It's probably totally unrelated to any of this, but I also think primarily (though not entirely) nonverbally, and expressing myself always involves translating nonverbal thoughts into words.
And, for what it's worth, I'm a native English speaker trained (but horribly out of practice) in German (and Latin and Mandarin and Tibetan and Hungarian and Greek and Esperanto and Lojban --don't ask me to communicate in any of them without several weeks of remedial practice!).
Latin and Greek would be good too, of course. For the classics, or classical education I didn't have. Went totally technical early on.
"Fachidiot", so to speak ;-)
In my defense, I've had some decent fluency a couple of time in the past. I ran into a German couple in Athens once and we had a nice conversation. They said nice things about my German :-).
But now in all those languages except English I'm just a dabbler.
At least I know that I can acquire some fluency; I've been able at different points in the past to carry on basic conversations in German and Hungarian and Mandarin, and read some of the easier classical texts in Latin and Greek and Tibetan.
The idea of improving my skills in any of them (or all of them!) is appealing enough for me to occasionally work on them (especially on Latin and Greek), but my attention inevitably gets captured by my numerous other interests, and my language skills fade again.
Worse, there's a long list of other languages that I think are really interesting, and that I would no doubt acquire if only it were quick and easy enough. As it is, though, I mostly just read about languages because they're so interesting. Well, and construct them. Conlanging is a hobby, too.
Btw., the English lessons I had in school were rather boring and uninspiring. I didn't really learn it that way, that happened when I had to read Neuromancer by William Gibson, and didn't get it. So I bought a small to middle dictionary from Langenscheid and read it again with the dictionary at hand. Then it somehow clicked for me.
That worked for reading, hearing not so much. That came later by watching movies, news(BBC/CNN), listening to radio(BFBS), and having at least some fluency in speaking even later, because of work.
Nowadays I'm only caught slightly off guard when someone is unexpectedly speaking to me in English in daily life, like people asking for the way, to some location, or things like that. Sometimes I need one to two seconds until it registers what they said, or asked. Sometimes not at all, instantly.
Oh, and under stress my German is getting worse, I'm at a loss for words, have to really 'search' for them, while I could speak it in English without any problem.
So strange...
Should be "I had that interest when I was younger, but not anymore."
I thought you might like the correction; forgive me if I'm wrong. In my experience, differences in the idiomatic use of verb tenses is one of the more difficult things about learning languages.
If you hear a native English speaker say, "I've been younger," then what they're saying is, "I'm old."
Good night :-)
Not quadratic, and not regular in a geometric way, more like leaves, roughly the shape of a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhombus
It starts as something like a fast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyout within about a second, two at most, and then I'm having this 'screensaver effect' for about 30 seconds to a minute, or so.
Most fields are just scrambled into random positions, sometimes even jumping into others, while about a few dozen are impossible blacks or grays with vertigo inducing feelings, because they seem to jump back and forth between infinity and back. Really hard to describe.
Anyways, this absolutely messes with my orientation, and I shiver or even shake slightly.
However, I do not fall. One time this happened to me while carrying a cup of coffee on a saucer from the coffee machine in a conference room back to my seat. The cup clattered on the saucer because of my shaking, but I managed to put it down on the next table with a loud clack, and drop myself into some spare chair next to the wall.
Without spilling a single drop!
Witnesses described my moves as something like an industrial robot on fast-forward. Not fluent, but in fast and small consecutive steps. But I couldn't see!
Havn't had one of those for years now, also no debilitating pains, those came first. Thing is, I mostly had these when I felt under (time)pressure, stressed, angry. (I think)
For instance, bicycling fast somewhere to be there as arranged? Happened several times, full brake!
Bicycling fast, really pushing it, but just for fun? Never happened. (So far)
Really, really strange!
Funny thing is, MRIs decades later show nothing. According to the radio- and neurologists there arent even traces of something bad, and my brain has exceptionally good blood circulation.
Oh, back to language! At the time this happened I had trouble speaking in several ways. First to find words, then to form/speak them. But only in German, which IS my native language.
Not so in English!
Also I didn't really notice it at first, because I tend to not 'think in words', but mostly visual in pictures, movies, abstract mashups of these.
I also had ataxia, but not one-sided as usual, but right arm, and left leg.
Really, really strange. But mostly gone now.
Except for losing temper fast.
That stayed.
Can't have a better defence against BS though! :-)