TL;DR:
Please, do not mix up the disabling and problematic Preoccupation with the “normal” autistic way of having a hobby/interest.
See Preoccupation as self-medication for extreme stress/anxiety and treat it the same way, help with solving the causes, leave it if you can’t and it is per definition like any drug bad for the sufferer in the end.
Thanks to (the Dutch) Wikipedia,
it seems there is no English article available so I tried to translate that one:
“Preoccupation is literally a “preferred occupation” of the mind, usually accompanied by (a) physical act(s). It is a psychiatric concept when stereotype in behavior and interest can be established.
In the case of preoccupation, a specialist diagnoses an excessive, almost exclusive interest in a science (e.g. history, religion, language, mathematics), hobby (e.g. collecting) or activity (e.g. footballs) together with compulsive behavior in the field of motor skills or psychomotorism.
Certain preoccupations can lead to addiction, not to resources but to actions (such as surfing the Internet or gambling). In that case, the addict has little interest in a world outside these pursuits.
In autism:
As a result of the time and resources spent, the preoccupation can lead to a limp social interaction and a very limited circle of friends. The DSM IV-TR diagnosis , which is specifically based on autism, mentions preoccupation.
It is not yet clear whether there is a cause-and-effect relationship. It is certain that preoccupation occurs both with and without autism.”
Hmm, now what should I say about this or better what do I want to say about this.
There are a number of things that have caught my attention in the years, since I know I have autism or if you prefer since I know I’m on the spectrum*, and I know that I had at least one “real” preoccupation, is that this concept is (in my opinion) heavily misused or dealt completely wrongly, by caregivers, practitioners AND the autistic person themselves.
* In Dutch we just call someone with autism or “on the spectrum” a autist, however English does not have a one on one translation what make me struggle every time I try to translate my Dutch posts for what do I use, for I do know autism does not define one, so calling someone with their infliction can be perceived as offending and such, however I use it (in case of autism) to specify the person or group of people that either has autism or not, so just to differentiate between them not to define them.
When I talk/think about preoccupation I mean it as in a problem/disabling form, so not if I just happen to be (autistic) interested in something like a game, mini computers, etc.
My autistic brain can only do one thing at a time, so if I’m interested in a game; I’m only interested in that one game, I’m not able to play two games side by side, because my whole brain only has one game to deal with, I look up everything I want/need to know; background stories (lore), how (every)things work, but also all recipes or achievements.
And in this you can replace “game” for any possible interest or hobby.
Am I preoccupied at that time?, well No, as I can just do my laundry, go to the toilet, give my cat attention, do nothing on the couch, even watch YouTube videos of other games or topics.
I just have a “major” (not even a “hyper”) focus on that one game (or interest). I can tell you a lot about it, maybe I’m busy with sharing things about it with someone (think caregiver/practitioner/”friend”), because I’m “proud”, I’m “happy”. But I’m not dysfunctional, I’m just doing the rest of things I need to do beside it.
Here we run into the problem that people, that are not on the spectrum, do many things side by side, and we on the spectrum can manage only one thing at a time, which makes it seem to a non-autistic person that it might be a preoccupation, because we only do one thing, or talk about one thing, and yes that’s true, because I can only do one thing at a time, you know, I’m not an autistic person for nothing.
But I can do quite a lot of things serially “side by side” after each other, probably with a little extra “mourning” time added in when switching between these things/tasks (explaining me being “slower”).
That’s how I function, that’s how I’m put together.
But how do you than recognize a “real” preoccupation; it is when there is nothing else, the ordinary everyday things suffer, very late or not going to the toilet, sleep less, eat (far too) late, “normal” things no longer have any importance. In a conversation with a practitioner or caregiver there is no other subject possible at all, even if the other person changes the subject, the preoccupied autistic person returns to the preoccupation within a just few sentences over and over.
So I think there is a Major difference between the way an autistic person experiences a hobby/interest or “suffers” from preoccupation.
It is a common misconception that an autistic person can have multiple preoccupations at once, ….. remember the basic rule of autism we can do one and Only one thing at the time!
It can very well be that we have had multiple preoccupations in the past and that any of them can come back regularly, but we never have two or more of them at the same time, they are Absolute and Total by nature after all, otherwise they would not lead to dysfunction and would just be a hobby or interest.
Now that this is out of the way,
(what do I call a preoccupation and what do I call an autistic hobby experience)
We can focus on what is the core of a preoccupation and the question; should you do anything about it?
Preoccupation is “self-medication” and should, in my opinion, be seen as substance (ab)use.
IT IS DRUGS and therefore in the end bad for the autistic person.
Is it really that simple, Yes…., but…, of course there is a “but” as almost always with us autistic people.
First, let’s look at the cause, why is self-medication used whether it’s booze, drugs, psycho-pharmaceuticals or in our case preoccupation doesn’t matter that much.
Although the preoccupation is much more difficult to stop, because the other forms is sufficient to remove the substance, as preoccupation is mainly an internal mental process, possibly supported by external things, think collectable objects or web surfing, or as Wikipedia says “the acts of”.
So if you notice/diagnose a preoccupation do you have to do everything to stop it?; No, just because that’s actually an impossible job, we just go on (happily) in our heads or when you leave.
What you can do is; take away the cause, which brings us back to the question of what causes a preoccupation and other substance (ab)uses in the first place.
Unbearable stress, whether it’s caused by anxiety, emotions, pressure or whatever, doesn’t matter.
As soon as the stress we experience becomes to much for us, we slide into a preoccupation, it’s not a place we usually (want to) go to ourselves, we naturally want/need to do other things as well, which is not possible while in an preoccupation.
It does not have to be the stress you think something could/should cause, remember our ability to distinguish between major and minor issues is heavily flawed.
And yes, some of us could slide into substance (ab)use as well, possibly even at the same time, or worse the substance use is the preoccupation in itself, this can happen when we don’t have a “good/strong” preoccupation or don’t “know” a better way (before you ask or assume, no I do not, and never did, (ab)use substances as self-medication).
The simple answer to the question “do I have to do something about a preoccupation?” is therefore:
Yes, if you can remove or lessen the stress that the preoccupation caused in the first place.
Try to stop the autistic person and let/make them focus on the things that are the cause of the stress, this can be on one major thing or many, many “small” things.
We are extremely bad in cause/effect and main/afterthought, so what seems small to you or can impossibly be the cause as far as you are concerned, can be for us (extremely) large or the actual cause afterall.
But, here is the “but”; if you can’t do anything about the causes of the stress, or you still have no idea what is actually causing the stress, leave the preoccupation be, and try to help the autistic (even if you are the cause) to “function” as well as possible; use cooking timers for drinking or going to the toilet, find a way to make them go to bed on time and use a visual support, lists, etc…, whatever works to make the preoccupation sufferer “function” as best as possible despite of it.
Think of it, an MD. has written a drug prescription for a problem where the symptoms are so bad that it is not possible to work on the cause or the cause is unworkable.
This does bring me to a tricky point in the autistic nature, because our “life pressure” or “base stress” is always (extremely) high, we learned from a very young age (often subconscious) to be economical with our energy, “we can only free up energy to not get worse from something, but not for getting better from something” is how I usually put it.
In this case, you have to take that it into account on how you deal with the preoccupation, but also if an autistic person is given medication or a treatment such as an physical therapy, etc…
Because the preoccupation (or medication, etc.) solves the problem I’m experiencing, my problem is the stress, when there is no stress experience, problem solved.
Our brain is not cause prevention driven, but symptom prevention driven, the symptoms cause hindrance after all, we do not suffer from the causes now do we.
We suffer from the stress if that is gone or managed, there is no energy left so we don’t feel the need to work on the real cause, so we are content and maintain the current situation, we have to be forced to work on the causes.
When does an autistic person stop preoccupation by themselves? when the actual stress cause goes away on its own and the total stress sinks below the threshold of what the autistic person can “normally” handle.
We will not accelerate this process by ourselves, because the preoccupation already solves the problem.
Remember if you can’t work on, or find, the cause of the main stress, you might want to try to work on other known stress givers to lower the overall level to get below that threshold.
I describe it here as I think it works, so it might seem that this all is done deliberately or has deliberate origins, this is of course not the case, I describe the processes that often take place unconsciously and/or instinctively.
Now just explain what the preoccupation actually does and then this post is finished.
It’s very simple, because there’s only one thing that exists, that’s obsessive, that dominates everything, the result there’s peace in our brain, there’s order, relaxation (of the brain) so no stress, think of it as a prolonged high (as described by drug users) or an absence of …. (as with excessive drinking).