"Autistic pride is impossible without weird pride"
Fergus Murray on attention tunnels, the duality of flow, and weird pride
It’s the monotropism episode!!!!
I got to talk to Fergus Murray about growing up with the theory of monotropism, their emerging research on the Monotropism Questionnaire, why ADHDers don’t always see themselves in monotropism at first (even though it could actually explain a lot), how the theory might be more helpful for understanding executive dysfunction, what’s on the dark side of flow, and the importance of weird pride.
Fergus: I accepted early in my life that I was weird, because people kept telling me, I didn't have that much choice. But I was fortunate to be in the kind of family and social milieu where weirdness is kind of celebrated, you know. I realized that all of the most interesting people are quite weird.
Jesse: True!
Fergus: But, you know, autistic people in particular just are weird. Like, we are —we process things different from most people. The average person tends to find the average autistic person weird. And because of that, autistic pride is impossible without weird pride. You know, if you're in denial about being weird, or you're trying to hide your weirdness, then you can't really be at peace with being autistic. It just doesn't work.
But that's true for all kinds of things. Every identifiable minority is seen as kind of weird, and yet we venerate normality in this culture in a really mixed up way, where we also celebrate people being themselves and being authentic and standing out, and you know, we love geniuses, and we fully expect them to be weird. We know that the average scientist is a weirdo, the average artist is a weirdo, right?
But then it's kind of like, you need to justify your weirdness with a sufficient level of genius or something, which is just gross. It's grossly unjust and unnecessary. And I want everyone to accept the things about them that make them kind of weird, and celebrate them.
Jesse: Yeah, you're right, every movie for kids is about this weird outsider who doesn't fit in, and then they like, save the world. But we don't actually like the weird outsiders in real life!
Fergus: Yeah, it's such a weird thing, right? [laughs] We go to school, and from an early age, we're exposed to all of these stories about weirdos who are clearly weirdos, right?
They're unambiguously identified as being strange in the stories, and they're the heroes of the story. At the same time, anyone who is seen as weird in the classroom is bullied for it, is chastised for it, and often by teachers as well as their peers. That's why we need Weird Pride.
Listen to the rest on Substack, Spotify, or Apple, or read the transcript here.
Show Notes: Light Flow vs Dark Flow
In the episode, we talk about a couple papers related to flow, which I thought you might like some nice bullet points for, because my brain no working make good sentences today okay here we go:
📝 Towards autistic flow theory: A non-pathologising conceptual approach
The authors wanted to think about how the theory of flow states might be a helpful way to study autism without the deficit framing, and also just generally help people understand autistic experience
They note how positive psychology accounts of flow mirror diagnostic criteria for autism, stuff like ‘intense focus on certain tasks or activities’ that leads to losing track of time, having trouble task-switching, and ‘a strong sense of intrinsic motivation towards activities of interest’
Autistic people often use sensory experience to get into a flow state (I’m currently using this playlist!)
High sensation seekers might have different ways to enter flow and be able to stay in flow longer because their perception of the experience is more intense
Flow is not always a peak ecstatic productivity experience or whatever tf Jamie Wheal says about it! There’s also ‘dark flow’, where you get stuck in rumination, anxiety, and compulsion.
Fergus and I touch on this possible link to OCD and bring up this paper, which I have since read and think we could see as an exploration of dark flow:
Autism and OCD co-occur real hard: “a diagnosis of autism doubled the likelihood of also being diagnosed with OCD, and those with OCD were 4 times more likely to later receive an autism diagnosis”
Treatment for OCD in autistic people has to disentangle helpful repetitive behaviors (like stimming) from harmful compulsions
Participants reported that their stimming and intense interests were experienced as a part of the self, whereas OCD was cast as a sort of inner demon: “Agency was often ascribed to OCD with terms such as OCD can ‘creep [around]’’, ‘jump’, ‘latch on’ and ‘cling’ to [repetitive behaviors].”
They said that OCD “hijacks” their routines and “feeds off” their special interests, sometimes ‘intensifying’ and ‘turning a potentially neutral emotional experience’ into a bad thing.
How do you differentiate from being really obsessed with something in a good way, and really obsessed in a bad way?
Dr. Michael Greenberg, who’s developed a rumination-focused version of OCD treatment, says in an interview: “If you like what you’re doing, and you’re doing it on purpose, that’s not OCD.” I think this vibes with what the autistic subjects in this study were saying. OCD as an entity outside the self that they can’t control — hijacking, feeding, clinging.
Okay I’m going to stop ruminating about how imperfect this post is now and click send, pls listen to the episode and dump all related info/epiphanies here:
As a late-diagnosed multi-ethnic Autistic in my 60's all we had was weird.
The bullet points were helpful! I often utilize them when I’m struggling with laying out my thoughts.
Looking at and understanding the info presented in this way and Murray’s research helps me to understand my experience of OCD (that maybe I am naming for the first time 😅) that is ultimately helpful and feels supportive. Thank you.