For Non-Verbal Friends, past or present

[OkRad]

Hello
This is a question for those who are or were non verbal. I go non verbal by choice but when I was young, I could not talk in public. That social anxiety thing. Selective Mutism.

I am wondering for those who were non-verbal or still are: Do you think in words or pictures?

When I block down on mute mode, I almost disassociate. Then, it feeds on itself and the less I talk the less stress I have, the less words are racing around in my head, it settles it down. I do start to think in pictures or at least not words. I see things instead of constantly commentary of the in my head. I just see them.

If I do this for a few days, by about day 3, I am getting locked into a scary place and I cannot tell if it's good or bad. I get worried about the people living near me and family. I stress when I am not talking about them. Then they move on and accept it.

Eventually I get scared and feel alone. But my thinking it better. But still, I have to let it go.

 

[Nitro]

I was a late talker that only began speaking at five and yes,I do think in pictures.

 

[Suzanne]

I become non vebal in social situations or when it is a question and answer situation and often get joked: lost your tongue? Also when I feel critisized, I go into non verbal and then cannot meet eyes.

In truth, I have never thought about thinking in pictures or words; but what I do do is if I need to recall something, I do try to get a picture in mind to bring it back to mind and this happened recently and I was pretty accurate when I found the actual "script" so to speak.

My imagination is the one that scares me. I either think of amazing scenarios where everything goes my way and so, when it goes completely the opposite, I am left bitterly disappointed. I also try to think of the worst case scenerio to either brace myself for it becoming a reality and thus, be able to deal with it but these tend to be so realistic that I can end up crying!

I am trying my very hardest to not create the perfect meeting with my first psychiatric appointment, so that it won't hurt too much if things do not go my way and so, find that I have to force my mental images to stop and concentrate on something else; but can feel it wanting to start again and so, a constant battle to not think too deeply.

Oh, going back to the non verbal when it is a discussion on hand; afterwards, when talking to someone that I feel ok with, all what was in my mind during that meeting, suddenly flows out!

 

[OkRad]

My imagination is the one that scares me. !

Oh my goodness, me too. I have ENDLESS conversations in my head with people I only wish I could talk to, people I can squeeze out a Hi/Bye and that is all.

I started to calm it down when I pulled away and when my actual BRAIN started to realize "YOU ARE NEVER GOING TO HAVE A CONVERSATION WITH THAT PERSON." Then it stopped sending fantasies to my consciousness.

The brain freaks out a lot, the poor little scared mass of illusions. It hates logic.

 

[toothless]

i was non verbal up to my late twenties and i still think completely in pictures,my brain works very hard at translating them into words so i can process them and speak.
i struggle at converting pictures i see into language,it takes a while to do it.