How Autistic People THINK

I rehearse conversations which haven’t happened. I replay past conversations, especially disagreements, in my mind, while searching for alternative endings. I guess I talk to myself, a lot.

more or less we think in Analogy. This situation is like that situation. This thing is like that things, and everything is tied together in this giant web of connections.

I do the memory thing a bit, i think, but it's complicated because I also think entirely via scripting. It means when i walk past my old school a memory might flash in ny mind and whether or not it does I compulsively start to think a script about how I felt, explaining in my head an event or how it affected me. I hate it. Every thought I have all day has an imaginary listener.

Autistic people experience "lightning fast chains of association" and this is one reason trauma can be so hard for us. Autistic people can see connections between distantly related ideas... .it is a "double edged sword"

I have been told often enough that I should let go of a lot of negative past memories. I think these things ARE traumas, and I don't know how to let go of them. It's like I haven't fully digested them emotionally so I can't get by them. They are part of my present emotional psychology. Over time, I can let go of the anger or hatred associated with past memories, just by not dwelling on them or feeding them. The memories remain; they just aren't as important. So I guess what I'm saying is that the "trauma model" fits better for me than the "thinking in memories" model.

A lifetime of getting really passionately into explaining my thoughts and the other person looking blankly at me going "Uhh what? I don't understand and don't think that way", more or less, made me shut down emotionally and stop reaching out. After I got ADHD dxed and looked into Autism, suddenly I have like 20 people who all make videos exactly like this and I go "Wait but that's what no one understands about me!" and it's like I'm a human again. I've felt emotions I thought I lost at age 14 in my 30s now that I'm experimenting with unmasking.

My memory works like this too. My memories aren't easily forgotten, and i relive them all the time. It also makes it easy to find lost items because I can just recall the memory image or video, and I visually look for the item. Items bring up the memories surrounding them for me too. It make it hard to get rid of clothes when i was a kid.

Due to my Autism and ADHD I remember memories from long long ago in great detail........But I'm always loosing my phone, forgeting if I closed the door when I left the house and I always have to play a game of where's my damn keys before I leave. So I'll drive around the block to check the door and then I forget to look if the doors closed! It's not uncommon for me to drive around the block 3 or 4 times before I leave the neighborhood.

Certain smells brings memories immediately. Like there is this smell that I can only describe as a CVS smell and whenever I smell it I think of the time where I smelled it in elementary school where I thought about there that I smelled it in cvs. Its like a chain of memories past down for another. Its a nostalgia smell

There are different kinds of flashbacks. I forget the categories, but it can feel like you’re reliving it (like in the movies), or it can feel like an intrusive memory, or it can feel like the emotions from a past experience come up without any other context, there are others I think…

oh god i thought this was just like an intrusive thought thing. Big connection to echolalia here.

Yeah, this is how I think too. In memories. I feel like you have a rare talent for communicating autistic things. I'm following your channel with renewed interest.

I’m so glad I’m not alone in this experience!! Trying to explain this idea of memories to people that don’t experience this is so frustrating! I’ve always described it as objects and memories being stained or tainted. It’s like you have a pair of clear glasses that you see life through, and every single experience you have can tint the colour of the lenses. So if I have a bad experience with a certain place, action, activity or anything really, that memory changes the colour of the lens Im seeing through. Even if I’m currently I not in that same situation.

I am autistic and I definitely don't just think in memories. I also don't think in the same way as neurotypicals either. Oftentimes, I'll think in pictures and impressions, rather than language, for example. Although I sometimes do experience what you describe here. However I find it much more helpful to explain that as a combination of autistic thinking and emotional contamination.

I imagined my thinking if I was to describe it as intertwined quipu, and knots are memories

Well this was revelatory. It feels like there's some overlap here with another concept that I came across recently on Sci Guys channel. An AuDHDer said they "think in feelings and feel in thoughts", or words to that affect. I have alexithymia along with aphantasia so it's all a bit murky in my noggin but something clicked deep down when I heard that. Same with this video.

This is mad.... I didn't realise it may be part of my autism. It's often how I engage in conversation, telling someone about a memory in relation to just about anything 😳

Never heard this talked about before, but it makes sense of my own experience. I think I get this to a somewhat troubling degree. So it can often just be the kind of light outside, or the way the sun is shining on a wall or something. Also if I have a bad experience in a place it reminds me of it each time I have to go there again. The same thing happens with clothes and I have to get them washed ASAP or sometimes can never wear them again. If I am expecting a difficult time like an appointment or something, I make sure to never wear something I really like but just wear something really basic and generic that I have several the same of like black leggings and t shirt so they are indistinguishable afterwards and I don’t have to throw them out just wash them. This memory trigger thing does make life difficult, I never know what simple thing could set one of these things off. I do also have nice ones, but more bad ones due to trauma, like Dana says. I also think this has something to do with why we use personal associations to show empathy, and why we sometimes share stories as a way of connecting.

This was very interesting, thank you for sharing your experience <3 I personally have aphantasia (a lack of ability to visualise; which afaik is fairly prevalent among autistic people, or at least more common than it is among neurotypical people), so I can't actually recall memories from a 1st person perspective. My memories are more spatial and semantic (informative), like, I can recall the general space/floor plan of where a certain conversation took place, where I was standing/sitting in relation to the space or other people, etc - and I remember the topics spoken about as a list of facts. Some memories can also have emotions attached, but I do think they're rarely as "strong" as I've heard people who don't have aphantasia describe, and they're definitely not "vivid" in any way, since again, they lack the visual component. My memory is fairly associative though, which is kinda similar to what you're describing in the sense that things happening around me often remind me of similar events from the past. I do also have a very strong internal monolog though, so to use your example, seeing the rain will actually often prompt an internal response/thought about the rain itself, but then it might also remind me of past memories which I associate with rain. I sadly won't be able to actually see or re-experience them in the way you're describing, but memories will still probably pop up in response to the current state or event. I do think associative memory might be fairly common for autistic people tbh, since I've had other ND friends describe a similar way of thinking/remembering in the past. I think we can often hear comments about how we're too "stuck in the past" or have trouble "letting things go", since we have a higher tendency to bring up past events even years after the fact, just simply due to this associative ability. But of course, this is just my own conclusion based on my personal experience and the experiences of the people around me. It will be interesting to see actual studies on this topic, but I'm not sure if there are any, since the medical community normally prefers to study our external behaviours, rather than our internal world and life experiences from our own POV. I do think the way you're describing the vividness of your memories, might have to do with hyperphantasia actually - So, if you're interested in the topic of memories and visualisation, you might want to look into this topic. I don't know as much about it, since it's very far from my own personal experience, but as far as I understand it, it's basically the opposite side of the spectrum from aphantasia - Where your memories are basically hyper-visual, and they can often involve other senses or have very strong emotions attached to them as well :)

In my journal, I write down what I call "Recounted Memories", which are those odds and ends that I remember happened, and usually where, but not the exact date / time. It's soothing and cathartic.