Is it Spring Fever or a Cognitive Disorder?
Either way, my (apparently) monotropic brain is in charge.
Six, seven, eight times a day this happens.
I go downstairs to spy on the progress of the baby seedlings under the lights. I check the flats on the heating mat to see if any new seeds have germinated. I go outside to peer at the daffodil beds to see if any buds are breaking. I pull the mulch and leaves away from where I know the ruby red peony shoots should be poking through the soil. I walk around the south side of the deck to see how much the rhubarb stalks have grown under their fairy-house canopy of chartreuse leaves.
Then I go back inside, sit at my desk, do a little work — and repeat the whole thing, or some variation of it, an hour or so later.
And this: After my first coffee in the morning and once or twice later in the day, I wander down to the hoophouse to see if anything new has sprouted. The warm air envelopes me and I don’t want to leave. I study each flat, each pot, each plant. Check the progress of the baby bok choy and the kale and the chard and the lettuce. See if there’s anything yet from the snapdragon tray, tucked under a bench to shield it from light. Stare at the three roses leafing out to see if a bud might be forming. Pick a few pansies. Walk back up the hill with the watering cans and refill them.
Go back to my desk.
I have the attention span of a gnat, and ironically, the laser focus of a bat.
Lately, I’ve been more and more curious about what this cognitive combination might be all about. Sure, it’s particularly bad right now, what with spring fever and all. I just can’t seem to stay in my seat for long.
But that is nothing new. When I was little my mother called me a nervous nidget. My teachers told me to stop fidgeting. I routinely escaped, ran away, got out of my chair when I wasn’t supposed to (the Romper Room debacle), got separated from the grownups in a crowded amusement park or shopping mall, or otherwise traveled out of bounds, leaving behind the protected sphere I was supposed to remain in. Of course, this was before ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) was acknowledged as a neurological condition.
I do realize that if I had ADHD then, I could still have it. But every time I read over the indicators, they don’t seem to fit me. I did well in school and as fidgety as I am, I’ve still managed to do my job(s) well, though perhaps by overcompensating.
If it isn’t some type of attention disorder, what is it?
All day long I have trouble focusing, and yet at night, when I am sorting through the pretty packages of flower seeds, filling my trays up with soil in the bathroom, putting the tiny seeds in each cell, writing a tag for each one, filling the tray with water, and laying my babies down on the heating mat, I’m completely focused. So focused, in fact, that I get a little crabby (just a little) when interrupted.
And, to be perfectly honest, I also get crabby when I am trying to focus on more than one thing at the same time and I am asked to engage in conversation as well. I could be preparing dinner and multi-tasking — making a salad dressing, sautéing a vegetable, timing what’s roasting in the oven, grating cheese, lighting candles, warming plates. In my head, I can prioritize how to do this all at the same time, but if I get distracted by conversation, I lose my place and I have to stop everything to talk. I know plenty of people who can talk and make dinner at the same time; I’m not one of them.
When I’m cooking, I’m cooking.
And when I’m writing, I’m writing. When I settle into a groove while writing, I can be so focused that any interruption is upsetting.
My sister tells me (it’s okay, she’s allowed to) that when we were growing up, I wasn’t much fun when I was concentrating on something I loved to do – a puzzle, building LEGO®, reading a Nancy Drew mystery. At other times I remember breaking down in tears when I felt overloaded by too much stimulus. (Christmas morning was especially bad.) My mother and sister would say, “Oh, Susie’s just tired,” as I ran to my room, embarrassed and frustrated. I still have this problem at times (though I don’t run for my room, sobbing!). It may be why I don’t love large social gatherings.
So, a while ago, I decided to poke around a bit and try to learn more about cognitive conditions and disorders. And of course, since Dr. Google is always right, how could I go wrong? Why see an actual doctor when you can self-diagnose? I’m just kidding, of course, but wanted to let you know that you can take what I report next with some skepticism. I do think seeing an actual doctor, a neuro-psychologist, might not be a bad idea.
In my internet travels, I discovered something called monotropism.
Monotropism is a cognitive style – or brain “strategy” – characterized by intense focus on a specific, narrow range of interests to the exclusion of others. It is also characterized by trouble processing multiple things at once, particularly when it comes to multitasking while listening. There is an up-side: while someone with monotropism can get overwhelmed in a social situation or be unable to hold a conversation while deeply focused on something, that same person can also enjoy the benefit of achieving a “flow” state (a.k.a., being in the zone) when totally immersed in what they are doing. Monotropics have fewer channels for processing but an enhanced ability to go deeper into those channels.
Monotropism is an indicator of autism; it is often the predominant style of brain function in autistic individuals. In what I have read, it seems the study of monotropism has contributed to the understanding of autism and has provided pathways for enhancing the positive experiences of autistic people. However, not all monotropic people are autistic (or, more accurately, diagnosed with ASD, Autism Spectrum Disorders).
There is also a significant correlation between monotropism and ADHD.
When I first read about monotropism several months ago, I took the Monotropism Questionnaire, a self-reporting tool with 47 questions to which your answers are assigned a value. Your total score indicates not only whether you fall into the monotropic category, but also where you fall on a scale in relation to others (both autistic and non-autistic) who have taken the questionnaire.
I answered the questionnaire again this week, before looking back at my original score, and the results were just about the same. My score puts me over a dividing line and into monotropic territory, but not by a whole lot. Additionally, on a graph showing the overlapping of monotropic scores with those who are autistic as well as those who are not, my score shows an overlap with only a small percentage of those who are autistic. The chart also shows how your monotropic score overlaps with both ADHD and non-ADHD people, and my score is right around the median of the ADHD folks in this pool (meaning 50 percent of folks with ADHD have a higher score, 50 percent have a lower score.) My score is also one that many non-ADHD and non-autistic people have! So, who knows…
That’s what you get for playing Dr. Google, right? You can’t really expect to hop on the internet, take a questionnaire and self-diagnose. Not usually a good idea, although I have to say, when I took the “official” Michigan alcoholism questionnaire while I was still drinking (almost 19 years ago), I was truly shocked, and it did help me get honest with myself.
But in this case, I probably haven’t learned much more than I already knew about my brain, except that there is (possibly) one term to describe it: monotropic. And that being monotropic does not mean that I (necessarily) have ADHD or ASD. (I know some of you reading this have one or both of these diagnoses, so I don’t want you to think I am trivializing them in any way by lumping my experiences in with yours. I always try to examine my motives, and in this case, I think I’m just looking for an explanation for some of the more confounding parts of my personality!)
I do think this field trip has helped me understand a little better why I feel distress when pulled away from something I love and am intently focused on – like the gardening this time of year. It just kills me to drag myself away from it.
But, then again, you might say that’s not so unusual. I bet you’d rather be out in the fresh air, too, wouldn’t you? 👩🌾
I feel like we are on the cusp of understanding different brain workings and hopefully can move away from “disorders” as if one brain type is normal and every other one is broken and move towards understanding and accommodation. My brain absolutely cannot bear being stuck inside with no windows, but as you point out, wouldn’t anyone prefer to be outside (or at least by a window)? So maybe by accommodating that we’d all be happier?
There’s this wonderful book called “Our Green Heart: The Soul and Science of Forests” by Dr. Diana Beresford-Kroeger and one of the many things she taught me is that trees communicate via aerosols. And when they awake in the spring, they release a lot of these aerosols. And about half of them interact with the human brain as medicine, calming us down and creating that feeling of euphoria. So Spring Fever is a literal, measurable medicine from the trees. How cool is that???
You know, this whole multi-tasking thing... It's even listed as prequisites in job applications. Neuroscience tells us that multi-tasking is not all our society cracks it up to be. Go love your flowers. Give yourself to flow. Revel in it. I wonder how many of us actually have "Aversion to current societal expectations and demands syndrome"? (Yeah I made that up just now but I'm pretty sure I have it) I love Substack and learn from and engage with some wonderful people here. And...I'm ready to throw this whole technological world in the too hard basket and delight in nature as has always been my default.