Eh, I’m autistic and I can explain exactly how my tangent is related to the initial topic, its just that a lot of people do not have the attention span or patience to follow a complex set of successive or simultaneous associations.
Its possible to be an autist and not also have adhd, Neurodivergent as a term is a wide net cast over a diverse array of thinking modes… not solely a term for only one of them.
I have ADHD as as long as someone asks “Wait, how did we get to this topic” while we are still going I can give a step by step string of tangents. Can’t reliably do it after the conversation ends though.
The tangents are never random, they are always connected!
I think people get lost sometimes because the thought/story that triggered the tangent can continue for a bit before the tangent is shared. The tangential moment sticks out for the one wanting to share their tangent but it otherwise is a normal moment of the thought/story for others.
It took years of practice but I always make the tangent connection clearly when I bring it up. The other person often forgets it, but when they ask for the recap they go ‘oh yeah’.
I mean, I probably would not… be able to recreate my own entire thought process like, the next day, unless I ended up getting hyperfocused on it for whatever reason lol.
Maybe if all the context could be recreated or described back to me, then I probably could… but, not if some bit of context that was really important to me, but totally unimportant to the other person, ended up getting left out.
When I read your comments about your personal experience, I often wonder “are you me?!” I’ve even tracked conversation topics and made maps of their interconnectivity after having been accused of incoherent rambling.
Lesson learned: if you’re ND AF, consider having similarly ND friends and romantic partners. NTs are often baffled by us, whereas my ND homies are more likely to love to hear me wax poetic in great detail about the processes of insect metamorphosis or the microbiological and etymological origins of petrichor.
Yeah, I too have realized that I’d probably rather never date again than date a non autist again.
I’ve tried with NTs, I really have, multiple multi year relationships.
It just doesn’t work. Too much work for me to half pretend I’m not autistic, and for them to half-pretend they’re not bothered by it, made uncomfortable by it.
Nope nope nope.
Would be nice to find someone who just fundamentally mentally functions very similar to how I do… and the great thing about being autistic is that we probably don’t actually need to have specifically similar interests… because if we like each other, we’ll just truly enjoy infodumping and also infoabsorbing basically any kind of topic, because learning is fun!
Same here. Every reply is connected, just not always welcome.
I also have friends with ADHD who can connect things perfectly, their attention span just goes all over the place. But other ADHD friends are exactly like this post.
Could be gay, could be pan, could be lesbian, could be bi, could be ace… its just a term that means ‘not the default assumed societal standard’.
But within ‘Neurodivergent’… just as within Queer… you have a whole kalidoscope of potential, distinct variations, and also combinations of those variations.
But, what ends up happening is people just kind of … smush together some of those properties from some of those variants, and then assume or act like everyone under that banner is basically the same.
Like… a person with Schizophrenia is neurodivergent, so is an Autist, so is someone with ADHD, so is someone with DID (Multiple Personalities).
But those all have very different attributes, sometimes there is some overlap, but fundamentally… very very different.
Try telling a Catholic that a Mormon or a Coptic is a Christian in basically the same way they are.
i am one of those people who can explain how the tangent is related IFF i can remember the initial topic at the end of the tangent. if i get stuck in a tangent loop, uh, may your gods have mercy on us all.
Well, I would feel dishonest if I did not disclose that… that happens to me as well sometimes, though… usually only when I am exceptionally exhausted, or high, or drunk, lol.
She can be her own heap of trouble but my life is ever richer for it.
Ah, and the resumed conversation from weeks ago is another thing she does with the full expectation that I will remember the thing that she is now answering. Imagine suddenly being thrust backwards through time, weeks peeling away, suddenly arriving at a reply to a comment made in passing a month ago. Like necroposting but in real life.
You are just making me more jealous, you are describing more things that seem completely normal and like default behavior to me.
You realize that when an autistic person acts like that, irl necroposts at you… that’s a sign they trust you to an incredible degree, right?
My guess would be she would not be offended or annoyed if you just asked her to refresh you on the context, to help you sort of… reload the last save file of that conversation that’s been to at least some degree ruminating or present in her mind over all those weeks.
It used to drive my wife insane because my mother and I will just pick up in the middle of a conversation we had been having a month ago. No “do you remember when we were talking about X”, just straight up picking up the conversation right where we left off without missing a beat. She has gotten used to it now but she still does not understand how we can do it.
Eh, I’m autistic and I can explain exactly how my tangent is related to the initial topic, its just that a lot of people do not have the attention span or patience to follow a complex set of successive or simultaneous associations.
Its possible to be an autist and not also have adhd, Neurodivergent as a term is a wide net cast over a diverse array of thinking modes… not solely a term for only one of them.
I have ADHD as as long as someone asks “Wait, how did we get to this topic” while we are still going I can give a step by step string of tangents. Can’t reliably do it after the conversation ends though.
The tangents are never random, they are always connected!
I think people get lost sometimes because the thought/story that triggered the tangent can continue for a bit before the tangent is shared. The tangential moment sticks out for the one wanting to share their tangent but it otherwise is a normal moment of the thought/story for others.
It took years of practice but I always make the tangent connection clearly when I bring it up. The other person often forgets it, but when they ask for the recap they go ‘oh yeah’.
If you don’t know this sketch by Key&Peele already, you’ll have a laugh
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0FMk2zUHA0
Well hey there ya go!
I mean, I probably would not… be able to recreate my own entire thought process like, the next day, unless I ended up getting hyperfocused on it for whatever reason lol.
Maybe if all the context could be recreated or described back to me, then I probably could… but, not if some bit of context that was really important to me, but totally unimportant to the other person, ended up getting left out.
When I read your comments about your personal experience, I often wonder “are you me?!” I’ve even tracked conversation topics and made maps of their interconnectivity after having been accused of incoherent rambling.
Lesson learned: if you’re ND AF, consider having similarly ND friends and romantic partners. NTs are often baffled by us, whereas my ND homies are more likely to love to hear me wax poetic in great detail about the processes of insect metamorphosis or the microbiological and etymological origins of petrichor.
Hemiptera are my favorite!
Yeah, I too have realized that I’d probably rather never date again than date a non autist again.
I’ve tried with NTs, I really have, multiple multi year relationships.
It just doesn’t work. Too much work for me to half pretend I’m not autistic, and for them to half-pretend they’re not bothered by it, made uncomfortable by it.
Nope nope nope.
Would be nice to find someone who just fundamentally mentally functions very similar to how I do… and the great thing about being autistic is that we probably don’t actually need to have specifically similar interests… because if we like each other, we’ll just truly enjoy infodumping and also infoabsorbing basically any kind of topic, because learning is fun!
Sharing (knowledge) is caring!
Same here. Every reply is connected, just not always welcome.
I also have friends with ADHD who can connect things perfectly, their attention span just goes all over the place. But other ADHD friends are exactly like this post.
We’re all different.
I was just thinking how “neurodivergent” is a term used for so much these days it’s kinda become too vague
Its not so much that its… vague.
Its that… its like queer.
Could be gay, could be pan, could be lesbian, could be bi, could be ace… its just a term that means ‘not the default assumed societal standard’.
But within ‘Neurodivergent’… just as within Queer… you have a whole kalidoscope of potential, distinct variations, and also combinations of those variations.
But, what ends up happening is people just kind of … smush together some of those properties from some of those variants, and then assume or act like everyone under that banner is basically the same.
Like… a person with Schizophrenia is neurodivergent, so is an Autist, so is someone with ADHD, so is someone with DID (Multiple Personalities).
But those all have very different attributes, sometimes there is some overlap, but fundamentally… very very different.
Try telling a Catholic that a Mormon or a Coptic is a Christian in basically the same way they are.
Probably not gonna go so well.
i am one of those people who can explain how the tangent is related IFF i can remember the initial topic at the end of the tangent. if i get stuck in a tangent loop, uh, may your gods have mercy on us all.
Well, I would feel dishonest if I did not disclose that… that happens to me as well sometimes, though… usually only when I am exceptionally exhausted, or high, or drunk, lol.
“What the fuck are you on about? You yappin again?”.
No thanks, conversations with normies tend to be fairly short and limited.
Thats worse than a normie, you’ve aggro’d a brainrotted, near feral idiot.
Sounds quite like my wife. She’s not random, but she appears random because the path to get from A to B is indeed a rollercoaster.
Oh how I wish I could meet a woman like that.
You lucky bastard, hah!
She can be her own heap of trouble but my life is ever richer for it.
Ah, and the resumed conversation from weeks ago is another thing she does with the full expectation that I will remember the thing that she is now answering. Imagine suddenly being thrust backwards through time, weeks peeling away, suddenly arriving at a reply to a comment made in passing a month ago. Like necroposting but in real life.
You are just making me more jealous, you are describing more things that seem completely normal and like default behavior to me.
You realize that when an autistic person acts like that, irl necroposts at you… that’s a sign they trust you to an incredible degree, right?
My guess would be she would not be offended or annoyed if you just asked her to refresh you on the context, to help you sort of… reload the last save file of that conversation that’s been to at least some degree ruminating or present in her mind over all those weeks.
It used to drive my wife insane because my mother and I will just pick up in the middle of a conversation we had been having a month ago. No “do you remember when we were talking about X”, just straight up picking up the conversation right where we left off without missing a beat. She has gotten used to it now but she still does not understand how we can do it.
You know how in The Boys Sage uses an ice pick to seduce The Deep?
Yeah. Me too buddy. Me too. I wish I could just turn this off.