Ich vermute ja seit einiger Zeit, dass ich maybe undiagnostiziert auf dem Autismus-Spektrum sein könnte. Ich habe ein paar Selbsttests gemacht, die in diese Richtung deuten. Aber es behindert mich nicht (mehr) stark. Ich leb ja nun auch schon 40+ mit mir und komme ganz gut klar. So, who knows... 🤷
Gestern habe ich aber einen Test gemacht, der von 3 Psycholog_innen entwickelt wurde, die selbst autistisch sind/waren, der #Monotropism ermittelt. Und was soll ich sagen... There's no denying.
Started reading about monotropism and wow, that does resonate. For instance, getting stuck on one thought in a meeting and if there's no right time to say it -- often there isn't as there's usually someone else to take the space -- it takes a while to let that thought go. When the topic shifts -- it might even be a relatively slight shift -- I have hard time getting on top of the new topic.
I was especially interested to read about how affect and motivation affect (no pun intended) attention. If something is interesting (positive affect), there's high motivation to work on that. If something isn't interesting (no positive affect), the motivation might be to cope in the situation. Then the actual situation flies past.
When I'm working on certain job or hobby projects, they are rewarding in themselves. I've got no problem staying focused on them even longer than I've reserved time. But then there are things such as meetings, lectures and talks where I often struggle to stay focused, especially if it's not super interesting.
In these situations, when the focus starts to get lost, my motivation shifts to trying to stay focused. I start missing what is being said. I can feel the tiredness approaching and I start pinching myself to stay awake. I register even less. I might start falling into hypnagogic state which has happened so many times that I've learned to doze off without my head falling.
I have to find new ways to focus in those situations. Or if it's not important for my work, to give myself permission to do something else such as doodle in my notebook.
This Friday (tomorrow) at 4pm, AMASE Chair @ferrous will be talking with Pete Wharmby, autistic author, about #autism, #writing, #education, #monotropism and all that sort of thing.
Tickets are free and open to anyone. This event will be recorded.
Generally I am on the small details side. But I saw a post about systems thinking today. When it comes to technical problems like software, data flow or a scientific hypothesis, I have the feeling I have everything simultaneously in my mind. All the small details, but all at once.
I want to write a bit more about the issue of "tech" being used as a catch all term for the computer and software industries and their specific products from my own point of view as an #ActuallyAutistic person.
I won't talk here for every autistic person but only through my own experience, so anyone with a different experience which mine doesn't seem to articulate, please chime in and give us your perspective if you can.
My autistic brain works in a near 100% conscious mode. I engage with things intellectually and with vivid awareness, or I can't engage at all.
This means that if I hear or read a term, everything I know about that term (or more precisely all of the neural structure of my brain referring to that term) starts firing in some kind of a "ready" mode. When I hear the word "tech", since its a very broad term, my brain starts recalling every possible connotation of that word that I know of, until the context it's used in becomes clear so it can disregard the unused portion of the entirety of possible paths from "tech".
This uses an enormous amount of energy, both to load and to unload, and I kind of feel it happen. My blood pressure changes, sugar levels fluctuate, stress hormones and their inhibitors get released.
And all of the effects of these physiological processes create their own vivid emotions and feelings.
When someone is talking about pieces of software, within the actual context of software, using the term software, this isn't jarring to me as the amount of activity triggered in my brain perfectly coincides with the actual usage I get out of it. There's still an enormous amount of information potentially useless for that specific conversation, but there's time, and the extras are still close to the useful context so thinking out of the box solutions and new ideas become easy, which is at least satisfactory, if exhausting.
When someone says "tech" but talks about specific programming languages, my brain first gets ready to talk about any possible piece about the anthropological phenomenon of technology, then immediately is forced to switch to the "programming languages" category, which also triggers the software category because in order for my brain to do the conscious translation from "technology" to "programming language" it has to go through the "software technologies" category which sits between "tech" and "programming languages".
As I said earlier, this is jarring, exhausting and very uncomfortable.
This is what NT psychologists mean when they say "autistic people take things literally."
What that remark doesn't reveal is the mechanism that manifests this result.
I don't "take" things literally. I just consciously engage with every possible literal or non-literal connotation of a word until the context is apparent and my brain can settle itself into the needed part and filter out the rest.
@cynaq@actuallyautistic I’ve been diagnosed for years now & this is my 1st time coming across the term #monotropism / #monotropic
(which is always so exciting to me I love learning new #actuallyautistic#audhd stuff😄)
This one really hits home for me bc I thoroughly do not understand the concept of not being actively interested in a task/topic, but also not being bothered/drained by it. I can’t believe that’s a real thing people experience🤪
But I guess this explains that hahaha
https://monotropism.org/ hosts resources created & maintained by #ActuallyAutistic individuals & features evidence-based #AutismResearch. They hope for fuller #autism understanding & on-topic language development by focusing on the concept of #monotropism: a phenomenon that seems to pervade those on the autism spectrum. Quote: "monotropic minds tend to have their attention pulled more strongly towards a smaller number of interests at any given time, leaving fewer resources for other processes," which may serve as a partial foundation of full understanding of the autism spectrum.
Monotropism is basically a tendency to have tightly focused attention/interest at any given time, and is a leading theory of Autism, explaining more of the standard Autistic traits without assuming deficits than most mainstream theories
https://monotropism.org/ was recently shared to me by a friend. The site hosts resources created by #ActuallyAutistic individuals, is maintained by them, and features evidence-based #AutismResearch with goals of understanding #autism more fully, and developing language to better discuss it. They focus on the concept of #monotropism as a phenomenon that seems to pervade those on the autism spectrum. A direct quote: "monotropic minds tend to have their attention pulled more strongly towards a smaller number of interests at any given time, leaving fewer resources for other processes," which may serve as a partial foundation of full understanding of the autism spectrum.
^ This website is CHOCK full of amazing resources including actual scientific studies, WIP self-diagnosis aids, FREE ADULT ASSSESSMENT HANDBOOK, etc...! (I found the "Updates" tab very useful.)
Additionally, their monotropism questionnaire has been translated into web format: https://dlcincluded.github.io/MQ/ As someone pursuing adult dx, this was a very empowering and encouraging tool for me! The questions are quite well crafted, and it only took a few minutes to confirm "yes I seem rather autistic." (Note: the site does not scrape any data from you, and is not meant to be a full self-diagnosis tool.)
The team at Spectrum Gaming have put together this fantastic child-friendly web site to help people understand what #autism is, and what it means for all of us.
I contributed a couple of bits to this myself, on #monotropism and spiky profiles. I'm one of a large number of contributors, whose work had to pass by an editorial panel of young autistic people.
I really, really hope that before too long, this is the kind of thing that young people will come across first when they look up autism. There's so much work to be done to push aside the unhelpful narratives of autism that have dominated for so long. https://autismunderstood.co.uk/
He played a major role in the development of #Monotropism as a theory of #autism, and worked with my mother for many years, including founding and running Autism & Computing together, at a time when not that many people had recognised the value of computers for autistic people.
He was a friend and mentor, who taught me a huge amount about science, although we had our differences over the years. I put up this page about him today: https://monotropism.org/mike-lesser/
I'm trying to put together a short list of the basic concepts that are essential to understanding the #ActuallyAutistic experience of life. These can be helpful for explaining things to allistics/neurotypicals, but also for seeing ourselves from our own perspective instead of how we are failed NTs. I think it's just a few (albeit big) concepts. Here's my basic list:
#AskingAutistics Do you have your own short list of concepts for understanding or explaining #autism? What are the big ideas that shape your experience of #autistic life?