What is monotropy?
Monotropy is a neurodivergent processing style often associated with autism. It involves the brain’s attention resources being strongly drawn to one focus of attention and interest at a time, rather than attention being shared between a larger number of things at once.
Monotropy can lead to really enjoyable and productive experiences at times; the ‘hyperfocus’ of getting really ‘stuck in’ to something (like spending 8 hours looking at holiday accommodations with nice bath tubs, or researching how 3D printers work). It can also lead to the ‘flow state’ of doing something where time passes and you feel completely in the moment; you might’ve experienced this creating a piece of art, playing a game or doing a jigsaw puzzle, then looking up and realising 4 hours have passed and you didn’t notice.
However, when attention and activity then need to switch, this can feel overwhelming and draining. All of your resources have been focused in one direction, so then needing to totally refocus elsewhere can feel like a monumental effort, or extremely stressful. Monotropy can make it feel incredibly difficult to transition from one activity to another, or one state to another. In practice, this can make it hard to do things like switching quickly between tasks at work, getting out of bed in the morning and into the shower, or trying to work out what to make for dinner after a busy day.
Will I feel this way forever?
Monotropy can also apply to emotional states, as well as physical ones. This means that emotions can feel all-consuming in the moment (“when I am sad, it feels like it has always been this way and always will be this way”). It can feel hard to recall things ever being different, and therefore harder to really believe in happier times because that involves holding multiple emotional states in mind at once. It can also make the magnitude of emotional responses difficult to make sense of, such as why an unexpected request at work landing in your inbox when you’re in the middle of something else can feel so catastrophic.
For someone who experiences monotropy, feelings of depression or stuckness could come about through ‘monotropic collapse’. This might happen when you have no active channels of interest, or your channels of interest aren’t accessible to you right now (for example, you enjoyed studying a certain subject at uni but your degree is finished so you now feel lost). When there are no sources of enjoyable monotropic engagement, life can start to feel like a series of draining tasks. Small goals may feel impossible, because they don’t fit inside a motivating monotropic focus, so they feel meaningless or lacking in motivational pull. In simple terms, nothing is exciting you or grabbing your attention and allowing you to access that engaged state.
Couple this with the daily overwhelm of too many options (what to have for dinner?), competing demands for attention (work emails coming in, messages from friends that need replying to, the bathroom that needs cleaning), and expectations of others, this can lead to a freeze response where you might start to feel shut down, paralysed and completely unable to do much of anything at all. So, something like depression viewed through the lens of autism could be understood as the monotropic brain’s need for focus, colliding with the modern world’s demands for multi-tasking and managing multiple identities, tasks and roles.
Take a minute to think about all the things you tell yourself that you ‘should’ be doing every day. See if you can write a list of all those things.
How do you feel looking at the list?
We often wake up to so many demands on our attention and time; the realities of trying to manage work, our homes and relationships. On top of that come all the messages we internalise about what we should/shouldn’t be doing with our bodies, with our careers, our relationships and our time. For someone with a monotropic mind, trying to divide attention and energy between these is incredibly overwhelming.
Couple all of this with other things that some autistic people experience such as alexithymia (difficulty identifying and expressing emotions), challenges with interoception (being able to recognise your own internal state and physical needs such as pain or hunger), a preference for predictability and routine, the challenges of social situations and the challenges of sensory sensitivity and overwhelm – well, is it any wonder it might feel impossible to get out of bed at times?
So, I’m feeling totally overwhelmed by life and it is hard to enjoy anything much right now. What might be useful for me?
- Harness your monotropy and interests: Build from your existing interests. Are there ways you could use what you’re interested in to connect with communities and people who share those interests? Could one or more of your interests be incorporated into your daily routine, to bring enjoyment and structure to your day? Are there ways of expanding on an existing interest to help find meaning again?
- Make transitions as easy as possible for yourself: Explore all the small ways you could adapt your environment and routines to make transitions as easy as they can be. This could be things like sleeping with your dressing gown next to your bed to make the temperature transition in the morning less jarring; wearing earplugs on your commute, brushing your teeth in the kitchen sink instead of an upstairs bathroom. Even micro changes can make things feel a little more manageable.
- Use external helpers: A gentle alarm sounding in another room, to help you to get up from your computer at lunch time and go to eat. A daily planner with scheduled ‘focus time’ on different tasks to allow you to mentally prepare for the transitions in the day ahead.
- Build decompression time into your routine: Make sure you have time set aside that is free from demands. If any things ‘to do’ pop into your mind or are brought to your attention by someone else, write them on a list all in the same place so that you know that you can return to it another time and don’t have to hold it all in mind right now.
- Utilise your monotropic planning skills: People with monotropic minds may really excel at planning and preparation. See if you’re able to use this to ‘deep dive’ into something like meal planning for the week, or sorting out your weekend plans, so that when that time comes you don’t have to use extra attention to think about those things in that moment – you’re already covered.
- Ask for what you need: Reasonable adjustments at work could look like agreeing with your manager that you will only check and respond to emails at a set time each day, or that you will have uninterrupted time scheduled each week to complete your work tasks. Outside of work you might ask friends or family for support with protecting your time to invest in the things you enjoy, making sure you have time scheduled in each week for your hobbies, and asking them to help minimise any other interruptions or requests at during the times you’ve set aside for your interests.
- Create a ‘happy states’ box: If you find yourself getting stuck in difficult emotional states where it is hard to remember it ever being different, this might be useful for you. Create a ‘box’ (physical or digital) of happier moments in your life. Include photos of things you’ve enjoyed doing in the past, people in your life, places you’ve visited. Add in a playlist and some objects that you associate with happy or meaningful times (note: if you find that you associate these memories with loss, or they make you compare your current state negatively to your past states, then this might not be helpful for you). You could also add in little things that you find enjoyable /pleasurable to connect with in this moment – a piece of chocolate, a soft toy to hug, a warm weighted blanket, something that you enjoy smelling.
If you’re interested in starting therapy to explore how aspects of your neurodivergence impact you, and what might help, feel free to get in touch.
Natalie Wood Counselling 