Speech getting worse when stressed/overstimulated

Post Reply New Topic

Does anybody else experience worsening speech when one is stressed or overstimulated? What is it like for you? For me, it's about not being able to find the right words, repeating the last words of my phrases, long "uhh"s, etc. Also, it's about your vocabulary dropping in size.

What is the subjective experience of worsening speech like to you?

This post [Link] is a pretty good breakdown of how it works for me.

Yes!

When I'm getting stressed out from a conversation going on too long, I start to not be able to find the right words to say, even though normally when I'm feeling rested and relaxed I can actually be fairly articulate given optimal circumstances.

But when stressed, I start to do several things -- I've noticed I begin not to find the right words, I stutter and stammer, I can either start to ramble aimlessly like suddenly my mouth has gone on autopilot and now I'm "talking just to be talking" -- but it's all just repetitive crap going over and over something I've already said.

OR -- I begin to shut down completely and end up not being able to talk at all. That can also begin following the "autopilot" repetitive stage.

If things really get bad and I haven't managed to literally just remove myself from the situation, I start getting physical effects also, such as feeling physically dizzy, faint, the "room starts spinning".

These are in specific, acute situations.

On a long term level I noticed that during the period of time when my marriage was breaking down, which kind of drew out over a couple of years, I was so stressed by my husband and our fights that even when we were not fighting, I developed a stammer. I had never had one before in my life, but I started to have one during that stressful time, even in a normal conversation. He made me nervous and I no longer felt good around him.

I've noticed this starting up again when feeling strain and negativity around a person. I stutter under stress and normally I don't. I'm not sure that's only ASD related though, as I gather than NTs can stutter when stressed too; it's almost a standard joke in sitcoms.

Yes I can sound very inarticulate, actually I can sound as thick as two short planks when I am overloaded because it starts to temporarily upset my cognitive abilities and the technique for self care skills can go temporarily even.

Absolutely. When I am nervous or overstimulated, I tend to forget words, stumble through my speech, mispronounce things, and repeat things as well. When I am calm I can be quite articulate, but in a difficult situation, I'll sound like a babbling idiot.

When I am in a very stressful situation, there's too much going on in my head and it makes it hard to grasp on anything. My speech gets very unstructured, confused and inarticulate while, most of the time, I can express myself quite well. The best way to put it would be to think I'd have printed 4 or 5 versions of what I truly want to say. Cut everything in pieces of different size and add expressions of confusion to the mix. Then, I'd randomly pick a pieces and say what's on it regardless of the consistency. It's a bit like a dadaist speech.

It's hard to find words or feel coherent, when really overstimulated (going for shutdown) I might stop talking at all.

My brain shuts down and I can't think up the words I want, or I lose my train of thought and forget what I was going to say or completely forget what I was doing, or I know what I want to say but my tongue refuses to work and turns into a stone in my mouth.

I mix up words, stutter/stammer, say a different word even though I know which word I want to say and often just resort to nodding or shaking my head. Though this often happens when I'm not stressed or overloaded. Particularly the first three I mentioned. The stutter/stammer is the worst as it happens most days and often I give up on what I was going to say as that's easier than looking like an idiot.

Yes, yes, yes. And knowledge of body language goes out the window, too, so I end up completely "on my looks," as the gamblers say -- out of chips and praying things get better somehow. They usually just go downhill from there (shutdown imminent).

Speech is hard enough in normal state of mind so it's natural it gets even worse during times of stress or overload.

When I am like this I might know what word I am supposed to say and I know how to write it but my mouth won't say it properly. For example I want to say "Calm down" and I end up saying "Caldo".
I have to say some words slowly, syllable by syllable to be understood.

Sometimes I might also say different, totally not related word instead of naming the thing I am thinking about, especially if I see the other thing at the moment. For example I will say "We got a new neighbor... Neighbor? Why did I say it? I meant... I meant...<trying to recall the right word> lawnmower." while talking with a neighbor. In Polish "Sąsiadka"=neighbor,"Kosiarka"=lawnmower, there is a slight similarity in the words sounding(both have "sia" on positions 3-5 and "ka" on last 2 positions and "ą" sounds a bit like "o") but I would never make such mistake in normal state of mind.

This is very common among autistic people.

+1

When stressed/overstimulated I tend to miss words, my mind races faster than my mouth and I end up speaking gibberish, also if writing a email or post, I can miss words, or type a word twice and punctuation and spelling go out the window.

I also often replace words when overstimulated, with things I can see or are from recent thoughts, even to the point of a mixing 2 sentences together. EG "The cheese is to loud" (The TV is loud, but person I am speaking to is eating cheese).

I've also been told all my life when stressed/overstimulated/excited I get very very loud.

oh yeah definately, i cant tell stories at parties because it gets so bad

my speech becomes harder to understand and loud and i speak faster. Sentences stop being sentences when I'm overwhelmed.

Example: I-HAVE-THAT-VIDEO-GAME.ITS-SO-FUN,YOU-HAVE-TO-MAKE-THE-BUTTONS-AND-WITH-PORTALS....



When im about to shut down or am over stimulated, my speech becomes slower and i find it very very hard to formulate a sentence, sometimes i cant even finish it,

Example: no i havent....um....seen...........................i havent seen that yet.