ARTWORK: Maddy Brown
can’t start, can’t stop – hyperfixation at anu ANONYMOUS Most people prefer to do things that they enjoy, and they find these things easier. Unpleasant activities are harder. Studying a subject that they don’t like is a drag, time passes slowly, they feel tired afterwards. While I cannot, as an individual, speak for all neurodiverse people, I know that for many of us the experience is heightened. I can spend all day doing something that I enjoy, sometimes without eating or moving. I look up and suddenly it’s nighttime and I’m freezing cold and really hungry. This ‘hyperfixation’ blots out everything else. I don’t hear people speaking to me or notice basic things like hunger. Once it’s broken, though, it takes time to regain focus.
night I was exhausted. I had homework to do, emails to send, and needed to sleep, so naturally, I spent three hours making a colour-coded timetable. The university system is not ideally set up for anything other than steady, consistent study. Steady, consistent study is great, and it works very well for many people. But for many neurodiverse people (and some neurotypical people too) it’s simply impossible to study like this. The constraints of hyperfixation and obsession make keeping on top of a little bit of something from each of four different subjects tricky, whereas managing lots of one subject (as happens in holiday intensive courses) is much more doable.
This can be very useful if I have an assignment With courses moving to make themselves more due in a short period of time which falls into one of my accessible for online students in the wake of COVID-19, it obsessions. I just set aside a large block of time one day, is possible to binge-watch lectures and tutes in breaks and and voilà, one complete assignment. Alternatively, if I go through the work in one go. However, the time during take a subject that I don’t have an interest in, it’s almost the teaching break and the pre-finals study break is not impossible to study for it. I have to trick my sufficient to properly cover four courses, and brain by finding a link, however tenuous, the greatest benefit to grades is showing up This to something that I enjoy. Programming is in-person throughout the whole semester. one of my passions, and this is a convenient loophole for other courses like physics and It’s impossible to create an education blots out maths. Not enjoying kinematics? Work system that works for everyone. However, I everything else. out how to write a program to solve the suggest a few improvements. problem—I’ll have to learn how the problem works to do that and connecting it to coding will trick my A wider range of intensive summer/winter brain enough to engage it. courses. At the moment, there are only a few courses offered as intensives, most of which are extremely specific. However, because a large unbroken block of time is necessary for this to work, I can’t study in short bursts. If I A proper ‘break’ over the teaching break, with have an hour between classes, it’s nearly impossible to use assignments due either at the end of the first session or productively. Assignments and homework end up being just after the break has started. done whenever I have a large block of time, and because this is rare, they often end up being done at the last minute Lengthening the pre-finals study break, to let with the help of pure adrenaline. Personal projects with no students study the ungraded coursework that may have fixed ‘due date’ fall by the wayside. This article was started been glossed over in favour of marked work. on the day that drafts were due for this exact reason. The second point is one that would benefit all Despite the advantages of finishing assignments students, not just neurodiverse ones. rapidly and doing really well in some courses as a sideeffect of obsession, there are hidden costs. Ignoring my Hyperfixation is a blessing and a curse, and body for hours, getting incredibly hungry or cold without it affects people in vastly different ways. It comes with realising is common. And the constant stress of not having unexpected advantages and drawbacks when studying at a a sufficiently long chunk of time in which to work on tertiary institution, and the problems that come with it are something means I often worry about it for weeks before not likely to be easily solved. finishing it in a whirl of coffee and anxiety as 11:59 pm rolls around. Sometimes I hyperfixate on something interesting, but not at all related to uni or it’s at a terrible time. One
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