that have helped me over the years, since it's something I've struggled with too and I've been questioning myself about it a lot in the past few weeks.

        I put A LOT of effort and heart into writing it. Your story and the reaction of VioletTrees has caused me to reconsider whether or not I should be making any comments at all on IIN any more.

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        • VioletTrees
          11 years ago

          Oh goodness, I really didn't mean to make you feel bad. I was saying that MY experience with this doesn't come from anxiety, and I was therefore trying to talk about what it's like for me. I really didn't mean it as criticism.

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          • [Old Memory]
            11 years ago

            That's fine, but I still have a hard time believing that you didn't mean it as anything more than criticism.

            Why else would you first point out you experience the exact same struggles as the OP and then go on to mention a couple of the suggestions I had made in my comment as being completely ineffective? Why even bother mentioning my name at all if you weren't trying to point out my ideas were crap?

            But the criticism wasn't the part which got to me. Usually, when people start a sentence with, "I hope that doesn't sound harsh..." it means they know full well it sounds harsh but they still want to say it anyway. Why say something antagonistic like that, when my comment was only meant to help the OP?

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            • VioletTrees
              11 years ago

              I didn't mean it as criticism at all.

              This is an example, really, of the kind of difficulty I have. Please, please try not to pick apart what I said there as if it had subtext and social implications. I struggle with those things at the best of times, and when I typed that up, I was in a bad way. Obviously, what I said was hurtful, and I'm not trying to excuse that. But you asked why I would say something like that, and I want to explain myself.

              I was exhausted and frustrated with myself. I'd been trying so hard to put my thoughts into words. I'd been typing and deleting things for over an hour. What I meant to do was use your comment as a starting point, something to lean on to shape my thoughts. I was going for "My experience with this is different from thisissomuchfun's experience in these ways, so that approach wouldn't work for me specifically. I don't know which is closer to your experience, OP, but now we've covered more possibilities." But I couldn't say that then, because my brain is just awful sometimes.

              Then I realised it might sound like I was saying you were wrong, which wasn't what I was trying to say, but I was having a really difficult time phrasing things, so I wasn't sure how to say it better. That's why I said I hoped it didn't seem harsh. I can see now how what I said came across as "I'm sorry this is harsh, but I'm going to say it anyway because I'm SO REAL", when what I was trying to get across was "I'm really struggling to say this, and I just realised that there's a way it could be misinterpreted, so here's a heads up about the potential for misinterpretation." It didn't occur to me to account for how that part of the comment would be read, which was pretty stupid of me.

              I honestly didn't now that "I hope that doesn't sound harsh" meant that. I understand now, especially because there are similar phrases that are used that way (like "no offence" and "I'm just being honest"). But I think that I've been misinterpreting people for my entire life. I honestly thought it was a phrase that meant exactly what the words mean. I don't understand how anybody ever successfully communicates anything, sometimes.

              I just… Sometimes, I cannot navigate communication correctly at all. I'm really sorry. When I saw that it could be interpreted as criticism, I should've typed it up, looked at it the next day, and revised then before posting it.

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        • Anonymous Post Author
          11 years ago

          I forgot to mention up there that I am going to do as you suggested and try typing out and revising some of the thoughts I find most difficult to articulate. I can see that being helpful. Alcohol too, helps to a certain extent, as did expressing myself through IIN when I first came here - to solidify my opinions, anyway - although now even this place sets my fear-of-judgement alarm bells ringing.

          I'm sorry for the misinterpretation of those aspects as being what you thought this was about. I did realize you had mentioned other ones.

          This thing can be frustrating as hell to deal with and it's caused me to refrain from saying too much. I'm not sure in my opinion that's the best route to take. If it's between no communication and flawed communication, I think I'd rather have flawed communication. No sense throwing the baby out with the bathwater, right? Of course that's given my own circumstances and reasons for being here, and maybe yours are different, but... just a thought. I think you're valuable here and I'd hate to see you leave again.

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          • dappled
            11 years ago

            Alcohol helps me too. When I'm tiddly, the words flow. Too much and it becomes a bit of a torrent. I keep wondering if alcohol is causing my problems, though, because I never used to feel like this and I've only noticed it over the last year or so.

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          • [Old Memory]
            11 years ago

            This place makes me feel a little off at times, this being one of those times.

            Sometimes, I find it challenging to find a balance between taking the OP's story seriously (which I enjoy doing) and just being my goofy self. And I'm not intellectual or articulate like other users. VT's reaction to my first comment on your story did leave me feeling like my input would be best kept to myself, but there have been other instances recently from others stories which have left me feeling much the same way. Maybe I'm just being overly sensitive right now though; it's been a rough week and I'm quite sleep deprived.

            What you said about flawed communication being preferable to no communication at all, makes a lot of sense. I'm glad you said that. Also, it's really kind of you for saying you think I'm valuable here; I feel the same way about many other users and I probably don't tell them often enough. Thank you. :)

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            • VioletTrees
              11 years ago

              I'm sorry. The last thing I wanted to do was make you feel bad. I really wasn't expressing myself well when I posted that. I think you're valuable here too.

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  • Mando
    11 years ago

    Your post seems clear. Whatcha getting frustrated about?

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  • dom180
    11 years ago

    It's happened to me a lot before. For me personally my concentration problems play a part in it because I tend to lose my train of thought, but that's only a small part of it. I have the idea that everyone seems to view abstract concepts differently, and we can't truly compare our abstract ideas because our words mean different things to others than they do ourselves.

    Language is incredibly fragile like that. There's nothing concrete or ingrained about it that makes it easy, and I think anxiety and social problems generally are something that makes it harder still.

    The way I try to get around it is by writing a lot. I try and structure a lot of my comments like I would a piece of work I was writing for school. I think that makes me sound overly formal sometimes, but it helps me feel like I'm communicating accurately. Spending a lot of time here helps too. Even my shortest comments take a very long time for me to write. This comment will probably take me well over half an hour. I leave it a bit, maybe I'll watch the snooker or something, then go back and look at it again and revise it, whittling it down and adding in qualifiers to make it all make sense. I won't write it in a linear fashion, either. I'll go back and forth, and write in new paragraphs and change the order of everything.

    I think abstract concepts are hard for anyone to convey (especially in purely text form), and I take comfort in the fact that nobody finds it easy.

    For what it's worth, I think the OP is very well communicated (much more so than this reply is. It's like a knotted-up ball of string which needs untangling).

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  • Shrunk
    11 years ago

    I have that problem too, I also have social anxiety, it's gotten a lot better, but I still have the problem of putting my thoughts into speech (not so much trouble with writing them, only because there is no time limit, but sometimes yes) I think it could also do with how much energy you have, maybe your stress and anxiety wears out your mind so it's too tired to do other work.. That's how it feels to me, anyway... Now I feel like I haven't explained this properly..heh

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  • dappled
    11 years ago

    In the past year, I've noticed this in myself too. When someone replies to a comment of mine and I get to read my own comment back too, I'm shocked at how badly I communicate now. I often make no sense. I wish I had some advice for you because if I did, I'd take it myself too.

    Several times I've felt it's bad enough that I should leave IIN and the frequency of those thoughts are increasing.

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    • Anonymous Post Author
      11 years ago

      If it's any consolation, I've never seen a comment of yours that I thought made no sense or was badly communicated. Actually I'm very surprised by who's able to relate to this so far.

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      • dappled
        11 years ago

        I do it all the time. I made two yesterday alone. The only reason I noticed them was because people commented on them. If I'd have checked all my comments, I'd probably have found lots that didn't come out anything like I wanted.

        Thanks, though. I do try *very* hard to communicate clearly and sometimes it's successful. I don't think it often comes across how much thought I put into things and that, even with that much thought, I fail.

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        • VioletTrees
          11 years ago

          I saw one of the posts that you said you'd phrased very badly, and the funny thing is, I didn't find it difficult to understand at all. I reread it after I saw you saying that it was unclear and saw that it wasn't phrased as well as most of your posts.

          I don't want to say "No, you're fine", because that would be invalidating, and anyway, that's not really what I'm trying to say. I do think you're holding yourself to very high standards, especially considering that it's difficult for you.

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          • dappled
            11 years ago

            Ahh, when I came back and looked at it, it didn't say the things that were in my head. Or not all of them. It felt like I'd described my thoughts to someone else and they'd written their impressions of them.

            But then there's the writing itself. I edited a post this morning four times because it kept flipping from pro to con every sentence and I'd never want to present things like that.

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    • VioletTrees
      11 years ago

      Huh. I'd wondered if this might be your post, but I suppose it isn't.

      I hope you don't leave. Miscommunications can happen, but it's not so difficult to apologize and clarify. On posts about particularly sensitive things, I sometimes type up replies and look at them again a little while later before posting, especially if I can tell I'm struggling while writing it.

      If everybody who has a hard time communicating leaves, IIN will lose a big chunk of its non-neurotypical users, and that would be a terrible loss to the community.

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      • dappled
        11 years ago

        Not me, no. But I do sympathise with the OP. I also don't think I made it clear quite how serious I was (see what I mean about being unable to communicate). Being able to communicate is something I strove for almost more than anything else and, when I finally got there, it was a blessed relief. If it's taken away from me (perhaps by my own actions), I won't just leave IIN, I'll leave society as a whole.

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        • VioletTrees
          11 years ago

          Will you leave society because you're afraid of hurting people or feel you'd have nothing to contribute, or because it would be painful for you not to?

          I worry about you, sometimes.

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          • dappled
            11 years ago

            Because it'd be intensely painful for me to not be able to communicate. I've been there before, growing up. It was intensely frustrating. I knew my words made sense but nobody seemed to understand them. It was bad enough at the time but going back to it after having a period of people understanding me would be a bit like being in a persistent vegetative state. I'll be honest, although I didn't write it down, my first instinct yesterday when thinking about it was to end my life. Then I was a bit more pragmatic about it and thought I'd probably like to live at one of those weather stations in the Arctic Circle where the people who man them, alone, only have human company for a few hours one day a year, when their food is delivered. I'd be happy with that.

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      • Anonymous Post Author
        11 years ago

        I do the same thing.

        Also, agreed; I hope nobody leaves over this.

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  • VioletTrees
    11 years ago

    Shit. I have that as well. I obviously can't speak for you, OP, but for me, it's not a confidence thing at all. No amount of practice would fix it. Anxiety can make it worse, but I don't think it's the cause. I hope that doesn't sound harsh or like I'm saying the thisissomuchfun is wrong or anything. I want to say it in a different way, but it's hard enough right now.

    I'm not joking when I say that I'd really like to talk more about this, but it's too much of a problem for me at this moment for me to really do so. I've been typing this comment for over an hour.

    I will, however, say this: I understand.

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    • Anonymous Post Author
      11 years ago

      Yeah, anxiety definitely intensifies it, but it seems to be at it's root more of a mechanical issue than that. Although mechanical is probably not quite the right word, either.

      Well, if the mood ever strikes you, feel free to come back and talk more about it (hopefully this post gets approved). With me I know it's a fickle phenomenon, sometimes easier than other times.

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