Bogged-down in Bloggyland

13 Jan 2011 24 Comments

by Bruce (born 2b me) in Asperger's, autism, senses Tags: Asperger's, autism, blogging, expectations, eyes, overwhelmed, processing, reading, thinking, writing

Hello Bloggyland friends. I am feeling rather bogged-down in my blogging as well as being swamped with overdue responsibilities in my life off-line. I have not been able to keep up with either posting on my own blog, or with reading and commenting on my friend’s blogs, and I am quite disappointed with myself over this.

Slow at reading:

Part of my problem is that I read at the same speed at which I talk. This is because I sound out each word in my head as I read. I also see only a part of the word I am looking at (or perhaps the whole word if it is short). All the other words are an out of focus blur. So skimming doesn’t work for me. And my “sounding out” is at my normal rate of talking. If I try to “talk” fast in my head, my eyes soon start to ache and I must return to normal speech speed. Hence it takes me a long time to read your blogs.

Slow at formulating a response:

I often say that I am slow at “thinking on my feet.” By that I mean that I take a long time to process information and formulate a response. So coming up with a comment that may be worthy of  posting on your blog can be a slow process — and even then I often look back and wish I had said it differently. I commented recently that it can take me 20 to 90 minutes of fretting to generate a comment. But shortly after this I found myself taking over six hours to compose one comment. That’s a comment, not a post!

Slow at writing posts for my blog:

There were times when I spent fourteen, or more, hours working on one post on my own blog. I would guess four to six hours is the norm.

Slow at typing:

Part of the problem here is typing speed. The words usually do not just flow onto the page screen. There is a lot of backspacing and retyping!

Several “new” blogs:

I have recently discovered several blogs that are either new, or new to me. So my reading load has been greatly increased of late. And I read very slowly. So right now I am feeling a bit overwhelmed.

Solutions:

I know that tension does physically slow my typing. So I can try to relax at the keyboard. I also know that anxiety can slow my thinking processes. So I can try to remind myself that my dear Bloggyland friends are not likely to be yelling “off with his head” if I don’t get it perfect! And I could restrict myself to just a handful or less of blogs, but I don’t like the thought of abandoning any of my bloggy friends nor do I like the thought of depriving myself of their writing. As to my off-line life I could try to get better organized and set aside some non-blogging days to catch up, but I’m not very good at that. And right now I am just feel swamped (overwhelmed).

Sorry:

So please accept my apologies if I have not been visiting your blog as often, or commenting as frequently, as I usually do. My participation in blogging has been rather spotty since getting swamped. 

Suggestions: 

So I’m asking for suggestions, if you have the time (I don’t want to swamp anyone else). Do you have any ideas that might help? I’d love to have your suggestions or comments about your experiences blogging. And thanks for your patience.

Serendipity:

Breakthrough? I just realized that this post has taken me only two hours to write! That is most unusual. So maybe just thinking about sharing these problems with you has alleviated much of my anxiety and enabled me to speed up! I hope so. Bloggyland therapy at its best! But please, if you have the time, do share your thoughts – I still need them and they will help others too.