Substituting random word for the one you intended to use and not realising?

[Sesame]

I notice I do this every now and again. I know both words and understand the conversation and everything, but it's as if I'll have a sudden brain malfunction and substitute an almost random word I know for the one I intended to use. I did this recently and felt so stupid and embarrassed the entire day after I realised what happened later. I never notice in the moment, but once I do I feel completely humiliated.

One example is that I was walking with a friend. He was very involved in the conversation, so much that he wasn't looking where he was going. There was a beam/pillar in his path. Obviously, I know the word for that. However, for some reason, `pole' is what popped out when I warned him. And all he could do was look at me, frowning and ask `pole'? He doesn't know I have C-PTSD, so I wasn't going to randomly explain it all right then.

Or, other times, I could use a word that is commonly used with another instead of the word I want. I was discussing work with a friend and colleague, when he mentioned potential copyright issues with an idea he had, hoping for my input. I meant to talk about avoiding `infringing a copyright', but said `seeking' instead, which made it sound like I would've intended to get copyright over the original artist after I blatantly took inspiration from their work.  Then I'm left wondering WHY did I say that? That is completely the opposite of what I meant! 

Does anyone else suffer from this? Is there anything that can be done?

[Blueberry]

Oh, yes. I can relate! It sounds similar to my not finding the words I need. Or sometimes I jumble up words in the sentence or even syllables in words.
I'm getting confused about what is where, another common habit of mine. But if you check my Hello post (where new members post a bit about themselves) from just a couple of days ago you'll see what one of the regular posters on here has to say. I think it was along the lines of when you're in an EF the language part of your brain shuts down or is compromised. The poster gave me a specific name of this part of the brain, which I can't recall right now. Sigh.

Anything that can be done? I don't know of anything specific. For me, it's one of these myriad of symptoms which sometimes improve seemingly out of the blue, but more likely because of some progress I'm making in therapy.
Hope somebody else has more concrete ideas.

My professional work is language-based so it's really debilitating. But also not surprising, considering the importance of every single solitary word when I was growing up.

[WeFallToRiseAgain]

This post is a revelation for me.
I, too, suffer from this wonderful affliction. Until my diagnosis I thought it was a part of having A.D.D. The way I explained it to my doctor was, It's like playing put-put golf. You come across the hole that leads down to three other holes, you can shoot and hopefully get a hole-in-one or the ball could go down one of the other two pipes and the ball goes off in left field. The same works with processing information. Sometimes the information is processed perfectly, the brain finds the right passageway and I'm able to score an informational hole-in-one. The other times It's like the information goes down the wrong pipe and gets lost. Then I start to panic. It's like, the word is there, but in hieroglyphics. My system will flood with adrenaline and It's like, "Oh geeze, I'm going to sound so moronic. WHY CAN'T I FIND THE WORD?"

What usually works for me is laughing. Sounds odd, right? Each person is different, but I have always tried using humor to cover up how much I'm suffering inside. My therapist always knows when we reach a very touchy subject because I start joking. I'm lucky in the way that I work with people who find humor in my quirks (I'm a caregiver during the day and work in a photo lab at night.)  So what I do is ignore the embarrassment that is slowly taking its grip and say "Sorry, I'm such a ditz and can't seem to remember my basic language skills at the moment. My brain has decided to step out." and just start laughing. For some reason this works. I don't understand the neurobiology behind this, but laughing restarts my system in a way. Perhaps you could give it a shot?

In any case, thank you so much for posting this. I never thought C-PTSD could be the cause. I hope you can find a way to overcome this thats suited for you, and if you find a magic cure all, could you please forward that to me? 

[woodsgnome]

I've worked with language presentation in a variety of contexts (writing, acting, performing--but mostly innocuous daily life situations) and have found the same conundrum going on; a word slips in randomly, to where I forget what was more appropriate, and risk losing the entire train of what I was saying. The results can range from instant correction (preferred) to minor deviation (less troubling, even humourous) to unraveling and despair (the worst).

Why? Blueberry hit the nail on this by pointing out the origins of word-stumbles in this reply to Sesame's question: "...this is not surprising, considering the importance of every single solitary word when I was growing up." Same here--so often I was scolded and worse in terms of 'it's not what you say, it's how you say it' and you're bad for being like that. My natural childhood wonder and curiosity was quashed, and belittlement was used repeatedly to invalidate my self-worth and made me careful of saying things, or of not feeling allowed to ever say how I felt for fear of rejection and/or reprisal. This contributed to my high degree of dissociative 'freeze' reaction to cptsd, as Walker describes so well in his cptsd book.

That's carried over to parsing, even agonizing, over how I'm going to converse, whether in writing or in person. I'm so sure there's a good chance of being misunderstood (in writing, I tend to edit a fair bit, trying hard to get it just right--worrying so much that reading later an easy flub is found).

In everyday speech, though, it's harder to self-correct. I make the mistake, say the unintended word, almost as if confirming that I over-thought even a minor word. And it all circles back to that residual fear of saying the wrong thing and being judged harshly, no matter what...which is best illustrated with this icon: 

I did find this to be a surprising advantage in my career as an improv actor. Performing unscripted material, and having to do instant corrections, sharpened the mind, I found. The stickler here is that doesn't transfer to everyday life, at least it didn't for me. I was still as dissociated as ever; still am. Better awareness of it helps, but like Sesame points out, this tendency comes with difficulties that are hard to work out of--like so much on this forbidding trail. 

[Sesame]

Thank you for all your input.

Blueberry - The funny thing is, I definitely don't think I was in an EF when these things happened. I was always with a friend and calmly talking/discussing something. I didn't feel particularly nervous, shamed or any other negative thing, either. Not until I realised what happened later. I can think of an insecurity of mine that connects the two events, though: they are both well-educated and intelligent and I have often felt the need to prove I am smart to people.

My job is also language-based and I live in a foreign country where I cannot fumble with words when trying to get things done. So, while the same thing has not yet happened in the other language, I would be very afraid if it started happening!

WeFalltoRiseAgain - I didn't feel that way these two times (didn't notice it happened at the time), but I have had this happen to me, too! Where I KNOW that I know the word and it is in my head somewhere, but for some reason it eludes me. They're not complicated words, either. Just very simple nouns.

I actually do laugh a lot, but if I don't see it coming (as with the situations I described), it's done before I realise.

If I do ever find a cure, I'll definitely be coming back here to share it with you all!

Woodsgnome - I did not experience this situation early on in my life. Maybe in young adult life, I had this with my uNMIL who nitpicks everything I say. Can that still have an effect on you? Is that why it's only happening now? Then again, I've distanced myself from her as much as I possibly could at this point in my life.

As for my family, my uBPDNmum is someone who mixes up words, uses one that's completely wrong and even makes up new meanings for existing words. I'm quite sure it's not because of some trauma she went through because the substituted word is consistent. e.g. Always calling a `balm' a `palm' every time. With me, it's random and I can use the correct word in another sentence within minutes of using the wrong one. Also, even if she is repeatedly corrected, she will return to the old substitute. I have always been afraid of becoming like my mother for many reasons and I admit that this mixing up of words also scares me.

I do worry a great deal about embarrassing myself or being humiliated because that was a common occurrence in my childhood thanks to all the bullies I had. I wonder if this has anything to do with it? I feel knowing the origin could also be helpful.

[rosiehillinhan]

I so get this. I've often been frustrated because I "can't talk right." I'll transpose words lIke "dishes" for "laundry." I'll say one thing and then get flustered because the person's response makes it clear they haven't understood what I meant.

For me, it's definitely a childhood thing. Everything I said could be interpreted into something I didn't say, or worse, something malicious.

[Wife#2]

May I add my spin on this? I think everyone blunders words now and again. I really do think it's just a natural thing. BUT, the cPTSD part is the deep embarrassment that happens afterward. Most folks, when they blunder a word or phrase, they stop, think and then laugh about what they just said - because it isn't THAT big a deal to them.

I do think it happens more in 'highly educated' PD homes more than others. My mother was a stickler for the proper use of the English language. Because of that, all of her children are/were very expressive and ok - wordy. I still have that issue. It caused complications with friends - my vocabulary was ALWAYS bigger than theirs. So, when the 'word smart' one goofed, it was me falling off my smart pedestal. If I used a word in childhood that was above my age - I was told to look it up (to learn spelling AND definition) and then write it in a sentence. If I did that successfully three times, I was allowed to use the word in regular conversation.

The exchange of a completely unrelated word for the 'right' word happens to everyone. I have more examples than I can list here just from the past week. I get through them by doing what I've seen the non-cPTSD folks do. Stop, think and laugh while acknowledging the blunder and trying to come up with the word I did intend - or accepting when hubby finds it first and thanking him. The laughing helps me hide the deep embarrassment and the listening to accept hubby's 'better' word keeps me from spiraling into 'dummy' thoughts.

You're not alone at all, none of you! We ALL do this. If you speak (even with your hands), you blunder from time to time. How to get past that exaggerated response our cPTSD gives us - that's the challenge. I like laughing, it's like admitting that I'm just a regular human. It's nice to feel like a regular human.

[writetolife]

Oh my goodness, I totally thought this was me. 

There are periods of times where I'll do it multiple times a day, except that I'll usually catch what's going on before I say the word, and leave a long pause until I can find the word.  In my head, it'll sound a little bit something like, at dinner saying, "Would you please pass that lamp?" when i actually mean asparagus.  And I have no stinkin' idea where lamp came from and it'll take a solid 20 seconds or better to find "asparagus."

Usually I just make a joke out of it, especially at work.  I'm a writing tutor, so I talk for a living...

I wish I knew what causes it.  Maybe it has to do with dissociation?  Maybe it has to do with high levels of anxiety?  I know that when I have consistently high levels of anxiety, I also have trouble talking in other ways.     

[woodsgnome]

Writetolife wondered if dissociation and/or anxiety contributed to this. Yes, big time is my opinion.

I'm considered an old pro at public speaking, but that's mainly due to people who've seen me as a theatrical performer (recently retired). That's one thing; but sometimes in the simplest everyday conversation I can go off track on a dime, freeze up (usually momentarily), forget names but also context. Yes, I tend to recover but it can sap confidence to the point where I feel foolish and wish the ground would swallow me up. It's one of those embarrassing 'I shouldn't be like that' feelings. Then it happens again; totally frustrating, although I do manage to disguise it surprisingly well, it seems.

The biggest need might be building enough self-compassion to compensate, at least setting it right with one's own fragile feelings of failure. But like so much of this effort, even self-compassion seems to tire me...it's just so maddeningly frustrating, this whole thing. 'Have to cope' just makes me feel more lost and fearful; logically that's not so but emotionally it's exactly that.

[Blueberry]

Blueberry - The funny thing is, I definitely don't think I was in an EF when these things happened. I was always with a friend and calmly talking/discussing something. I didn't feel particularly nervous, shamed or any other negative thing, either. Not until I realised what happened later. I can think of an insecurity of mine that connects the two events, though: they are both well-educated and intelligent and I have often felt the need to prove I am smart to people.

My job is also language-based and I live in a foreign country where I cannot fumble with words when trying to get things done. So, while the same thing has not yet happened in the other language, I would be very afraid if it started happening!

Sesame, I stand corrected on the EF point. Whatever is going on with you is different from with me. Do let us know if you ever figure it out.

I live in a foreign country too but I'm bilingual. So that just means that I 'lose' words and mix words up etc. in both languages.        Sometimes I make jokes about Alzheimer's, though really it's not funny, and I'm also a little on the young side for that.

[A_Girl_You_Dont_Know]

Omg, I just started looking around here but I am amazed how amazed I am to keep seeing other people post things I thought was just me being crazy! For me it's definitely stress induced and childhood stuff, gah. I flounder a lot but when I'm having an EF I will do anything from forgetting words which i profusely apologize for and say my head is mixed up or recently my friend/manager was asking me a question at work and I was trying to answer and she said I looked confused and asked if I needed her to explain more and I said no I was confused because I forgot proper grammar and couldn't figure out how to answer. She's great though and said it was okay I didn't need to so I just used very poor grammar to answer. My co-workers are incredible. I'll stutter sometimes too when I'm in EF which makes me feel so stupid. I never stutter.

[writetolife]

I'll stutter sometimes too when I'm in EF which makes me feel so stupid. I never stutter.

This.  Yes!  I did this the other day with my boss.  For some reason all I could do was say the first three words of my sentence over and over again, until finally I gave up and said something different.  It was so embarrassing.