Oh my god this perfectly describes it. It’s like the main reason I read so slowly because I don’t realise I’m doing that other weird kind of reading where you process and register the word but no the group of words arranged in to meaning. Suddenly I realise that started happening several pages ago and have to go back and start over.
yeah, this really took me out of reading for a long time. Just base-level “reading” where you kind of process the words as an activity, without actually absorbing anything.
started medication recently, and hope that it’ll help with this. i miss reading ;.;
Have you tried audiobooks? I have a far easier time with them and most everything you’d want to read is available in audiobook form
I have a really hard time absorbing people speaking when i’m not interacting with them, and being understimulated and not knowing what to do with my hands when i am able to focus on audiobooks. I want to love them and podcasts, but they just aren’t it for me D:
I’m glad they work so well for you and others, though!!
Audiobooks are fantastic for me while riding a bike or walking on a treadmill - something to physically do and something to mentally do.
I can’t just sit and listen to them though.
EDIT: Oh and repetitive tasks - I got back into audiobooks when I started making chainmail again. Which reminds me… I haven’t finished that thing I started a year ago…
That one thing you started a year ago? 🤔
Let me introduce you to my database full of projects, fantastic product- or business ideas, things I want to sew, or construct in the garden, or things I offered to do for someone else because it’s something I’m really good at (but definitely don’t have the time for); all of it meticulously researched, sometimes for days at a time (while I was definitely supposed to be doing something else). Most of it already started, and then promptly back-burner’d because another new, shiny, completely brilliant idea reared its gorgeous head (rinse, repeat, ad infinitum).
Me reading a poem.
Me rereading a poem.
😡 me giving up on reading the poem.
Getting ready to greet someone I haven’t met before (Hopefully! Oh fuck I’m not sure if I met this person before! What if I introduce myself and they’re like “Uhm, yes, Hi, we met a month ago at the thing”, I’ll die from the shame! 😩).
Shake hands. I remembered my own name! Success! And they didn’t look all weird like we met before! I’m the king of the world! 👑
Oh fuck. I didn’t listen when they said what their name was 😭
The only way to completely snap out of it for me sometimes is to start reading out loud or at least move my mouth with the words to reinforce them. Although it doesn’t always work, I do realize quicker if I have no idea what’s coming out of my mouth than if it’s just in my head. It also forces my brain to slow down a bit.