Do we have to communicate at this snail-like speed?! What is wrong with talking at a million miles an hour? I see no issues with it, as long as one ensures one’s diction is clear, and the words chosen are the most appropriate for the context of the conversation. Oh, I mostly see when I’ve pitched it wrong. When I begin to speak of a matter about which I am particularly passionate, my pace increases without me adjusting it appropriately. It happens at first without my knowledge. And then I notice their faces. Sometimes the expressions demonstrated show that I lost them five sentences ago and they’ve forgotten what they wanted to say or ask me. Sometimes they were never really engaged with the content anyway and so have gone into thinking about other things while I go on and on. Sometimes they look anxious that they might need to respond but they are not sure what I have said and so are not sure how they should they respond. I am mostly able to recalibrate route at that point and find a way to manoeuvre the content in such a way that it becomes easier to reengage them and then I attempt to finish the interaction appropriately.
The fault is mine. I know I must speak slower than would be my preference in pretty much every scenario. There are a few who can cope. The vicar I used to work with (and who wrote the forward to the first version of my book) knew to pause and just hear me out - he learnt to tune into the pace. I guess he was being aided by God?! My husband tells me when I am doing it - he can cope with it, but he is more concerned because he knows what it means.
In manic phases, my speech is my giveaway sign that the mania is close at hand. There are other signs; many of them, but for now, speech is the focus. It races. The level of vocabulary used isn’t lesser than would be used if I were speaking at a slower pace, in fact sometimes I’d say it is improved. The issue is more about the hearer. When manic, I need to attempt to get out of my brain a million words in a very short amount of time and if they can’t come out, well, I sometimes wonder if I will spontaneously combust. I’ve never found out.
I have various strategies which have meant I’ve avoided the need to discover what will happen if I don’t get them out. If I can’t talk at anyone who can at least partially cope, I’ll write. I’ll write it out of me. It doesn’t go away. It doesn’t lessen the internal intensity. It doesn’t slow the thought process. It doesn’t mean there are less thoughts to manage. In fact, in most cases, once I have got the words out in one way or another there are then more thoughts to manage. But I can do it. I like those times, if the hearer is coping. I am energised by those times. I know I am having my best thoughts sometimes when my more considered brain is not able to interfere.
What about my 'considering brain'? Yes, there are times when it is fully necessary that my more considered thinking is leading the thinking and the follow on actions (if there are any). For big decisions and strategic or long-term matters in any context, I need my considering brain. But there are times when that is the last aspect of my brain I need to be utilising. At those times, the considerations add confusion and fog which hinder that which would otherwise be clear and straightforward.
I don’t know at what speed you read my words. But I know at what speed I think them and have typed them. Does it matter at what we speed we communicate? Does it matter how quickly I write or at what speed you read? No. It matters not one jot. (What is a jot? Dawn, leave it. Move on.) Our brains are phenomenal. Incredible. Will they ever be fully understood? I very much doubt it. In fact, I would suggest that the more we discover about how our brains work, the more we know we don’t yet know and the more we recognise there is to know. 🤷🏻♀️
