Communication with Alexathymia and longer processing speeds
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[00:00:00] Hi friends. Welcome back to the Neuro Tribe. I am so grateful to have all of you here today. We're gonna be talking about different complexities and wiring and how that can affect communication styles in expressing how ~we feel, and not only our how~ we feel emotionally and also how we feel physically.
It also can affect our processing speeds in communication. So let's start first and foremost with Alexathymia. Alexathymia is a trait that a lot of our autistic friends have, and what that means is it's really hard to express and ~it's almost like~ grasp onto the way that we feel. It's like those feelings are fuzzy and they're, hard to explain.
They're hard to embody, right? There can be nueral wiring. There can be other neuro complexities that have a [00:01:00] hard time really identifying how we're feeling in our body.~ So it's harder for us to say, feel like we need to go to the bathroom, or that feeling of hunger isn't as strong. It can be that we have a hard time.~
~Feeling our feelings inside our body, and so therefore,~ it's really hard for us to identify those feelings and be able to express them. Now, what can happen is our loved ones, our parents, our spouses, our family members, our friends, people at work, they quite often speak with. How do you feel about that?
How do you feel about this? How are you feeling today? How are you doing? These are all going towards our feelings and. People that have Alexathymia, ~P-T-S-D-C-P-T-S-D,~ this can be harder for us to express those feelings sometimes ~and express them in a communication ~and that can cause. This miscommunication, it can cause the other person to feel like you're holding things back from them or you're keeping them out, or you are not letting them [00:02:00] in.
~And that's not at all what the person who is experiencing that. Trying, they're not trying to do that. They're, they maybe want to connect with you. They maybe want to let you in. They maybe want to experience to allow you into their experience, but it's really hard for them to express in the moment how they're feeling.~
There can also be a difference in processing speeds depending on your neural wiring. For example, people that are gifted ~have a long, ~tend to have a longer processing ~speed. ~Speed. So it can be that they are gathering information from many different avenues and they are putting pieces together and putting patterns together, or they're coming up with their own thoughts and their own feelings on things, and it's taking them longer.
To process than say someone else who has a faster processing speed. It doesn't mean that one processing speed is better than the other. It just means that they are different depending on how the person is interpreting the world and depending on their neuro complexity. So what does this look like in communication?
If a person [00:03:00] is asking you, how do you feel about this? Or how do you feel about things? Or just in general, how are you feeling today? I. And you cannot answer that question, not because you don't want to, but you simply can't answer that question. It can bring up feelings of frustration. It can bring up feelings of shame of what's wrong with me?
Why can't I just say how I feel? Why does everybody wanna talk about their feelings when mine are so fuzzy and they're so hard to tap into? ~Or. ~It's hard for me to tell you how I am feeling because I am very disconnected from my body. It's like my mind. I can think all the thoughts, I can come up with all the things, but if you ask me what's going on with my body, it's very hard for me to tell you what's happening inside my body.
~It ~that definitely is a neuro wiring I have [00:04:00] had. This explains to me many different ways. It feels like my head is cut off from my body. It feels like my head lives somewhere else and my body has a different zip code. I've heard so many different ways of explaining how someone might have a hard time explaining their experience in their body.
What can happen in delayed processing speeds is ~it can be perceived as avoidance. It can be perceived as withholding information or not or yeah, it can, I don't know why. Okay. ~It can be perceived as avoidance or withholding information when that is not actually what is occurring, right? It can be that~ a situation or~ something happens or something~ that ~is said, and the person with a delayed processing speed or a longer processing speed, or say with alexathymia, they're not feeling it in the moment.
They're just going on As, or C-P-T-S-D or PTSD, right? They're just [00:05:00] going on as if nothing happened, and they're going through the motions and the movements. And what happens is as time goes on, they're then. Processing all of the things that were said that were done, the occurrences, and they're coming out of maybe say a fight or flight response.
They're coming out of the fawn response. Or if it's not a trauma response, they are starting to go through the motions of how they feel about what was said, what was done, the situation. And their processing and going through all of the different bits of information and forming what they think about it, forming what their experience is of it, and what they experience at the time, and now how they think and feel of the situation.
What can happen is coming to someone and wanting to talk to them [00:06:00] about it. It could be days later, it could be weeks later. It could be months later that they are bringing up this topic and the person that they're bringing up. The topic with could be wondering, why in the world are you bringing this to me days later, weeks later, months later?
Why didn't you talk to me about it in the moment? And the answer simply is, ~I wasn't able to feel a it in the moment or ~I. I Needed time to process through what happened. So I kept going through the motions and in this whole time I've been processing what I think and what I feel and how I am reacting to that.
And out of respect for you and me, I would like to now talk about what happened.
~What can be helpful with my clients or my clients ~what can be helpful for my clients or my clients' loved ones is really reframing the communication if there is alexathymia or delayed processing [00:07:00] speeds depending on a fight or flight response, or there is a longer processing speed asking questions like, what are you thinking right now?
~What? ~What is going through your mind? Let me into the thoughts that you are going through. And then staying quiet and having that time to pause to allow the person to think and express their thoughts. Another way to be able to reframe and question is, what are you experiencing right now? And you might get all different kinds of answers of, right now I'm experiencing, my heart is beating fast, my throat is closing up.
~I, my, ~my head is feeling fuzzy. I. I'm experiencing nothing. I almost feel numb right now, or I'm experiencing so many thoughts go through my mind that ~I am, ~I need to take a [00:08:00] moment to slow my thoughts down, to be able to talk to you or I'm experiencing a lot of thoughts that I would like to write down, and then we can come back and talk about it.
It could be so many different things that you hear when you ask somebody what they're experiencing.
Someone who has different neural wiring and neuro complexity, whether it's P-T-S-D, C-P-T-S-D, alexathymia Autism. Some people with A DHD or giftedness, they can have that longer processing time that they need and giving them that time to be able to really sort through. Their experience is so crucial and important.
There can be so many times where someone with a shorter processing speed is trying to talk in the moment and almost pushing that [00:09:00] conversation in the moment. And when you have a person that's on the other side that needs more time to think and process. Allowing them to have that space can actually have a more constructive outcome to the conversation rather than trying to have it in the moment.
Being able to validate both experiences and both sides is really important. ~Having a conversation when you're not in the moment and ~having a conversation like when you are in the moment and you wanna talk about the things right now. I understand where you're ~at. I understand where you are ~at. Also for me, I need more time to think about it, and that doesn't mean that I want to go and think about it and then never come back and talk about it.
It just simply means that I need more time to be able to come back to you and talk about this subject and have this conversation, and it is okay [00:10:00] that I need to have more time. And it is okay that you're ready to talk about it right now.
Being on the side where you have a longer processing speed, or you have Alexathymia PTSD, or C-P-T-S-D, and something happened a while ago, but you are ready to talk about it right now, and maybe the other person has moved on or they didn't even know that something came up for you in the moment. Starting the conversation with, I know this happened a while ago.
~Whenever it was, you can state the day or the time, or even a week or two, or maybe it was a couple. You don't even have to have a specific time mem time stamp to it. But I know this happened a while ago.~ I wanted to let you know that I thought about it and I have been processing it and for our relationship, I would like to discuss it now.
Another way that you can advocate your needs when you have a longer processing time and someone with a shorter processing time is wanting to have that conversation. Some ways that you can advocate for yourself and communicate for yourself [00:11:00] is, I know that this is important to you. I hear that you wanna talk about that.
My processing speed is a little bit longer. I can see that this is important to you. Therefore, I wanna take the time that I need to think about it. I will let you know when I am done processing and I'm ready~ to, and I'm ready~ to discuss this with you.
~Okay. Okay. Whether you have Alexathymia, C-P-T-S-D, P-T-S-D or longer processing speeds, communication doesn't have to be perfect. Communication is just that communication and when you are ready to have a meaningful connection is whether you're ready to have a meaningful communication is connection.~
~Sometimes we are messy people. Living messy lives and need some time to be able to process through all of the mess to be able to come back together and connect. It doesn't have to be perfect.~
~Wow. Space for different processing speeds.
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~When we allow, oh, did I? Okay. Yeah. ~When we allow space for different processing speeds, different traits and different abilities, we can really create connections that are compassionate, authentic, real, and connected.
~Okay.~
If this message ~resonates with you, I would love for you to take a look at some of my other episodes and yeah. If this episode or no? No. Yeah, if this episode, yeah,~
~if this episode ~resonates with you, I invite you to explore some of the other episodes on communication and relationships. I love you all. Have a good day. Take care. Bye-bye.
