monotropism and neurodivergent soup
today i cancelled my appointment to get evaluated for adhd. time will tell if this was a mistake, but it feels like the right decision for me at the moment.
going to counselling combined with a lifetime of maladaptively unending self-reflection has made one thing ultimately clear to me - i am a neurodivergent weird lil guy, in ways that have made my life fundamentally difficult and, although i hate to admit it, overall very lonely since i was a kid.
however, diagnoses didn't come easy to me (thus far, they haven't come at all) because my presentation of being neurodivergent falls outside the longstanding stereotypical education of what that looks like. i'm what some people call "high-functioning," or, as is the correct term nowadays, "low support needs", so i have always performed well in school, and sat still, and overall drew little attention despite my struggles.
since i've been more aware of how being neurodivergent affects my life, it's been helpful to stop beating myself up and trying to make myself conform to other people's behaviours and frameworks. this paradigm shift, ironically, has actually made me much, much more "normal" and well-adjusted by neurotypical standards because i have become way happier and more self-accepting, which reduces the amount of depression/anxiety/overall stress that messes with my functioning. it has also resulted in me trying to disentangle a soup of issues i have and trying to determine - is this a depression thing? an anxiety thing? a symptom of autism or adhd? or some strange cocktail of several?
in this soup quest, i have discovered (just today) that executive dysfunction is actually a symptom of autism, and it's connected to monotropism. i have never heard this word before, but this explains so much of my behaviour and workflow:
a tendency to focus attention tightly has a number of psychological implications, with it being seen as a state of "tunnel vision". while monotropism tends to cause people to miss things outside their attention tunnel, within it, their focused attention can lend itself to intense experiences, deep thinking, and, more specifically, flow states. however, this form of hyperfocus makes it harder to redirect attention, including starting and stopping tasks, leading to what is often described as executive dysfunction in autism, and stereotypies or perseveration, where a person's attention is repeatedly drawn back to the same subject or activity.
i always thought this was an adhd thing, but apparently it can be a sign of autism too - a quite fundamental one, at that. my monotropism causes me to be able to focus on a task or problem for long periods of time and be incredibly productive at this specific, narrow thing; however, it makes it difficult for me to track, juggle, and triage multiple priorities. my mom has described this as me being "intense" and my dad, who has the same tendency and likely also has some degree of autism, has described it as being "a dog with a bone" - once we are stuck on an issue, we have a hard time letting it go until it's resolved.
so, this has suggested to me that maybe i don't have adhd after all - i lack a lot of the other symptoms besides the brutal executive dysfunction and hyperfocus, but if that can be explained by autism, that would make a lot of sense. i have other reasons for being hesitant to go down the path of getting evaluated/treated for adhd - specifically the costs, relative inaccessibility of it, and the fact that stimulants can worsen anxiety, which is by far my worst problem at the moment. the best channels for me to get evaluated for adhd are private, and they're also more of a pay-to-play, if-you-want-a-diagnosis-and-meds-here-you-go situation, whereas i'm moreso concerned as to whether or not i have the condition. which is seeming more unlikely all the time, even as i got down to doing the intake forms / self-evaluation.
looking at things this way, i think my main focus shouldn't be trying to pursue medication and accommodations; rather, i should be trying to find strategies and structures to implement in my daily life that work with my cognitive structure instead of against it. easier said than done, but i think this approach will pay back dividends in the long run.
i'm at my happiest when i can direct all of my focus on a challenging task - reading and interpreting a difficult philosophical text or case; playing a difficult, complex video game; having an engaging, fast-paced, intellectually stimulating conversation. but i'm also intimidated by difficult tasks, especially social ones that involve a lot of ambiguity. so, i think i need to:
- lower the stakes
- get started and let my attention carry me
- minimize external distractions
- make things more challenging / creative / stimulating if necessary
- block out large, structured blocks of time to work on tasks, rather than switching between them constantly or expecting myself to easily transition between tasks
that way, i can take advantage of my ability to get in a flow state, and hopefully minimize some of the things that i struggle with the most (initiation, prioritization, avoiding external distractions). from an emotional perspective, i tend to get stuck on a problem and have a hard time removing my focus from it, leading to anxiety spirals that are hard to get out of. so, i need to develop some strategies that pull my focus away from things when it's no longer productive for me.
i'm just one person, but i think monotropism does a lot to serve as a central underlying feature of my neurodivergence, whatever it is.