My attention span is currently at a level I would describe as “kitten.”

I’ve known for a long time that my attention is directly correlated to the interestingness of the material–this isn’t unusual for kids identified as gifted (nor the adults they grow into), or anyone on the spectrum. In fact, it was this extreme hyperfocus that first had me questioning if I might be on the spectrum as I read tales of kids and their encyclopedic knowledge of topics and saw myself. This one time, I drew the same picture with only minor variations a couple hundred times; I was nine. I suspect I could still draw it.

I’ve also known for a long time that if I’m otherwise engaged, I can pay attention to topics of less interest with some reliability. In a school setting, for example, I’m usually really strongly into one class and then have varying levels of caring about the others–just like anyone else. Because of that high interest class, though, I have this sort of carry-over attention effect making it easier to pay attention to other material that is not as engaging for me. This has led me to the conclusion that I do well in moderate to high stress environments, but yesterday I started thinking (a rare thing these days when my mind lands on a topic and only stays for a few minutes at most), and this may not be the case.

There are different kinds of stress. Google thinks there are three–acute, episodic, and chronic–but that’s not what I mean. Those factors certainly play in, but I think stress can and should be divided by what part of you it engages, not just the length. Intellectual stress would be things like heavy schoolwork, complex reading material (fiction or no), non-rote professional work, puzzle solving. Emotional stress is identifying your own and other people’s feelings, social cues, working with other people. Physical stress could be identifying sensations (like needing to pee or being hungry), things that involve physical labour, or enduring discomfort (like working in a too-cold or too-hot place). Some combination of three things creates the stress, and that can then be chronic, episodic, or acute.

By this system, I really like things that are chronically intellectually stressful, with low levels of emotional or physical stress. I don’t like to move or worry about what my body language says. That is…not how I would currently describe my life. So even while I feel stressed, worrying about money and the cat and immigration, it isn’t the sort of stress that puts me in a position to spend a lot of time thinking. Those stressors are not comfortable for me, so they use up many more spoons than the stressors I like–and because I’ve wasted those spoons, I can’t do the things I enjoy (like reading scienceblogs) which could potentially refresh my spoons.

When I’m stressed–in the bad, not comfortable way–my memory and attention are spotty. I need to have a constant stream of intellectual information coming in–and going out, such as via blogging–to feed my own ruminative processes. Not only do I think they are a good thing, I now think they are essential to my well-being. When I am taking in enough information to have a viable ruminative background process going, my whole mind is working in concert, concious, unconcious, and memory. Being able to ruminate this way requires a precise memory, which is the first thing to go when I’m under stress (I often have no memory of meltdowns, for example–they’re just missing or I have a handful of photograph-like images).

I have been incredibly, risably forgetful lately–and lucky Kit doesn’t mind. Things we discussed multiple times have slipped my mind as if they never were. There is no sense of loss, of having forgotten something. My memory is not recording in the first place. Even when she reminds me, often with my own words, they feel new, unseen.

We talked about it yesterday, and I think it shifted my brain into the right gear to ruminate, because it hit me this morning, how all of this is connected for me: I need intellectual stress (and preferably as little of the other kinds as possible) to function well; I know alternate sources for this when I am not in uni; when I do not get this stress I become unable to seek it out because my will to live attention span grows shorter and shorter the longer I go without; this correlates with an unusually poor memory; these things are because with information coming in, I am able to ruminate properly (like any good ruminant and/or monster), because it is an adaptive and helpful process for me rather than being a destructive way to rehash bad memories or thoughts; therefore I have to just force myself to do something brainy, because it will sort of kickstart the whole process and I will stop feeling leaden. Which is…a helpful conclusion, and hopefully writing this will have done enough kickstarting I’ll no longer feel like my brain is dribbling out my ears slowly and painfully.