Unmasked
Diagnosed at 44. Asperger's + ADHD.
Decades of "why can't I just..."
The labels came after. The experience was always there.
"I have tremendous social anxiety. I live 90% in the moment whether on my own or with others. I am almost always hyperfocused and find it very hard to switch focus. In social situations I shut off to almost everything except the item of my focus."— 2023-09, Medication Options for Cognitive Patterns
The Frame: Monotropism
Not ADHD. Not autism. Monotropism.
One attention tunnel. Very deep. Very narrow. The tunnel moves, but never widens.
When I'm in the tunnel, everything else is dead to me. I don't hear you. I don't see the clock. I don't remember that I have a body.
This explains:
- • Why I hyperfocus — the tunnel is deep
- • Why I can't switch — the tunnel is narrow
- • Why I'm AI-fluent — pattern-based thinking
- • Why context dies — when the tunnel moves, the old one is dead
The Two-Sided Sword
The Gift
- • Incredible rapid domain mastery
- • Deep systematic understanding
- • Can absorb entire fields overnight
- • Sniper-level precision on target
The Cost
- • Dead to the world during focus
- • Lack of real integrated continuity
- • Previous hyperfocus becomes dead
- • 80% of valuable work gets killed
"Turn my 80% of my time that are super valuable hyperfocused moments—the value inside gets killed because as I enter a new hyperfocus the previous ones become dead no matter how valuable they were."— 2025-07, Hyperfocus Cognitive Enhancement
Executive Function IS the Disability
"My executive function is a real disability. I struggle to get any tasks done—calling people, answering the phone, getting back to people."
— 2023-11"My 2 main problems are social anxiety and executive function, and together they make my life very difficult."
— 2023-10"I'd rather work at 54 NIS/hour in a vegan factory than feel the shame of asking for help. That's my bug. I know it."
— 2025-12The ideas come easy. The doing is the mountain.
Why I Built a Prosthetic
My context kept dying. Every hyperfocus session produced value. Then the tunnel moved. And that value was gone.
So I started logging everything. 359,000 messages later, I can query my own history.
Not a productivity hack. Survival infrastructure.
"Now that I have all my previous projects well documented, it is much less taxing. When I'm inside a hyperfocus session, it's much less of a risk to access my previous information. This is probably the biggest concept of everything."— 2025-10
The Raw Version
"Due to my general cognitive makeup of dyslexia, ADHD, autism—I've just been in the cycle of doing all of this on my own. I'm invisible to the world and I really really need money right now. We're struggling. I'm not working. My wife is working."
"I am broke. I can't ask anyone for anything. I have massive RSD. HELP. I need an agent, a partner, an enabler."
"I also am chronically unemployed. I feel bad about myself. I would love to offer some value for money. I struggle so much to reach out to people—what if there was another way?"
No mask here. This is the version I can only be when not performing.
Why AI Feels Native
"When I speak to AI, I can communicate at the speed of thought. When I start having to translate everything down for other people, it becomes incredibly, incredibly hard."
"I can't do small talk, but AI is my flow state."
— 2025-12
If any of this helps
The tools are open source. The frames are borrowed (Murray's monotropism work). The system is documented.
I'm not selling anything. This is just what works for me.
"The prosthetic that I'm specifically after—I know that other people with my cognitive structure would find what I'm building very, very helpful."