Procrastination, Flow State and HYPERFOCUS
So… blog on procrastination, flow state and hyperfocus… AND GO!
Just start Stuart…
Yep, it’s not that simple though is it brain?
No but you gotta do it, the deadline and all… Hannah will be disappointed.
Yeah, I know, exactly, so why won’t you just get started then, BRAIN?
Brain will not be told what to do, brain is brain, brain decides what brain does. You shut up ego. Brain in charge.
Arghhh. Just get on with it, I have consumed enough caffeine to power a 90s rave, just get the frig on with wording and typing.
::silence::
::silence continues::
::more silence::
::except it’s not ‘silence’ though is it?::
::It’s the bin lorry reversing, it’s the birds outside the door, it’s the couple screeching their true love vows at ear piercing volume, it’s the twat of a dog that just will not stop asking where the owner is because object permanence is not a thing for it, BARK BARK BARK… BLEEP FUCKING BLEEP. YEELL YELL YELL.::
And breathe….
When your brain decides that leaves rustling in the breeze is reason enough to stop focusing and forget what it was thinking about one minute and then three hours later we arise from our miasma and realise that hyperfocus got us again.
We’re gonna take a look at procrastination, flow and hyperfocus, maybe. If this brain cooperates and gets going. It’s been a hard three weeks recently and the heat has not played well with my productivity.
It’s not an unreasonable ask, one might think, to say to another functional grown adult, “Hey, could you take this task and do it?”
And, that other functional grown adult says “Yeah. I can do it. I will do it tomorrow.”
24hrs later…
“That thing you wanted me to do. I did it. Here.”
“Thank you functional grown adult, I truly appreciate you doing what you said you would do when you said you would do it.”
“That’s OK. Would you like to get coffee sometime? Just two professionals interested in the thing we did…”
“No.”
::awkward silence::
End scene.
Just because you have a deep wellspring of ideas, ready to give you all the good stuff, doesn’t mean it turns up when YOU want it to. We’ve documented this throughout the Oddcast, energy is patchy and can be unreliable, which translates to a lot of panic when deadlines loom. Like this blog!
But what does any of that actually mean Stuart?
Good question, thanks brain!
Well it makes for focusing on a topic quite challenging; when you’re an intellectual omnivore you feast on all the trivia, nommity nom. You want, no sorry, you NEED all of the details and have questions. And this is for EVERYTHING!
Not only is your brain coming up with all its own stuff, it also has millions of questions at any time, it is truly exhausting. So getting started is more like whack-a-mole, where you hope that one of the moles turns out to be the blog you wanted to write.
So you have all that just to get going and then you have to shut all the noise out, quieten it all down, and focus like a “LAY-ZERRR” (10 points if you did the Dr. Evil voice in your head 100 points if you did the little finger too).
Getting started might be a whole load of circling the landing strip before you tentatively try to touch down and get the work started. Procrastination can look like many things, but for ND brains it can be procrastination against your will. Your brain just refuses to settle down and get on with it, a myriad of competing actions, thoughts and demands all crashing in and demanding attention.
If you’re lucky you have a series of cues and triggers which help you forget the world at large and get into the work you want to start.
Ideally, as all the “one size fits all” self-help and business literature holds up the ideal productivity goal is to get into “flow state”, or “flow”, which the dictionary describes as:
A mental condition of complete absorption in an activity, marked by focused attention, diminished self-consciousness, and an altered sense of time,
Flow is often held up as the perfect state for achieving productivity, where you are “in the zone” or “locked in” and you are attuned to the work. First coined by the Hungarian-American psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, in his 1975 book ‘Beyond Boredom and Anxiety’
The concept has been widely adopted across a variety of fields and denotes absorption in one’s work. Named because, during Csíkszentmihályi’s interviews with chess players, dancers, artists, and athletes, the metaphor of a water current carrying them along, or flow of thoughts was used by several people to describe a state of function with moderate levels of psychological arousal, where you are unlikely to be overwhelmed by the work, but also not understimulated and bored.
But do not confuse flow with hyperfocus, they are not the same.
To use the water metaphor, flow is like being in a rubber ring, floating down a lazy river, maybe with a cool beverage in one hand and chilled vibes floating on the breeze.
And if that were possible in your ND brain then life would be all cake and candles, kumbiyah at sunset and a never ending hugathon (unlikely!). But here’s the inside skinny…
It’s a raging chaos, fire hydrant of ideas, with thoughts and actions cascading over each other. If flow is a day out to “Float Town”, hyperfocus is a ride down a white water rapids of ideas propelling you towards the waterfall of desperation and deadlines. A mind full of synaptic murmurations, diving and veering off, tangents meeting side quests, which in a Newton’s Cradle of ideas thwacks the next shiny ball into view for you to chase in a dopamine, sensory rush that never wants to end.
All of this is pointed at the object of your obsession, your hobby, or current special interest, a deep dive that seems to be endless, and the deeper you go the more you need to know, do or see. It can span multiple sessions too, where you snap out. Maybe you finally listen to your bladder, or your hunger. You peel your eyes off the object of your desire at that time but the itch is not scratched.
And that’s where flow state stops being flow state and starts to develop into something a little more hard-core-you-know-the-score. Where your flow state focus alights on a sweet spot, something you are really feeling, and then brain bends time and warps space and you are in a hyper-bubble.
You may even sleep, awake and find yourself unable to think about anything other than what it is you are focusing on. Eventually it ends, or diminishes enough for real-life to crash in and the light that burns twice as bright, lasts half as long.
And the neurodivergent brain burns so very, very brightly at times, which comes at a cognitive cost, well, at least for me. And that’s an issue, if your available cognitive bandwidth is an all or nothing full-fibre firehose at the all-you-can-eat data buffet then it can be overwhelming. It can take days to recover from a 2 or 3 day hyperfocus, where you have smashed out 30+ hours of work, often to a very high quality. But with every high, comes the lows…
You also have to live with your focus being fungible, it can be with you and then slip away just when you need it because you notice some small detail on a business card on your desk and your brain decIdes that’s the off ramp and away it is gone. If you’re lucky, it’s a pretty easy detour to navigate and you can get back on the freeway to hyperfocus town.
Literally time stops and others cease to be, you cease to be, you are nothing but the task in hand and the moment you are in, this is what buddhists train for their whole lives, it’s less about achieving and more about sustaining this beautiful feeling of freedom.
Your focus is narrowed to a sharp and very clear point, you’re aware of everything but nothing matters as your hearing, and eyes, brain and self melds into this one creature just doing their thing.
It’s a beautiful thing, right up until it’s not, and then you start to realise that things might be not right in the “body” department, and you snap out of the hyperfocus, like you de-warp and suddenly realise the control bridge is on fire and all the red shirts are dead. Plus if you do not pee like NOW… then… ooops…
Plus, call the Dr. and ask him why is my ankle in a weird position. Also, why are you pressing your foot into the floor so hard? Ouch it hurts, that’s gonna take days to stop aching.
All this because your body decides to ignore the Geneva Convention rules on interrogations and puts you into tortuous stress position for hours whilst your brain folds in on itself over and over like so much dough in an orgiastic release of dopamine and need for more. Forget you body… Brain be braining…. Nawwmmm, nawwnnnn… ahhhh it tastes really dopaminey.
Think of it like itching a particularly compelling scratch over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over until both the patch is red raw and so is your finger from all the scratching.
It’s a FIREHOSE. Absolute ruddy non-stop and you have to wrestle it to point in the right direction and hold it there for however long it is needed. It can be exhausting.
The hyperfocus is not something that can be summoned, it’s a flighty creature, some might call it by the familiar, “muse”, or the more prosaic “inspiration”. But it is attracted by certain rituals and spaces, provokers of state, and suggestors of the possible. Also the hyperfocus may literally have zero to do with the work you HAVE to do. Your brain bolts and you’re on a wild ride until it stops. Destination unknown.
There are definitely factors that will prevent a hyperfocus, tiredness, hunger, illness, cold, distractions, both physical and emotional, but it’s not guaranteed. All of this can mean that simply being hungry and a bit tired, maybe even a bit dehydrated, can prevent you hitting the big red hyper-warp access button. But may also contribute to the after effects, if you go in unrested, out of sorts or mentally already a bit spent, the end result can be very exhausting.
Hyperfocus is a superpower, like King Midas’ golden touch, sounds great until you realise the implications of such abilities, gives a whole new meaning to “polishing your (k)nob”. Two major hyperfocus sessions back to back is brutal, and I want to just lie down all the time.
Do not read this and think you can summon focus at will, you can’t, but you might plant some seeds and see early signs, and then get going and hope it all falls into place. The getting going is the hard bit, like the start of this entire piece. You might find a few sparks and fan them into a roaring flame. Your hope is the flame doesn’t turn into a forest fire that wipes out large swathes of your cognitive landscape.
It is a balancing act, can be dictated by circumstances beyond your control and when it hits you can be all consuming, but it is certainly not delivered at will. You have no control over it, or at least I have no control over it, when it lands, like an unwelcome visitor you have no idea when that will be or what time, including the 3am waking and need to write down the ideas.
However, there’s been lots of thinky on this piece, which means I have to go eaty/drinky and brain has to go rest.
If any of this has felt familiar then why not listen to an episode?
Or take our NeuroInclusive Workplace audit, to see how neuroinclusive your workplace is. You can then see how to make your environment more productive whether you are a solo-preneur or multi person team.
If you have any questions get in touch!
Running on Empty: How ND Energy Actually Works
There’s a very specific kind of tired that doesn’t make sense on paper. The kind where you look at your day and think, But I didn’t even do that much. You sent a few emails, had one meeting, put the washing on, maybe even cancelled something because you were “being sensible”, and yet by 4pm you feel like you’ve been dragged backwards through a hedge. Not dramatic burnout, not collapse-on-the-floor exhaustion, just that low, humming depletion that makes everything feel heavier than it should. Like you’re coming down with a bug that never turns up.
For years, I thought that meant I was weak, lazy, or just not built for “proper” business. Spoiler: it wasn’t that. It was energy debt, and I was quietly racking it up like it had no interest rate.
The burnout that didn’t look like burnout
When I finally hit proper burnout, it didn’t arrive with sirens and flashing lights or announce itself with, “Hello Hannah, you have officially broken yourself.” It crept in. First it was overwhelm that didn’t shift, then irritability, then that constant feeling that I was forgetting something. Like my brain had 47 tabs open and I couldn’t find the one making the noise. I was saying “sorry” a lot; I couldn’t focus without it feeling like lifting 50lbs with my mind. Small noises made me jump, and I’d drift off mid-conversation and realise I’d lost entire chunks of what someone was sayin
I wasn’t dramatic, I wasn’t melting down daily, I was functioning, but everything felt tight. Like I was permanently bracing. And because I was still technically working, I told myself I was fine. That’s the problem. Burnout doesn’t start with collapse; it starts with erosion — paper cuts over and over until you realise you’ve been bleeding for months.
What I haven’t said yet is that my biggest burnout wasn’t twenty-something Hannah trying to prove she could survive London life. It was much more recent, and it wasn’t just mental; it was physical. I wasn’t collapsing in tears or dramatically quitting everything; I was just never switching off. Ever.
On the days when I was stuck…brain foggy, slow, distracted…I’d tell myself I’d make it up later, and later would come in the form of ten-hour hyperfocus sessions, weekends, evenings, “just one more thing.” I was constantly playing catch-up with a version of myself I thought I should be. I didn’t allow space to just be because there was always something I should be doing.
Underneath that was shame — deep, old shame. Why can’t I just work like everyone else? Why does this feel harder for me? Why does it take so much effort to do what others seem to glide through?
But it wasn’t just about work. My “always on” wasn’t limited to clients and projects; I was the reliable one. The one people called when things went wrong, the listener, the fixer, the one who usually knew what to do. And I was always the one putting my hand up when something needed doing. Partly because I’m capable, partly because I care, and partly — if I’m being really honest — because if everyone needs you, then no one leaves you. I was used to being left, which is probably a blog for another day, or a therapist’s office, or both, but being indispensable felt safer than being optional, so I stayed available. Emotionally, mentally, practically. Even when I was already running on fumes. Being the strong one is exhausting, especially when no one realises you’re carrying it.
So I pushed, because I thought the answer was effort. Turns out the answer was pacing, and eventually something had to give. And because I had proven that my brain wasn’t capable of looking out for me, my body stepped in and said “enough already” and physically stopped me.
The lie about energy
I’ve said it before, but most business advice assumes your energy is stable. You wake up, you have X amount, so you use it wisely. And during the day, if you get a little rest, your energy increases again. For neurodivergent brains, that’s not reality.
Some days I can do a week’s worth of work whilst I’m still in my PJs. I’m on fire, with ideas flying, focus locked in, energy like a caffeinated golden retriever! Other days replying to one email feels like a university challenge, when you’re the only team member. Same life, same me, entirely different capacity.
That inconsistency used to terrify me because I mistook it for unreliability. But ND energy isn’t broken, it’s variable by design. We process more, monitor more, absorb more. Masking alone is an Olympic sport, and when you add sensory processing, decision fatigue, context switching, emotional labour, and background cognitive load, suddenly the reason you’re tired after “not much” becomes clearer. Time and energy are not the same thing; two hours on your calendar does not equal two usable hours in your brain.
The adrenaline trap
The thing that nearly finished me wasn’t laziness: it was pushing through even when all the alarm bells were ringing, but I had my fingers in my ears singing “la la la not listening”. And the frustrating part is that pushing through works — for a bit. Adrenaline is intoxicating, the sparkly new thing is delicious, urgency masquerades as capacity, and you believe you can sustain it. I could override my body for short bursts, smash through projects, hyperfocus until 2am and feel invincible. Such a natural high, ticking those things off the list and feeling like I was winning. But borrowing energy from tomorrow is fine until tomorrow arrives and the account is empty
The dangerous part was that I thought I was being responsible. I thought this was what commitment looked like, what professionalism looked like, what business grown-ups did. You got the job done, whatever that took. I could see that not everyone seemed to have to put in such a huge amount of effort, but instead of questioning my comparison, I just doubled down. A lifetime of subtle messaging that I needed to try harder, be quieter, be better, be less meant slowing down didn’t feel safe; it felt like failure.
So I kept overriding every signal until my nervous system stopped negotiating. Burnout isn’t sudden; it’s compound interest on overwhelm. I was living on an overdraft.
Why rest felt unsafe
Even when I knew I was tired, resting felt wrong. If my capacity is already unreliable, how can I afford to stop? If I pause, won’t I fall further behind.
Somewhere along the way, I’d internalised the idea that rest was a reward for finishing everything, but you never finish everything. Rest isn’t a reward; it’s maintenance, it’s preparation, it’s charging your phone before it dies instead of waiting until it’s at 1% and pretending you’ll be fine.
When you’ve lived your whole life feeling like you have to prove your capacity, rest feels like exposure. If I stop, someone might notice I’m not keeping up; if I slow down, it confirms the fear that I’m not built right. So I didn’t slow down, and that’s how burnout became physical . Not just tiredness, but inflammation, disrupted sleep, my body essentially saying, “You clearly aren’t listening to the gentle messages, so here’s a louder one.”
My burnout wasn’t dramatic; it was cumulative, and it cost me more time in recovery than pacing ever would have. Slowing down wasn’t a brave, enlightened decision; it was enforced. And if I’m honest, this slower, kinder version of me rocks. She definitely is a work in progress and needs to be dragged back in line from time to time. But now she generally just says yes to the things that bring her joy.
She doesn’t volunteer for everything, she doesn’t answer every message immediately, she doesn’t try to prove she can outwork her own nervous system. The old voice still whispers, You should be doing more. You’re falling behind. Everyone else is coping, but now my body answers back, and for once I listen.
The early warnings I ignored
Looking back, the signs were obvious — irritability, foggy thinking, snapping faster than usual, feeling like the anxiety hamster was permanently on a wheel, flinching at small noises, brownouts where you just disappear for a few minutes, and there’s no signal. But because I was still functioning, I ignored them. We’re not taught to see those as energy signals; we see them as personality flaws.
Now I have had to redefine what a better-balanced life looks like, and I’ve realised it doesn’t mean producing the same output every day. It’s responding honestly to what I can afford. Some weeks, I bounce between big output and recovery. And some days I’m on low power mode, running lights only. That isn’t failure, it’s pacing. Self-employment allows me to build around that variability rather than fight it. If I’d forced myself into a rigid mould, I would have burned out permanently.
What I know now
Energy isn’t a moral issue; it’s information. Irritability, fog, that constant feeling of being behind — those are data points.
When I ask myself, “What is my capacity feeling like today ?” instead of “What do I have to achieve?”, everything shifts. Honesty about capacity is what makes sustainability possible for me. Previously, I would bully myself into thinking I needed to keep pushing, even against my better judgment.
If you’re running on empty, it’s unlikely because you’re weak; it’s more likely you’ve been paying invisible costs for a long time. You’re not defective. You’re processing more than most people realise. The goal isn’t to squeeze more out of yourself; it’s to understand how your energy actually works and build around it.
Pushing through might buy you some time in the moment, but it can end up costing you much more, like your nervous system.
Neurodivergent Holidays – Packing, Panic & Pretending to Relax
I have a confession that I’ve learnt over the years is not the popular choice: I don’t like holidays. And because holidays feel like the societal currency of success, there’s quite a bit of shame wrapped up in admitting you don’t like them.
For a lot of people, holidays are the shiny prize at the end of months of grind. You work hard, you earn a “break”, you go somewhere sunny and allegedly “switch off”. But for me, I just don’t see it that way.
This is made all the more difficult given that about 80% of pre summer small talk circles around how you plan to spend your time off. It’s endless! “Going anywhere nice this year?”, “Got any holidays booked?”. Then there’s 3 months of social media being drenched in “don’t mind if I do, cocktails by the pool” photos, and notifications telling you that one of your friends has just uploaded 463 photos to their #soblessed Fakebook photo album. Sorry Carol, but there are only so many photos of your lobster-red family (none, if you are asking!) that one can feign interest in when it comes to someone else’s holiday. And if you’re thinking “what is the appropriate number of photos to share on social media, the answer is”none “,”no photos”, “nada, nope and nooooo” photos!.
When I nonchalantly announce that I plan to take some time off and hang around my house, maybe venturing out on the occasional day trip if I feel daring enough, the look I get can only be described as a mix of confusion and pity. Or they just do an awkward laugh that tells me they have no idea what to do with that information.
So if holidays don’t feel relaxing to you either, this blog’s for you. This isn’t a guide to having the “perfect” break. This is a shout out to everyone who finds holidays complicated, exhausting, or downright pointless… and the permission to do ‘rest’ your own way, even if that might look different to some.
The holiday anxiety starts the moment someone suggests it
For me, the anxiety takes up residence in my brain the second someone says, “We should go away.” I haven’t been on a ‘proper’ holiday abroad in about eight years. I see that as a massive win. My husband probably doesn’t share my enthusiasm, because he loves holidays and has inexplicably chosen to be married to me, but here we are.
The minute a holiday is mentioned, my brain starts running a full diagnostic on everything that would need to be in place before we leave. Is my work covered? Have I replied to everyone? Will the heating be okay? Who’s feeding the cats? What if something breaks while we’re gone? What if I’ve forgotten something crucial and can’t fix it because I’m in another country with the wrong plug sockets and no printer?
Packing is a whole separate hell. A neurotypical person might think: “We’re going somewhere warm. I’ll pack for warm.” My brain goes: “But what if it isn’t warm? What if it’s windy? What if it’s humid-but-chilly? What if the jumper I packed feels fine at home and suddenly turns into sandpaper while I’m away? What if I need options for all seven versions of my skin?”
It’s not just “have I packed enough clothes?” It’s “have I packed clothes that will feel okay on my body in a climate I can’t predict, in moods I haven’t had yet, in sensory states I don’t know about until I’m in them?” So I over-pack. Obviously.
Then comes the weight-limit panic. Once the giant suitcase is full, my brain immediately flips to, “The airline is going to charge me £5,000 because this weighs more than a small car.” Cue repacking. Sorting. Weighing. Taking things out. Putting them back in. Negotiating with myself about how many emergency jumpers one woman really needs. By the time we even lock the case, I already need a nap and possibly a small breakdown.
Airport security: my face says “drug mule”
If there’s one place where my autistic anxiety and my ADHD mouth love to team up, it’s airport security. I once flew to the US in my early twenties and had to go through one of those extra-intense interviews at immigration. Under pressure, all useful information immediately vacates my brain. I stood there shaking, fumbling through papers, mumbling things like, “Sightseeing? I don’t know? Just… doing stuff?”
I completely forgot both the name and where I had put the address of the friends of my family that I was staying with. And then, because my internal monologue has no volume control, I blurted out: “I’m not a drug mule or anything.” Exactly what a drug mule would say.
I didn’t get arrested, obviously, but the look they gave me was… memorable. When I’m anxious, my face pulls “I’m hiding contraband” expressions for fun. I overcompensate, I ramble, I make terrible jokes and then wonder why everyone is staring at me like I’ve brought a kilo of cocaine in my carry-on.
So no, security doesn’t feel like “the exciting gateway to adventure.” It feels like a test I don’t understand, with questions I’m not prepared for, in a system that already thinks I’m suspicious because I can’t stand still and behave ‘normally.’
The real problem: control, or lack thereof
At home, I have escape routes. If everything gets too much, I can retreat to my bedroom, the garden, the sofa, my favourite chair. I know where to go to calm down. I know the rules, the layout, the lighting, the temperature, the sounds. On holiday, all of that disappears.
One year, we rented a villa in France. It should have been idyllic — little house, nice weather, all very Pinterest. I remember standing outside the villa feeling utterly overwhelmed, scanning my surroundings and thinking, “Where’s my safe place?” There wasn’t one. In the end I got in the hire car, drove to a random supermarket, and just wandered around the aisles like a ghost. Not because I needed groceries. Just because it was the closest thing to “normal” I could find — fluorescent lighting, familiar-shaped shelves, products in rows. It gave me a little anchor in a world that suddenly felt completely unmoored.
Leaving the UK makes that feeling even sharper. It’s not that France is far away; it’s that it feels inaccessible. If things get unbearable on a day trip, I can at least get in my car and come home. If I’m in another country, my brain registers it as: “you’re here forever. “
Holidays ask me to give up control of my environment, my routines, my foods, my exits… and then “relax.” It doesn’t work like that for me.
When everyone is spicy: family holidays and sensory chaos
It’s not just my brain I’m managing on holiday either; I’m not the only neurodivergent one in the family. So when we’ve done the Family Holiday thing, it hasn’t been just one person struggling; it’s a big old mixed bag of meltdowns.
Picture it: one child is in bits because the Wi-Fi doesn’t work properly and their online world — their safe place — has vanished. Someone else is overwhelmed by new smells, noises, and textures. I’m freaking out about control and routine. My husband is quietly re-evaluating all his life choices. It’s not that we don’t love each other. It’s that you can’t take four nervous systems that rely on predictability, special interests, and carefully crafted habits… then dump them in a loud, unfamiliar environment full of strangers and expect it to go well.
We once did a UK holiday park — big entertainment complex, lots of screaming children, drum and bass through caravan walls at 5am. My husband basically faked a stomach bug by day three just so he could tap out. He used me as a human shield — “Don’t come near, I’m contagious” — and hid in the bedroom while I took the kids into the arcade chaos. Honestly? I respect the strategy.
The “relaxation” myth
Here’s the bit that really messes with my head: holidays are sold as relaxation. “You need a break.” “Get away from it all.” “Switch off.” Great in theory. In practice, when you’re neurodivergent, holidays can feel like an endurance test.
My daily life at home is built around routines that work for my energy, my brain and my nervous system. I know when I need quiet. I know when I can people and when I absolutely cannot. I structure my work around it as much as I can. Take all that away and plant me in another country and suddenly I’m around people all the time. I don’t control the noise. Meal times are different. Sleep is disrupted. Food is unfamiliar. I can’t get to my safe spots. My regular self-regulation routines are gone.
That’s not relaxing — that’s extra cognitive load. And then, on top of all that, there’s the emotional pressure to “make memories”, “enjoy every second”, “get your money’s worth” and be visibly grateful because “some people would kill for this.” No wonder I come back from holidays more exhausted than when I left.
The holiday hangover: three weeks for a one-week break
One of the reasons I avoid holidays now is the sheer time and energy cost. For me, a one-week holiday looks like a week before of prep, admin, packing and anxiety; a week during of sensory overload and pretending I’m fine; and a week afterwards of decompression and trying to reintegrate back into real life.
That’s three weeks of disrupted functioning for a single week of “rest” that didn’t feel restful. At that point, staying home with my own kettle, my own bed, my own food, and my own sofa starts to look less “boring” and more “deeply wise.”
Despite everything, I don’t think all holidays are doomed forever. I just think the standard template — flights, sun, enforced fun, daily activities — doesn’t work brilliantly for a lot of neurodivergent brains.
The breaks that have worked better for me tend to be short, nearby, and familiar. A couple of nights in a UK city, a hotel chain where I know roughly what the room will be like, a place where I can get home if I need to. Everyone gets their own space. Our last family trip was a weekend to York. It worked pretty well as the kids had their own rooms. We had ours. We set the tone early: you don’t have to spend every second together. If you want to disappear into your room and read for two hours, that is more than fine. It’s survival.
My fantasy holiday (and why it involves nobody else)
My husband once asked me, “If we won the lottery, what would your perfect holiday be?” I described an island with hardly anyone else on it, where someone quietly ships in food and books, and I just potter around by myself in peace. He said, “That sounds amazing — I could do that.” I said, “No. Just me. Not even the kids. Literally just me.”
It sounds awful written down, but it’s not about not loving my family. I adore them. It’s about cognitive load. If I’m on holiday with them, my brain doesn’t stop tracking everyone’s needs. I don’t stop listening, scanning, checking: “Are they okay? Are they overwhelmed? Are they bored? Are they hungry?” I can’t switch that off. That’s the mum load, the ND load, all in one. To feel genuinely rested, I need that channel to be quiet too.
Redefining what a “good holiday” looks like
Society tends to treat holidays as a scoreboard. “Where did you go this year?” “How many countries have you visited?” As if the number of times you’ve sat in an airport somehow proves you’re “winning” at life.
I’ve started opting out of that game. I’m not interested in racking up “experiences” just because that’s what everyone else seems to be doing. I’m much more interested in crafting a life that doesn’t require me to escape it constantly.
For me, that looks like more rest in my everyday life, less pressure to prove I’m having fun, being honest that holidays don’t feel relaxing, and letting go of the idea that I’m “boring” or “failing” if I don’t go away. If your idea of a perfect break is a week at home with no plans, no alarms, and no small talk, that is just as valid as two weeks in Ibiza. You’re not doing life wrong. You’re just doing it in a way that works for your nervous system.
Permission time!
So, if you’re a neurodivergent human who dreads packing, panics at airport security, needs a full week to recover from a “relaxing” trip, or secretly prefers your own sofa to any beach on earth… this is your reminder that there is nothing wrong with you.
Holidays, as sold to us, are not designed with us in mind. They assume flexible routines, low sensory sensitivity, high tolerance for uncertainty, and a brain that finds novelty more exciting than terrifying. If that’s not you, you are allowed to opt out — or redesign the whole idea.
You are allowed to say no to the big trips. You are allowed to do short, gentle, nearby breaks. You are allowed to rest at home and call it a holiday. You are allowed to like your own bed more than a resort. You are allowed to want a life you don’t constantly need a break from.
And if anyone at the hairdresser asks, “Going anywhere nice this year?” You can smile and say, “Yes, actually. My living room. It’s perfect.”
High-Functioning, Superpowers, and Other Painfully Annoying Phrases
Let’s get one thing clear: ‘high-functioning autistic’ isn’t a thing. It just means that whoever is being described as that is just doing a really incredible job of making sure that they don’t get sniffed out as anything other than absolutely blooming ‘normal’. And that will be taking up a huge amount of mental and physical energy. Believe me, I should know — I spent most of my life doing exactly that, and it was exhausting.
I appreciate that when some people think of autism they are going to what they consider the extremes in their head. So, if someone doesn’t match the stereotype they’ve built in their mind — because we can speak, work, or make eye contact — it somehow feels ok to stick us with the label ‘high-functioning.’ When actually, what’s going on is usually a huge amount of masking.
And while we’re at it, can we talk about some of the other painfully annoying phrases that get chucked around in conversations about Neurodiversity? Usually by well-meaning but brutally misguided people.
The ‘Superpower’ myth
Before I go further, a bit of context here to better explain why I am so ‘bitey’ on this subject. So, I am 50 years old and for about 48 of those years I was told on many occasions that I was ‘too much’. Too dramatic, too sensitive (hello emotional dysregulation), too needy, etc. And yet now I am to believe that I have a ‘superpower’ that makes me some sort of magical space unicorn. Because I can work through the night churning out blogs or write my degree dissertation in 3 weeks and get a first (yes, I will always dine out on that story!)
But that same ‘superpower’ has me haunting my house at 2am, when everyone else is asleep, looking for something that I absolutely don’t need, and yet my brain will sing the ‘where is it’ song in an annoying whiny brain worm until I find it. The last time it was a lip balm. I have about ten, as I forget I buy them and buy more (another gift of my spicy brain!)
Or what about my superpower that makes me fear public bathrooms in case someone sets off the unnecessarily loud hand drier and I feel like my ears are being screamed at by fire alarms. Lastly….and I’ve almost got closure I promise: Imagine ‘captain rejection sensitivity’ in her ill-fitting Lycra, and cape. A magnificent superhero who wanders around shouting “why don’t you love me” repeatedly to everyone from her long suffering husband to the poor woman in the supermarket who she swears looked at her funny.
Don’t get me wrong, I know I’ve got some incredible strengths that come straight from the way my brain is wired. And I wouldn’t swap them for anything. But calling them ‘superpowers’ skips over the messy reality that those strengths usually come bundled with so much physical and mental energy.
But here’s the thing. Whilst it might look, to a lesser being, like some sort of ‘other worldly’ gift. Worthy of celebration, and a special title. Actually, in reality, in the case of my dissertation, I think I slept for about 3 days during that time. Well….it felt like it. And the anxiety that accompanied not being able to start my work until that close to the deadline (hello task paralysis) was all consuming. The same goes with the other examples, which will be relatable to many of our listeners, I am sure of it.
Contradiction time
Bear with me, because here comes the bit where I contradict myself! There’s no doubt that some of our abilities can be harnessed and turned into something brilliant. But the truth is, a lot of the time we’ve had to dig through the rocks just to find the diamond — the tiny shiny bit that allows us to work with our brains instead of battling against them.
And let’s be honest, society doesn’t make that easy. The world is designed for nine-to-fivers who can cheerfully wake up at 7am, eat a sensible breakfast, and plough through spreadsheets until lunch without crying. For me, inspiration usually turns up at ungodly-o’clock, just as everyone else is snoring. Unfortunately, most workplaces don’t see “I wrote an entire business plan at 3am” as a valid excuse for rocking up at 11 looking like you’ve been hit by a bus.
That’s the real sticking point for me: what gets called a “superpower” is often just us squeezing our square-peg brains into round holes until something vaguely shiny pops out. Yes, we can hyperfocus, yes, we can spot details others miss — but that doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It happens after years of masking, adjusting, and figuring out how to survive in a system that wasn’t built for us. So yes, sometimes our abilities shine — but let’s not dress it up in glittery Marvel costumes and call it a superpower. It’s not X-Men, it’s just us doing the best we can with the brains we’ve got, in a world that wasn’t exactly designed with us in mind.
And while we’re clearing things up, can we retire a couple of other classics too?
“We’re all a bit autistic.” Hard. NOPE. You’re not. Unless you also spend hours rehearsing conversations in your head before you actually have them or feel personally victimised by hand dryers in public toilets, then no, you’re not “a bit autistic.”
“You don’t look autistic.” Also NOPE. What does that even mean?
The impact
Here’s the thing: most of the time, NTs who trot out these phrases aren’t trying to be cruel. They think they’re being kind, supportive even. But what it actually feels like, when you’ve spent years masking and blending in, is that your whole lived experience is being brushed aside with a cheery little phrase that makes my eye twitch.
Because when people say “we’re all a bit autistic” or “it’s your superpower,” what they’re really doing is putting you back in a box you’ve spent a lifetime trying to climb out of. And honestly, I don’t need to be a superhero or a quirky little project. I just want to be me — tangents, 2am brainwaves, hand-dryer paranoia and all.
So, here’s where we land: embracing my ND-ness (yes, I just made that up) has been the most liberating shift of my life. Not because it made me a superhero, or “high-functioning,” or whatever other phrases gets thrown at it — but because it finally let me stop pretending to be something I’m not.
So next time a well-meaning soul feels tempted to say, “we’re all a bit autistic”? Don’t. Just… don’t. Say literally anything else. Compliment my shoes. Ask me about Wotsits. Tell me I don’t look like someone who once got banned from karaoke in Menorca (long story). But please, leave the phrases at the door.
We don’t need superpowers, thanks. We just need space to be ourselves — Lycra optional.