What is your opinion on Monotropism. How much legitimate is
For example, when I was in seventh grade, my social studies teacher gave us an assignment to rewrite the entire US Constitution in our own words. He gave us the assignment on Friday and it was to be turned in on Monday. I was the ONLY student who completed the assignment because I was the only one who could hyperfocus. He had thought it was going to be an impossible task but I proved him wrong. And that was in 1978 where there were no computers in people's homes and internet did not exist. So it was all handwritten, I didn't have time to type it, and it was all done with from reading the Constitution in a book. I was so angry when he gave everyone in the class an A no matter how little the rest of them had been able to accomplish. I felt like I was the only person who deserved the A. He gave them all an A because the point of the exercise was to try to have us get a sense of how difficult it was to write the original document. Personally, I think a bunch of Autistic people wrote the original document but that is another story.
But hyperfocusing is the ability to focus on a task or on something in an abnormally excessive way.
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"I'm bad and that's good. I'll never be good and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me."
Wreck It Ralph
I agree with this.
I'll add that during hyperfocus I pretty much forget I have a body.
I'll forget to eat or even go to the bathroom because I don't think about it.
My house could catch fire and I likely wouldn't notice.
I'm completely engrossed in one thing to an abnormal extent, for a long period of time.
I also have ADHD so it's a battle between "can't focus" and "hyperfocus".
I can't force hyperfocus to happen but rather it just happens on its own.
It's like I get possessed by a certain thought or task and I can't control it.
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And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
Humans are drawn to certain subjects of thought. Nts are drawn to practical things, or to things that will gain them social status, or mates, or money. Autistics are drawn to the thing for thing itself. I suppose that that would be the difference. Both have 'thought tropisms', but autistic thought tropisms are not as adaptive, or are maladaptive.
Nicely put, I would add that there is something to autism that has value in it and we all feel that. Being "drawn to the thing for the thing itself" sounds to me like the building block of civilisation. A virtue fit for enlightened beings. Maladaptive for the individual under certain circumstances, yes. But extremely beneficial for the society as a whole.
I don't think I have the ability to hyperfocus then. I've never been too hyperfocused to remember to eat, sleep or go to the toilet. Even when writing my stories, which I love doing, I can't focus for long periods of time, as I lose focus when I get writer's block. Also I can't sit still for long periods of time, I have to get up and get something to eat or drink or fiddle with. Sometimes I switch activities.
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Female
Same with me. I guess in this theory, hyperfocus is not a voluntary one. It's hyperfocusing in distractions as much as hyperfocusing in your special interest. You can also hyperfocus in memories of bad events. That would explain why we ruminate so much.
It makes sense to me.
Monotropism could explain all kinds of issues I have - not just hyperfocus but also the inability to attend to two things at once such as talking and driving, and the way I get stuck in one thought pattern (rumination). My brain has heavy steering, it only wants to go in one direction.
Yeah it might be that your ADHD is dominant, stopping you from getting into hyperfocus. If it helps to know, you're probably much better at switching tasks and coming up with interesting ideas. My daughter is like that, she can't focus but can be quite creative in short bursts.
Same with me. I guess in this theory, hyperfocus is not a voluntary one. It's hyperfocusing in distractions as much as hyperfocusing in your special interest. You can also hyperfocus in memories of bad events. That would explain why we ruminate so much.
I do ruminate a lot, like feel emotions intensely and obsess over things. I'm the sort of person who can't get over something until I have closure (answers, reassurance, understanding, etc). Not in all cases though, just sometimes. I'm not very good at letting things go. But I've met NTs that are like this too, so maybe it's down to a stubborn personality, I don't know.
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Female
When I was 12 I literally got obsessed with Spanish, and I really wanted to learn how to speak Spanish fluently. So I saved up my pocket money and bought a book to help me learn Spanish, and it came with CDs to listen to. But I couldn't focus on it no matter how hard I tried. I knew a few words in Spanish but couldn't speak a full sentence. I just kept forgetting.
The obsession died in the end.
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Female
RetroGamer87
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