So confused about my experience.
5 min readByThomas A Jamerson
Hello all.
So, this is going to be long and I'm not really sure if I'm in the right spot. So if I'm not please do tell me so I don't clog up the forums.
I am ADHD. I have enough symptoms of ASD that I am treated for it, but I do not have enough to be formally diagnosed by the DSM-5 at least according to everybody I've spoken to. I also have dyslexia, dysgraphia and this dyscalculia. Teen on top of this I have a working memory problem and we do not know why. We are thinking it's because I got covid but we're not sure because this is a new thing.
So when reading please take all of this and then the following experience into account. I am not sure if these things are connected or what. This may be somewhat disorganized.
My special interest is writing which for anybody who is aware of the conditions, specifically the learning differences for language processing side of things can be extremely frustrating.
I can't write anything by hand. I mean I can but the likelihood of you understanding anything is about zero.
Even I can't understand my own handwriting at times. But something that I've come to understand over the past 7 years is I've tried to write my book is something very odd is occurring and I don't know where else to look.
Here at this point this site is the closest thing that I've ever found that makes sense. If this is not the right place but you have heard something similar to my experiences and it is named something else. Somebody please say something.
So writing is very challenging. I have completed one version of my book on my own and a second version of my book with the help of AI.
The book that I wrote on my own through typing obviously is basically unreadable. I cannot even read what I wrote even though I know what I wrote, I cannot actually physically read it. The language is so terrible. The one with the AI I can read but it was an earlier book so it's terrible.
But the reason that I've come here is that there is something I'm experiencing that I don't know what it is. Now I know that there are people out there with the conditions the this particular website focuses on out there who write and do so well.
Nowadays, I pretty much purely write with AI because I can dictate to the AI and it can put everything onto the page for me. However, through this experience, since AI has come out and has become a little bit more accessible through other programs designed for writing specifically, I have noticed a very odd thing.
I have at times extremely vivid imagery that I can play them out out in my head. In fact, when I am tired and a little bit more lucid I guess I typically put myself to sleep through stories that I come up with in my mind. This process is extremely vivid, like right down to the rock. The color of the rock. I've never tried to taste the Rock. I'll admit, but that is my experience with that.
On the flip side, there are times where I cannot see anything in my head. I was attempting to take the survey that is on the site to you know kind of assess where you are on things. And I either could not generate a vivid image at all or it was very vague. Now this could be performance anxiety granted.
Nonetheless, I could not do it at all which has confused me now even more.
Now what does this generally have to do with writing. Well, I cannot write narrative if it has anything to do with visual visceral words. I have the inability to write it in a narrative form.
I could talk about it mechanically I could tell you what it is like in a text to talk format or just talking to you but I cannot for the life of me write it. And at least to my knowledge I may not have just not noticed, but I can see most of everything that I want to write bery vividly but Head to paper process everything is stripped out of it.
But now that I've taken the survey, I'm not sure if that's really what's happening or if it's just me imagining it. I'm not. I don't know. This is why I'm so confused.
Anyway, so most of my writing if I do not have assistance is basically talking heads. You have plenty of dialogue, basically little to no vivid imagery and basics expressions and that's it.
But in my brain I have all of this information. I know exactly what I want to do and how I want to do it and how the characters work and all that.
So is it possible to have a both at the same time? Is this an interaction between one of the two versions of the conditions and my other conditions? Or is it completely unrelated and has something to completely do with just singularly the other conditions.
To give another example, a very long time ago I did a visual exercise that basically was to imagine eating a lemon and if you could get the saliva in your mouth to thicken as a result of that visualization. Then you had a pretty powerful visualization ability. And I could do that at the time. Even just talking about that has caused that to happen now.
Does anybody know what's going on?