What’s the secret to my ability to craft writing and speaking the way I do?I have a Neurodivergent Jedi skill I don’t talk about often, this in depth. Some of this I’m sharing for the first time.
A feature of the autistic part of my brain, is a form of synesthesia that allows me to viscerally feel language, and sound.
When I hear a voice, I feel tapping along my vagus nerve, like tapping notes on a piano. Hearing and using language feels musical to me. I hear and feel the words, and their voice. Imagine how powerfully this affects my listening. I pick up nuance like a Jedi.
I listen to the words, tone, rhythm and emotion in someone’s language. As someone talks, I listen, and feel it as though I’m listening to music.
The sound of a person’s voice can be calming, invigorating, even upsetting. It doesn’t matter what their mood is, or what they’re saying.
The sound alone causes a feeling along both the pleasure/pain and safety/threat continuum of my experience.
If a pitch is too high or too low, it’s extremely physically overwhelming, and it’s like I can’t breathe. Only by stopping the sound or escaping it am I able to calm down and find focus. Kinda like removing your bare hand from a hot stove.
Busy environments can be particularly unraveling unless I can buffer it by being able to move, talk or listen to music.
Every word I use has a corresponding sensation. Which is why I’m so deliberate when I speak and write. The music has to sound and feel right.
If something is off key when someone is talking to me, I catch it, no matter how subtle. Not only do I spot the blip, I intuitively know what to say, write or think instead. To increase the harmony and flow of the language.
Each person creates a story to describe their lives. In my brain, every story contains a song and crafting that is as essential as the story. They’re an inseparable pair, because that’s how my nervous system experiences them.
It’s difficult to describe this experience. It isn’t empathy, though it has deepened my empathy. It isn’t being triggered, because a majority of sounds are pleasurable, not traumatic.
In fact, I also have dyslexia. So the written word doesn’t have the same affect on me as the spoken word.
I guess the bottom line is words are energy, have vibration, and resonance. It’s an energy my nervous system is tuned into.
I can tune into, and translate the energy to help others find the soundtrack of their lives. You could be a word away from a new song.
We should talk sometime.
