Can't See The Forest For The Trees (Bottom-Up Thinking)

OK, this is a genius thread....I write this to bump it back up so I can remember to write properly when I can find requisite time to find the spoons.  Nice one Pikl.

It's horrific isn't it.

I've learnt a lot about myself this weekend. Though the information itself doesn't help. I still rock and want to cry because my thoughts and everything that's in my head is overwhelming. I still want to do anything to make it stop, I even fantasize about drilling into my skull to make it stop. So knowing why doesn't really help except to validate my experience. 

I can see why people would consider those who describe it to be mad. That's not giving an excuse to the despicable treatment of autists or other neurodivergent individuals.

I've kept it quiet myself thinking I was crazy.

Yeah in the not so distance past, doctors trained in psychosis, used to diagnose people with schizophrenia for having a vivid imagination.. when really we just had better interactions in our head than with neurotypicals..

Do you have conversations with people in your head, then later have no idea if you actually spoke with them or not? 

I get stressed when people pull me out of my inner world. 

I have difficulty with understanding that also. How can you know how someone else feels to then compare it. There are times when my emotions are so jumbled that I have no idea what I'm feeling, or sometimes why I'm feeling certain emotions at a given time.

I love researching, or collecting information. And I have a need to try to make sense of myself. It's hard to take generic autistic traits and apply them to your own experiences. Every now and again I stumble upon something that is described in a way that makes sense to me.

Pikl said:

You're amazing! I'm heading into research heaven

Really! Thanks for the compliment! I am glad you are in research heaven, enjoy it there! I hope you don’t get pulled out of a flow state.

Interesting topic! We autistic people often have very rich inner worlds myself included. I often feel like I am talking to a different person when I speak or think in third person for example, speaking in third person helps me feel more connected to myself. I used to have imaginary friends as well.

It's possible that seeing things explained differently would resonate with me more. I still feel somewhat suspicious of the subjective criteria some autistic people use for comparing themselves to allistics e.g. I've seen a couple of people say that they "feel things more intensively" than others which I struggle to conceptualise let alone prove.

I had assumed that everyone was like me, just a lot better at it. Some articles I read hinted at internal noise and so I started asking people I knew if they experienced the same, and they didn't. So I started actively looking for more information. 

I've read things about sensory difficulties, and thought well that doesn't relate to me. Then I found it explained in a different way, and I could relate that to me. 

I'm just starting to believe my diagnosis, after almost 2 years. Finding traits explained in a different way has helped, and finding explanations for things that I thought were because something was very wrong with me has helped.

I do. I’d say that from a neurotypical-standpoint you memorise, you absorb and after you absorb you understand.  
Sometimes it’s the other way around and you cannot learn it until you understand it.. that has been my experience. Sometimes I just need to wait until it clicks and I download and memorise, other times, I just find myself cluelessly floating along (you don’t wanna see me drive..).

You're amazing! I'm heading into research heaven

the autistic inner world is the fantasy world that we can create inside our heads. It's also the place where we have our conversations with people either real or imaginary. And for some people (myse included) it's where we have a conversation with our inner self, that's like a seperate person with different point of view. Great for debates.until I found it today I honestly thought I was very daged.

When I was trying to get diagnosed, I read quite a few first-person accounts to compare with my own experiences, to try to convince myself, and the psychiatrist, that I was on the spectrum. I didn't really read anything scientific though and still have not. To be honest, it scares me a little, as my limited exposure is that those papers relate experiences that I so different to my own that I fall down the "I'm not really autistic, I'm just rubbish at life" rabbit hole. Difficulty comparing myself with others (autistic and allistic) doesn't help. I suppose I intuitively think my head is "noisy" (to use your example), but then I think that I have no way of knowing what's going on in other people's heads (autistic or allistic) for comparison, so what is the basis for that assertion?

You are very welcome. I look forward to chatting with you, it would be really cool! What do you mean by autistic inner worlds?

I assume you mean autistic cognition in which case monotropism is at the core of our cognitive style.

I save all or most of the information I find onto my phone’s Reading List or my specific autistic experience Notes folder.

It seems like you already know about the great collection of autistic blogs that is Neuroclastic, but on the website there is a comprehensive document which I think is called Understanding The Autistic Mind. It’s brilliant, very detailed!

Here is the link to the PDF:

https://neuroclastic.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/UNDERSTANDING-THE-AUTISTIC-MIND-11.pdf

Enjoy your autistic experience research deep dive!

DeSpereaux said:

A person fails maths at school, but becomes a masterful mechanic, and working with precision. 
I think that the gateway to mechanics for some, can be through a textbook or lecture, but for others it is a question of exposure and understanding a solution. 

Ah you mean to say the difference is learning is not just academic vs non academic but also visual, audio, and tactile etc?

Hmm.. I think that the point I’m trying to hit is one of, what the gateway to competency is for certain individuals, for example:    
A person fails maths at school, but becomes a masterful mechanic, and working with precision. 
I think that the gateway to mechanics for some, can be through a textbook or lecture, but for others it is a question of exposure and understanding a solution. 

If two engineers with two different means of competency engage each other, they may not understand each other, but still be masters of their craft.  
So if a person with a typical-cognition is taught by one with an atypical-cognition (or vice versa). A student may walk-away unaware that there was a master within him, so I believe that learning can be made easier, and that it is easier when you have learnt.

So I think my point is , less about a problem being easy, and more about how a person goes about making a problem look-easy. They are masters of that problem, having mapped the problem, as they have used the correct means of absorbing information for them.

Monotropism is a great theory of explaining how the Autistic brain works https://monotropism.org/in-practice/ It's not exactly a one-thing-at-a-time, but requires external and affirmed space-time for focused-free-play and reinforced reminders to finish one-thing-at-a-time. It is also the theory behind Everything-all-at-once or as a few philosophers would say, Mise-en-scène.

The key to this appears to be with our Gamma waves not only making full-brain connexions at high speed, but these same waves are responsible for flow-state. It is a theory that helps explain why we can find what connects seemingly disparate elements and can be helpful to explain why it's important to do one thing at a time. Essentially, if everything in the mind were stuffed into ones room, it would be a great deal of chaos requiring sorting through one element at a time.

The explanation can help parents and educators who don't have this same experience to be mindful about the internal happenings and how to help kids better function, for instance. 

So essentially it seems the ability for our Salience Network to catch all the detail without dulling the senses like our NT peers works in connexion to the Flow-State potential of the Monotropic function. I don't feel these are contradictory. They contain a great potential for calculations and reasoning which society requires. Like any natural inclination or talent, these co-functioning mechanisms will need mentoring and room to grow into. All talents need practical steps and application to perfect ability. 

Oh I see this contradiction too! 
I really can only cope with the ‘oneness’ of activities or items in a room when trying to tidy up…

Invariably a thousand  other  activities or objects cram into my busy brain which then means I’ve lost the one activity I wanted to do and I sit and do nothing ( or binge eat….but that’s another story ). 

Unknown said:

But yes I do think our brains approach the world from a detail first perspective.

Because we are monotropic.

Unknown said:

I thought monotropism was "one thing at a time".

Yes exactly, single attention tunnels.

I thought monotropism was "one thing at a time". But yes I do think our brains approach the world from a detail first perspective.

Thank you so much! I'm excited to start exploring. Though I'm looking at autistic inner worlds at the moment, and I have to hand copy the information I find. One of my quirks

I would really enjoy a chat also, that would be amazing.