Sluggish

Could the theory of monotropism help explain ADHD? What about executive dysfunction, or my Bipolar 2 misdiagnosis, or OCD? Can you trick yourself into a flow state? Is rumination just flow, but evil?? All this and more in conversation with writer, science educator, and chair of the Autistic Mutual Aid Society Edinburgh, Fergus Murray!📝📝TranscriptLinks:* Monotropism.org * Fergus’ website* Weird Pride Day* Attention, Monotropism, and the Diagnostic Criteria for Autism, Murray et al 2005* Monotropism Questionnaire pre-print* you can also take the Monotropism Questionnaire for funsies here* Monotropism and Well-being, Fergus’ 2023 talk at the Scottish Autism Research Group Conference* Me complaining about the capitalist propaganda in Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience* Towards autistic flow theory: A non-pathologising conceptual approach, 2024* Loops of Concern by Sonny Hallett* ‘Autism is the Arena and OCD is the Lion’: Autistic adults’ experiences of co-occurring obsessive-compulsive disorder and repetitive restricted behaviours and interests00:00 Intro / Monotropism vs Polytropism03:26 The Monotropism Questionnaire 05:43 On Being a ‘Serial Monotropist’ 10:48 ADHD and Monotropism 15:00 Monotropism vs Executive Dysfunction 18:11 On Autistic Flow Theory 24:51 ‘Tunnels not Tasks’27:36 Intersubjective Flow (Flowing Together)28:56 The Light and Dark Side of Flow32:46 Autism and Chronic Illness35:23 Monotropism and OCD39:12 Weird Pride This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sluggish.xyz/subscribe

Lou Millar-McHugh, a UX designer and leftist technologist, discusses vital questions about our social media habits. She emphasizes the importance of understanding over control in digital interactions. The conversation critiques persuasive design and its ethical implications, particularly regarding tech addiction narratives. Millar-McHugh offers insights into improving leftist communication strategies and explores the challenges of ADHD with current productivity tools. She argues for emotional well-being in technology use while suggesting healthier engagement alternatives.

Marta Rose, a queer AuDHD writer and artist, and KR Moorhead, an AuDHD, gender non-compliant educator and author, explore the concept of neuroqueering. They discuss how identity and creativity can be fluid, challenging societal norms. The pair introduces 'spiral time' as a natural cycle for personal growth over linear productivity. They also tackle themes of shame, self-criticism, and the impact of compulsory executive functioning on neurodivergent lives. Their upcoming course promises to help creatives embrace these transformative ideas.

Hanna Bertilsdotter-Rosqvist, a sociologist and professor at Södertörn University, and Lill Hultman, a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer, discuss their groundbreaking work in Critical ADHD Studies. They delve into ADHD collective storytelling and the emotional complexities of ADHD in academia. The conversation touches on the significance of intensity over hyperactivity and the struggle to align personal rhythms with societal expectations. They emphasize the necessity of a politically aware perspective to foster authentic self-expression among neurodivergent individuals.

I had always assumed flow and hyperfocus were just different names for the same thing, but flow was framed as a superpower (Harness your flow state to achieve optimal performance!), and hyperfocus was framed as a deficit (Why can’t these autistic people stop talking about dinosaurs and get jobs??). But in the last five years, studies have begun trying to pull these concepts apart...This is an essay voice-over - you can read it @ sluggish.xyz This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sluggish.xyz/subscribe

Discussion with Robert Chapman on neurodivergence, capitalism, and disability. Exploring societal norms, rising ADHD and autism rates, and executive dysfunction. Critiquing neurodiversity and capitalism, redefining disorders, and challenging research on autism. Examining brain scans, poverty's impact on ADHD, and medication dependency. Advocating for systemic change through collective neurodivergent action.

(This is a voice-over of an essay, which is full of links and sources if you want to learn more.) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sluggish.xyz/subscribe

How do neurodivergent creatives function when we can’t executive function? What do we really mean when we say we want to be productive? And what does climate change have to do with our creative process?In this episode I talk to co-founder of Writer’s HQ and award-winning environmental journalist Sarah Lewis about the climate stories we tell and our struggles in telling them. Plus, Sarah explains what she thinks is missing from climate fiction these days, the limited kinds of apocalypse stories we hear, and what kind of stories we might want to try telling instead. At the end she also shares a juicy list of reading recommendations!Subscribe to follow her work at fictionalsarah.substack.com, or find her on basically any platform as fictionalsarah.For a transcript, check the tab on the web version of this post (but pls blame all typos on Substack’s AI, which created it)Links:* The inspo for this chat: Inner Worlds vs. Outer Worlds [Fictional Sarah]* We Need A New Word For Climate Change [Fictional Sarah]* When the Hero is the Problem by Rebecca Solnit* Joseph Campbell and the Myth of the Monomyth video essay by Maggie Mae Fish* Thrust by Lidia Yuknavitch* The Gondoliers by Karen Russell (read as a campfire story by The Woburn Public Library!) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sluggish.xyz/subscribe

In this episode, I talk to compost practitioner and writer Cassandra Marketos about how composting can radically transform the way we look at the world. We get into the stigma around waste, why compost seems to scare so many people, the joy of learning from our intuition, the resilience and magic of a well-tended pile, and what it really means when we say that we’ve thrown something “away.”We also talk a bit about my own experiment composting dog poop (it works, I promise!) plus get into lots of practical advice about composting, including how to do it in a small space when you don’t have access to land.Cass has a composting guide coming out soon called Compost This Book, published by Apogee Graphics, but the release date is TBD, so subscribe to her newsletter The Rot for more info! I’ve included a selection of her writing below.Notes and links:* Episode transcript* Compost 101 collection [The Rot]* The bloody, urine-soaked, poop-filled history of compost [The Rot]* A gentle meditation on compost, love, and grief [The Rot]* On fungus and how to compost slowly [The Rot]* My essay on unexpected low-effort compost success* The Humanure Handbook by Joseph Jenkins [note: I strongly disagree with Jenkins’ statement about autism in this book, but there is a lot of helpful information otherwise]* USDA pdf on compost methods for working dog kennels* For more on my claim about floods causing sewage pollution, see this story about California and this one about Florida, or this fun fact from the book Disposable City about how often septic tanks fail when there’s even just a high tide in Miami! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sluggish.xyz/subscribe

I’m starting an interview series — there are so many people whose brains I want to pick and a podcast feels like the perfect format for it. To kick off these conversations, I bring you a great chat I had with Micha Frazer-Carroll on her new book, Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health.Micha is a writer and editor based in London whose work focuses on the theme of liberation, and when she sent this book to me, I honestly screamed, because I’ve been waiting for something like this to exist. (Micha also quoted my work in this book which is to me, the highest honor, and I’m so excited to be included in a book that I love so much.)Mad World weaves together disability justice with mad studies and abolition to give us a political view of mental health that prioritizes solidarity, self-advocacy, and autonomy. What I love about it most is just how complicated it is — Micha gives us lots of questions with lots of different answers, and embraces the fact that there is a lot we can’t know, but that doesn’t mean we can’t work together to make change.This is an expansive conversation full of big ideas about the limits of rationality, the complicated nature of diagnosis, the liberating power of art, and all the big possibilities to be found in embracing disability and refusing to disavow each other in our political movements. I had so much fun chatting with Micha and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did![episode transcript]Order Mad World (Pluto Press): www.bit.ly/madworldbookFollow Micha on Twitter and Instagram, or check out her websiteMentioned in this episode:* Health Communism by Beatrice Adler-Bolton & Artie Vierkant* Black Disability Politics by Sami Schalk* Crip Theory by Robert McRuer* Lydia X.Z. Brown on disavowal (@ 37:00)* Toward an Informed Consent Model for All Drugs by Devon Price* Recovery In The Bin* The MadZines project* Making Mad History: Mad Pride 2022, by the Campaign for Psychiatric Abolition This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.sluggish.xyz/subscribe