Saying wrong words and mistakes

[Asterfall]

My first post here after checking it out awhile, but well I'm never good at talking with people. I'm 25 and have always suffered from anxiety, OCD and depression, and at the start of December I woke up one day and couldn't remember a name of something, and looked it up and instantly remembered it.

Naturally I made a mistake of googling symptoms of things from what you can probably guess from aphasia and a certain t word, and started worrying. I had pins and needles which went away, twitching which did the same, and then headaches when waking up that went away into the day and phoned the doctor over in January, and was told it's tension headaches. They've really stopped being a problem, but what has not is my other issues.

I'm constantly making mistakes when I'm speaking or saying the wrong words, though I instantly correct myself. Sometimes I'm thinking what I'm going to say internally and feels as if I jump ahead and say the wrong word, which I know is wrong, and then again correct myself over it. The other day my thoughts jumped ahead to say "I'm going to microwave the last piece of bread." instead of "toast" it which I planned on thinking to myself. Occasion I say a random wrong name such as "John" as "George" which again I instantly correct. Sometimes random nonsense has come to my mind when I'm thinking, sentences that make no sense, which again I was aware of and instantly correct. Sometimes I do it when I'm typing but again I'm able to instantly correct myself over it. I misread words at first glance lately and have to re-read to correct myself which again, I know I've misread them.

One day when visiting a relative in December they had an egg shaped vase which I couldn't make out at first, and I had a bit of a panic attack where I forced myself to remember what everything in the room was called, and naturally started getting myself confused and making mistakes. When I was home and calmed down, everything went back to normal beyond the above of saying wrong words.

I feel I'm hyper aware of this, or maybe it is my OCD causing all of this ? Normally it would bring images/words to mind which would trigger me, so maybe this is my new form of it ? My eyes feel a bit blurry aswell lately, though I spend most a day looking at a screen. Having red veins appear in eyes or eye twitches after lack of sleep and too much caffeine for example, and idk I'm instantly assuming and worrying the worst over this all due to it all. I'm panicking over every little detail health related lately.

I went nearly all of December and January only getting 3-5 hours sleep at times due to worrying, so maybe chronic sleep deprivation is responsible for this too alongside my OCD and anxiety ? I had a habit of staying up late until 1:30-2:00 long before this, which could have contributed too it ? I've been like this for over 2 months now, mainly the thinking/saying wrong words issue. But I've not lost any weight, I'm perfect able to function normally and eating, I remember all my passwords, and again I do always correct myself over this issues and know when I'm done them. I've only had nausea when worrying or after eating something very sweet/chocolatey

The anxiety of it all is becoming a bit too much, but I do have much better days over this, but again worrying over it all is not helping me. Wondering when I should phone the doctor again, or if this really is all just myself playing tricks on me and my anxiety/OCD at work among other factors ?

Thank you for reading/commenting should any of you do so :)

[.Poppy.]

Lack of sleep plays a role, but a large part is anxiety.

Aphasia is a real thing, but it presents differently. Misspeaking a single word and then immediately correcting it is not it - large parts of vocab are affected, it causes people to either not be well understood or not be able to understand themselves. If you were suffering from aphasia, others would absolutely pick up on it (likely before you noticed yourself).

If you are concerned, you can certainly call the doctor, though I’d be more concerned with visiting your doc and discussing anxiety + lack of sleep and seeing how they can help you there, and you can certainly ask them then.

[Asterfall]

Thank you for the answer :)

I don't seem to have any issue when speaking to people and they understand me perfectly. I assumed as much it was anxiety and lack of sleep, but my mind always do go to the worst place when I have my health worries. Not helped when I looked things up. If it worries me too much I will go to the doctor again, but it helps a lot having talked about this and heard someone's opinion and reassurance :)

[kyllikki]

Hi there, I have this a lot, as well as this weird feeling of getting "stuck" in the flow of sentences, as though I can only say 2-3 words at a time before inserting a tiny pause or stopping.

I've also had the "unable to visually figure out an object from a distance" thing a few times over the past year, creeps me right out -- but then again, my depth perception has been deteriorating due to screens during the pandemic. Sometimes I "get" it within a second or two, sometimes not. I think it has to do more with what you brain *expects* to see, and hence is more about anxiety and mental flexibility than anything else.

My memory for words is also periodically horrible, I have found that reading more -- specifically novels -- temporarily helps tremendously, though. Brains, like bodies, need variety to work at top capacity, I think.

But all the speaking stuff comes and goes, and most critically, it seems to disappear when I repeat something like a prayer or poem from memory, or read an easy book out loud. When I first noticed it (...which was probably a year and a half ago!) it felt more like brain fog, but now it's settled into definite anxiety / hyperawareness territory.

It didn't help that about two weeks after it started I bumbled my way through a few sentences on a phone call with my (at that time... now FORMER!) boss and some other senior person he wanted to impress, and he actually *called me up* after the fact to say that my inarticulateness was "tarnishing the reputation of our team."

Right. I guess as a parent of a small child during a pandemic lockdown I was expected to not just be fine, but SOUND like it too! :whistles: Needless to say, the comment only made things worse.

I don't have any good answers for making this go away for good -- besides the contemplation of quitting modern life and becoming a hermit -- but seeing your post makes me feel a bit less alone and I hope my reply does the same for you.

All the best,
K

[Asterfall]

It does make me feel happy knowing I'm not alone in this, and thank you for your reply :) I see we have the same issue, and I can relate a lot. Having always had social anxiety when talking to people, it shouldn't be too surprising when it gets worse that thinking to myself would be effected similarly. The stress and the worrying always seems to make it worse, and then when you have your good days it's almost as if your back to normal, and the fact you can end in a cycle of this going back and forth does become trying at times, but we do what we can like you said.

I'm really sorry to hear about that incident with your former boss, I hope when you have a new job or if you already are re-employed, your new management will be way better than that :) Thank you for replying on this, again it helps just talking about this, and I suppose not letting the anxiety/stress/tiredness beat us down is the way out it :)