I don’t know what sucks more, the frustration over going non-verbal, the fact that others take it as a personal choice aimed at them or the fact that when I snap out of it enough to verbalize my distress, I come across as needy, whiney and self-victimizing in an off-putting way which makes people reject me and/or become frustrated with me, which in return makes it even harder next time.
A. If I’m in that state of mind if takes a lot of braining to make the words go at all. I don’t have enough brainjuice to adjust them to be socially acceptable too.
B. I don’t want to be pitied or woed, but I also don’t want to sit there and pretend like I’m fine when I’m not.
I’m having a really bad time, and the only way you can say going non-verbal was a choice for me is in the sense that the only other options are “cry uncontrollably” or “scream like you’re being murdered”.
Does anyone else go non-verbal when things get to be too much?
Got any tips for getting through it?
I sometimes go non-verbal when under a lot of stress.
I say my feelings in a safe space. I think that sometimes I fear judgement from other people, but in reality it’s me judging me.
I do things to calm down ( positive affirmations, listen to music, journal, etc.). Also, I reality check my thoughts and feelings. I’m usually my own worst enemy.
My thoughts and feelings are as valid as anyone else’s thoughts and feelings.
Does anyone know how I can break myself out of being non-verbal? Or at least what I can do to speed up the normalization process? @Ninjastar you have a lot of experience with autistic folks, and that’s a know side-effect of autism (as far as I know)
got any sage advice?
Starlet goes nonverbal sometimes. We have a plan in place that we made when he was calm for helping him break out of it. I hold up two hands far apart, then ask yes/no questions and he high fives the left hand for yes and the right hand for no. Once I know he is safe, I can start to break him out of it by quoting the first half of popular memes at him. Usually, his echolalia will override his brain and he will complete the quote. Once his brain remembers how to form words again, I can ask him other simple questions.
I guess if you are doing it on your own, I would suggest playing the first half of popularly quoted videos you like, then seeing if your brain rushes in to complete the quote.
There are two main recurring themes to my dreams; getting lost and being struck dumb. The latter has never actually happened. I can imagine that stress plays a part in people going non-verbal.
There are more than a few ways that stress can impact on a person . For me it’s a short period (up to 24 hours) of flu like symptoms and/or de-realisation.
Up to the age of about 11-12 I used to stammer/stutter quite a lot. Anxiety and stress were definitely factors.