Hello everyone! This week’s newsletter is all about echolalia. It was going to be titled ‘Ear Worms’, but that’s such a gross mental image that I vetoed it at the last minute.

Before we get into it, I want to let you know that the first edition of my new series, The Book Diaries, was released this week.

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Echolalia - a fun word about a fun thing

If you say something funny, there’s a high chance I will repeat it.

Most of the time I will repeat it in my head, because I’ve been told too many times that repeating what people say back to them, in their accent and cadence, is quite rude.

Sorry about that. I experience echolalia; arguably one of the best and most fun parts about being autistic, but also probably one of the most misunderstood, and potentially the most dangerous, depending on your situation.

Echolalia is defined as:

the meaningless repetition of words just spoken by another person

It isn’t just strictly words for me, and I know it isn’t the case for many other autistic people. It can also be noises, sounds, songs, anything you hear. For me, if my brain finds a sound attractive, intriguing, or out of the ordinary, I’m likely to repeat it.

Recently I was in the supermarket with my partner. I was in the middle of telling him something when a ring tone went off nearby. This is how it went, and bear in mind I have no recollection of doing this:

Me: I think we probably need to…

[Ring tone plays nearby - ‘Doo, doo, doo!’]

Me: Doo, doo, doo…go to the next aisle for tomatoes.

My partner cracked up laughing and I had no idea why. These are the moments that really quell my anxiety when I start to ruminate that my autism assessor somehow ‘got it wrong’.

I have been like this forever. When I was a kid, I remember watching some kind of deranged Punch and Judy production on TV (I mean, all productions of Punch and Judy are deranged, but hey). The catchphrase in the TV show was ‘That’s the way to do it!’ My poor mother had to cope with five year old me repeating this constantly for weeks after.

Nowadays, I tend to get hooked on pronouncing phrases the way another person pronounces them because it is pleasing to my ears. I went through a big phase of saying ‘see you lay-der’, pronouncing the ‘t’ in ‘later’ as a ‘d’ because I thought it sounded chill and relaxed and cool (not synonyms you could ever associate with me).

The problem was that I worked with the person I had subconsciously copied this from and I just know that this habit of mine fully weirded them out. I don’t blame them.

Although the definition of ‘echolalia’ is the repeating of words there and then, I am convinced it also relates to the way we script our conversations.

I get hooked on words and I think I do this because I have sussed out that a word is safe and socially conventional to say. For months on end I will overuse a new favourite word to the point where people can’t help but shoot dirty looks at me, and honestly I do not blame them (currently I can’t help but include the word ‘vibes’ in every comment I make. I can’t stop myself. I’m 32. I feel like the ‘how do you do, fellow kids?’ meme.)

I also have a working theory that echolalia supports the neurodivergent urge to quote memes incessantly. I have never, ever met a neurotypical person who drops memes into conversations as much as all the ND people I have ever met. After all, I think echolalia isn’t just about repeating things in the moment, but also it’s about the funny-sounding things we have heard ages ago that we are then triggered to remember at random times.

Personally, I am a meme machine. If a situation triggers the bank of memes I possess in my millennial brain then chances are I will say it to you before I’ve had a chance to self-edit. My taste in memes are also extremely British and hun-coded, so once again I apologise to my non-UK readers. Context provided in the unhinged footnotes to this newsletter.

• If you discuss shoes with me I’ll most likely blurt out ‘old maiden type of shoes’.1

• If we’re talking about small spaces, you’ll probably hear me say ‘I’m claustrophobic Darren’.2

• Maybe we’re chatting about the virtues of a custard cream (very likely), and there’s a strong chance I’ll mutter ‘My son is in the kitchen eating a biscuit.’3

I can’t help it. It’s almost a compulsion, but not quite. Instead it’s like my brain wants to play word or sound association. It’s incredibly satisfying, like a jigsaw piece placed correctly.

Songs are also a huge source of echolalia for me. I can happily listen to the same song on repeat (which I think counts as a stim), and I’ll find myself repeating sections of the song at random out loud.

I once spent weeks muttering the line ‘pickin’ it up, pickin’ it up, I’m lovin’, I’m livin’, I’m pickin’ it up’ from Ariana Grande’s song ‘No Tears Left to Cry’ to myself, day in, day out. As you can imagine, this got old fast for the people around me!

I can self-police it, but it requires large efforts of masking to rein it in. Would I change it? No, it truly gives me joy. I can imagine for other people it can be dangerous however; the potential for people to think you are disrespectful and rude is high. Hopefully as understanding of autism develops, so does the understanding of echolalia and the joy it can bring.

Thank you so much for reading.

I write Wavy Thoughts because I think it’s important for autistic and ADHD people to document their lives and express themselves. If you’d like to read more of my work, please consider subscribing.

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You can also support this newsletter by liking, commenting, re-stacking this post on Substack or sharing it with a friend. The newsletter is growing rapidly and I’m so thrilled so many of you have subscribed. Plans for the book of essays about autism and ADHD are still being developed, and I’ll let everyone know when you can pre-order (paid subscribers will receive the news first via The Book Diaries).

Take it easy,

Ren

PS. If you liked this post, you might also like:

The Colour of Music - by Ren Riley - Wavy Thoughts

Synaesthesia, autism and me

Wanted: A Special Interest - by Ren Riley - Wavy Thoughts

I'm currently without a special interest and it sucks

I get tattoos to remind me that my body exists

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The Joy of Cringe - by Ren Riley - Wavy Thoughts

One person's special interest is another person's ick and I really don't care anymore.