Blog - Mighty Monotropical

Mighty Monotropical

A quietly obsessive field report

Unwell Club

Monotropism is a cognitive theory developed by Dinah Murray, Wenn Lawson, and Mike Lesser. It offers a way of understanding how some minds—particularly autistic ones—engage with the world: through focused, immersive attention, often at the expense of flexibility.

It’s not a diagnosis. It’s not a trend. It’s a theoretical model—one that resonates with many, and raises useful questions even where it doesn’t fully explain.

What It Describes

In a monotropic attention system, the mind tends to concentrate on a limited number of interests or inputs at any given time. Attention runs deep, not wide. It resists disruption. It resists redirection.

Polytropic systems—more typical in neurotypical cognition—distribute attention broadly and adapt fluidly across contexts.

Monotropic systems commit. Often past the point of convenience.

What It Might Look Like

This isn’t a checklist, but some common traits reported by people who identify with monotropism include:

• Becoming absorbed in a task to the point of neglecting basic needs

• Experiencing cognitive dissonance when forced to switch focus abruptly

• Needing to complete or exhaust an interest before disengaging

• Finding small environmental changes unusually destabilising

The experience of being “locked in” is often described as both empowering and isolating. It can fuel sustained work, deep learning, or creative flow. It can also fracture daily life into things that fit and things that don’t.

A Caution on Interpretation

Monotropism is a model. It hasn’t been widely adopted in clinical settings, and research into its implications is ongoing. It may describe a useful pattern. It may not apply to everyone.

But it’s a starting point—a counterweight to assumptions about how attention should function.

And the Shirt?

“Feelin' Mighty Monotropical” is not intended as a punchline. It’s a gesture—toward recognition, toward solidarity, and toward the refusal to pathologise a difference in cognitive rhythm.

For those whose minds don’t scan lightly across things but plunge into them.

For those who’ve been told to be more adaptable, more responsive, more manageable.

For those who can’t, and sometimes wouldn’t want to anyway.

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