13/06/2026
When Your Brain Won’t Drop the Bone
One thing I wish more people understood about some 2E AuDHD brains is that what looks like “overthinking” is often something different.
Sometimes it feels like my brain has found a loose thread and refuses to let go.
Not because I enjoy thinking about it.
Not because I want to obsess about it.
Because my nervous system seems to register the problem as unfinished.
Many people call this rumination.
Sometimes it is.
But sometimes it feels more like monotropic problem-solving.
The brain locks onto a question, contradiction, uncertainty, pattern, or unresolved issue and keeps working on it in the background.
Hour after hour.
Day after day.
Occasionally week after week.
The frustrating part is that the loop often annoys the person experiencing it as much as everyone around them.
We would like the brain to move on.
The brain disagrees.
For many autistic and AuDHD individuals, unresolved questions can function almost like open tabs that never close.
The nervous system continues allocating resources toward making sense of the problem, searching for coherence, predictability, or understanding.
And for twice-exceptional (2E) individuals, the challenge may be amplified.
A highly analytical brain can generate dozens of possible explanations, exceptions, variables, and perspectives.
Instead of resolving the uncertainty, the additional cognitive horsepower sometimes creates even more pathways to explore.
What I’ve come to appreciate is that not all loops are the same.
Some loops are driven primarily by monotropic attention.
Some are driven by anxiety.
Some are driven by trauma.
Some are driven by attachment concerns.
Some are driven by rejection sensitivity.
Some are driven by OCD-related processes.
Some are driven by grief and loss.
And many are combinations of several at the same time.
An unresolved question may activate monotropic problem-solving.
The uncertainty may activate anxiety.
The relational significance may activate attachment concerns.
Past experiences may activate threat detection.
A sense of loss may activate grief.
The result can feel like one loop.
But underneath, multiple systems may be running simultaneously.
From a Bandwidth Model perspective, these loops appear to function much like load.
Not because loops and load are the same thing.
But because both consume cognitive, emotional, attentional, and nervous system resources.
Like other forms of load, loops can stack.
And like other forms of load, loops can amplify one another.
A monotropic loop may increase uncertainty.
Uncertainty may increase anxiety.
Anxiety may increase threat detection.
Threat detection may increase attention to the original problem.
The loop grows larger than any one layer alone.
What started as one unanswered question can become multiple nervous system processes all competing for resolution at the same time.
Each consuming bandwidth.
Each reducing flexibility.
Each making it harder to disengage.
In some cases, the original problem is no longer the only burden.
The ongoing processing becomes part of the burden.
The nervous system is not only carrying the issue itself.
It is carrying days, weeks, or months of trying to make sense of it.
As bandwidth decreases, cognitive flexibility often decreases as well.
The person may appear stuck, distracted, emotionally reactive, exhausted, or unable to shift attention elsewhere.
What often looks like obsession from the outside may actually be a nervous system attempting to create coherence while multiple layers are competing for resolution.
Not because the person enjoys the loop.
But because the loop still feels unfinished.
And sometimes the greatest relief is not being told to “let it go.”
Sometimes the relief comes from identifying which layers are present and finding enough understanding, predictability, safety, connection, or resolution that the nervous system no longer needs to keep searching.
Perhaps one of the most important questions is not:
“Why can’t I stop thinking about this?”
But rather:
“What kind of loop am I in?”
Because different loops may require different forms of support.
And sometimes the loop itself has become part of the load.
Within the Bandwidth Model, unresolved loops may be one more way bandwidth gets consumed long before exhaustion becomes visible.
— Darcy Stephens, LPCC
References
* Dinah Murray, Mike Lesser, & Wenn Lawson (2005). Attention, Monotropism and the Diagnostic Criteria for Autism.
* Damian Milton (2017). A Mismatch of Salience: Explorations of the Nature of Autism from Theory to Practice.
* Russell Barkley. Research on executive functioning, attention regulation, and cognitive persistence in ADHD.
* Stephen Porges. Research on neuroception, autonomic regulation, and threat detection.
* Lisa Feldman Barrett. Research on prediction, uncertainty, allostasis, and meaning-making in the brain.
* Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby. Foundational attachment theory and relational security research.
* Bessel van der Kolk. Research on trauma, threat detection, and persistent nervous system activation.
