Monotropism, Me, And My Mind: How I Process Things

My mind is like this: it's not that I process things more slowly than anyone else (if anything I suspect it's significantly faster), but what I do is process them far more deeply. It might be compared to running a model on a computer -- the more detailed the model, the more accurate the output will be, but you will pay for it in having to wait far longer for the model to run. When my mind has grabbed hold of something, it will not let go of it until it has digested it and understood it.

There is a model of autism called monotropism that holds that the autistic brain focuses on fewer things at any one time than a neurotypical brain does. This is the only model I have come across that accurately describes how I experience what is called "autism" (truthfully, I'm not sure it exists in any meaningful sense, rather than being a collection of disparate traits thrown together by clueless psychologists). I find it a great shame that it isn't given much attention, with people instead promoting ridiculous ideas such as Baron-Cohen's (he has done me much harm; may the Lord reward him according to his works) "extreme male brain/empathising-systemising" theory. Had it been mainstream when I was growing up, I feel I would have benefited a lot from the insight into my own mind, where my strengths and potential pitfalls lie. Instead, I had to deal with people, who make the incredibly offense and untrue claim that I lack the ability to understand that other people are people, being feted as "experts"...

So, what is it like when I'm getting to grips with something? What does this extra processing involve? For me, it's that I turn everything over. I can't grab one potential interpretation and run with it, I have to view it from all angles and all possible lenses to gain a full understanding. To grok it. Grabbing the trunk of an elephant isn't enough for me, I need to feel my way along its entire body so as to know truly how it is shaped. To switch between ways of thinking to find the one most appropriate to understand an aspect of it.

This, of course, takes time. The cost of having a more accurate model of reality is that it takes me a lot longer to run through the OODA loop. I suspect this is a big part of my introversion -- the conversations of large groups move far too quickly to process what has been said before we're talking about something else, and my need to understand makes me favour a small number of deep relationships over a large number of shallow ones. I want to truly understand the other person, how they think and how they feel and what they like and what they fear; this means that I have to devote far more cognitive resources to the relationship than a casual "friendship" requires.

This has been present in me from early childhood. I would become obsessed with something, and would not be able to drop it until my mind has finished with it. Dolphins, otters, dragons, sea colonisation, space colonisation... this tendency to obsession is still present in me today, though having gained a far broader range of interests (I find almost everything fascinating, and have cycled through a great many topics) helps somewhat with being able to switch to something more appropriate at the moment I am in, and I can with a small amount of difficulty shift my mind on to a different track. It is a blessing, but as with everything in life it comes with a tradeoff.

So if you see me posting monomanically on a subject, this is probably what is happening: I have found something to chew on and will chew on it till it becomes unchewable.

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