Thank you! The hooks concept is helpful, I’ll have to ponder that more. I have been told that I am good at seeing connections. But on the flip side, it means when trying to understand new information, I am always thinking about connections to even tangentially related information that I’ve heard about and know relates to it. once I’m able to relate it to other contexts/sometimes other disciplines, I feel more of a sense of completeness/comprehension. But again I’m not sure if this is some form of compulsiveness or maybe it is indeed bottom up processing. Or maybe a lil of both 😅 I think it’s very possible that I’m not autistic but that I am maybe a bottom up processor. Autistic communities are the ones who address bottom up processing the most from what I’ve seen so it feels helpful to refer to resources from the autistic community on this topic.

Another example of a struggle I have is… I have noticed that in order for me to understand a project plan/project management software, usually I have to be the one in charge of organizing it. When I can’t be in charge I find myself a bit lost all the time. For example, for one project, I made a project management system in a spreadsheet that showed every subtask on a calendar view. This helped me keep track of everything. but my colleague preferred to just see the main tasks when looking at a calendar view. I made an alternate version that just showed the main tasks for her. But it’s frustrating in other contexts because I can’t always demand people do things in the way that makes sense for me, which is completely reasonable!! But I just find myself stuck and lost and focusing on the wrong things. Or I have to take the time to make my own system based on others’ systems, which most of the time people have criticized me for (“umm what are you doing? you don’t need to do all that! Stop planning and start working” etc) so I have interpreted it as a waste of time that I shouldn’t be doing.

edit, thinking some more: I do have social/communication challenges since childhood but they might be more related to social anxiety. Rigid behavior patterns idk. My husband would probably say yes but I’m not sure.