Tanya Adkin and David Gray-Hammond are doing great work furthering our understanding of atypical burnout, monotropism, and the intersections of the two. Tanya’s conceptions of Meerkat Mode, Monotropic Split, and Monotropic Spiral really resonate with me. We created new glossary pages and updated our Monotropism and Burnout pages with selections from their work:

• What is meerkat mode and how does it relate to AuDHD? – Emergent Divergence
• Creating Autistic Suffering: What is Atypical Burnout? – Emergent Divergence
• Creating Autistic Suffering: The AuDHD Burnout to Psychosis Cycle- A deeper look – Emergent Divergence
• Guest Post: What is monotropic split? – Emergent Divergence

Meerkat Mode

Lovingly dubbed “meerkat mode” by Tanya due to the heightened state of vigilance and arousal it presents, it involves constantly looking for danger and threat. It is more than hyper-arousal, Tanya believes that it is actually an overwhelmed monotropic person desperately looking for a hook into a monotropic flow-state.

This is not just sensory hyper-arousal, it is the tendency of monotropic [AuDHD] minds to seek out a natural and consuming flow-state to aid recovery from burnout and/or monotropic split. Because of the heightened sensory-arousal and adrenal response that comes with it, monotropic flow becomes difficult to access, leading into monotropic spiral.”

Adkin & Gray-Hammond (2023)

What is meerkat mode?

• Hypervigilance
• Seeking a monotropic flow-state (Hyperfocus)
• Increased Sensory Dysregulation
• May be unable to stop or rest

What is meerkat mode and how does it relate to AuDHD? – Emergent Divergence

What atypical burnout can look like is being stuck in a hyper-aroused state, Tanya often affectionately dubs this as “meerkat-mode”, she describes a meerkat-type nervousness, constantly on the look out for danger, unable to focus and self-regulate creating the need for constant co-regulation with another person, and a fear of being left alone. This is sometimes misinterpreted as attachment disorder because of the childs perceived over-attachment to a parent or safe person. We often see this type of response from children and young people in traumatic school environments for extended periods of time.

Creating Autistic Suffering: What is Atypical Burnout? – Emergent Divergence

Lovingly dubbed “meerkat mode” by Tanya due to the heightened state of vigilance and arousal it presents, it involves constantly looking for danger and threat. It is more than hyper-arousal, Tanya believes that it is actually an overwhelmed monotropic person desperately looking for a hook into a monotropic flow-state.This is not just sensory hyper-arousal, it is the tendency of monotropic minds to seek out a natural and consuming flow-state to aid recovery from burnout and/or monotropic split. Because of the heightened sensory-arousal and adrenal response that comes with it, monotropic flow becomes difficult to access, leading into monotropic spiral.

Creating Autistic Suffering: The AuDHD Burnout to Psychosis Cycle- A deeper look – Emergent Divergence

Monotropic Spiral

Tanya’s original concept of Monotropic spiral results from the inertia of monotropic flow. It may involve obsessive-compulsive type occurrences of rumination about a particular subject of experience that pulls the person deeper and deeper into an all-consuming monotropic spiral. Associative thinking that starts connecting this to anything and everything, seemingly like an ever increasing black-hole (Adkin & Gray-Hammond, 2023; Gray-Hammond & Adkin, 2023).

This can lead to the development of apparent loss of insight into ones own mental state and reality as described by the general population.

Monotropic spiral is not psychosis. It is rather the vehicle that carries the person into psychotic phenomena, and maintains its inertia. Much like a star collapsing on itself, the resultant black-hole sucks in everything in its vicinity and is all-consuming.

A person experiencing monotropic spiral may lose insight and their sense of Self, compounded by a decoupling from shared reality.

Creating Autistic Suffering: The AuDHD Burnout to Psychosis Cycle- A deeper look – Emergent Divergence

Monotropic Split

Monotropic split refers to a very specific type of attentional trauma experienced by monotropic people who are regularly exceeding their attentional resources (Adkin, 2022) in an effort to meet the demands of living in a world designed for non-monotropic (polytropic) people. It inevitably leads to burnout.

Creating Autistic Suffering: The AuDHD Burnout to Psychosis Cycle- A deeper look – Emergent Divergence

So, what happens when a monotropic mind is forced to live in a polytropic way?

A monotropic individual focuses more detailed attention over fewer attention streams than a polytropic (non-Autistic) individual. When they are forced into environments where they must perform like a polytropic person, the amount of attention to detail they apply to multiple attention streams doesn’t decrease, all that happens is the monotropic mind experiences trauma by being pushed into trying to give more attention than any individual can cognitively give.

I call this monotropic split. The monotropic mind is having to split its attention and give more mental energy and attention than it has available to be able to withstand the environment it is in and remain safe.

When we think of an Autistic person experiencing overwhelm, we are thinking of a monotropic mind taking on more than it can process and creating meltdown or shutdown. Therefore, experiencing monotropic split is the cause of meltdown or shutdown.

When we think of an Autistic person who masks, “copes” and “gets by” which eventually leads to burnout or mental health crisis, we are again thinking of a monotropic mind being forced to perform in a way that traumatises its processing capabilities. This is monotropic split causing trauma, burnout, or mental health crisis. 

Guest Post: What is monotropic split? – Emergent Divergence

Autistic burnout starts with monotropic split (Adkin, 2022) over a sustained period of time. Burnout recovery can take months or even years, and the recommended course of action is usually to remove as many demands as possible, and recharge through interest-led activities.

Creating Autistic Suffering: What is Atypical Burnout? – Emergent Divergence

Related pages from our website:

• Monotropism – Stimpunks Foundation
• The Monotropism Questionnaire Is Going Viral – Stimpunks Foundation
• Flow – Stimpunks Foundation
• Polyvagal Theory – Stimpunks Foundation
• Neuroception – Stimpunks Foundation
• Co-regulation – Stimpunks Foundation
• Meltdown – Stimpunks Foundation
• 🔥 Autistic Burnout: The Cost of Masking and Passing – Stimpunks Foundation
• Neuroception and Sensory Load: Our Complex Sensory Experiences – Stimpunks Foundation