Need assistance?
We have said goodbye. The conversation is over. Everyone else has moved on. I haven’t.
Since middle school, I’ve experienced a pattern of getting stuck replaying social interactions — a look, a tone, something someone said — analyzing it over and over, trying to figure out what it meant or whether I did something wrong.
This isn’t occasional overthinking. It can go on for hours, days, sometimes years, and it feels involuntary once it starts. It has led me to isolate for long stretches just to avoid triggering it, and now I get anticipatory anxiety before social events too, bracing for the same thing to happen again.
For most of my life, I couldn’t explain this behavior. I just believed something was severely wrong with me.
But there is a word for it: perseveration. For a lot of autistic and ADHD adults like myself, it’s one of the most disruptive, lesser-discussed parts of daily life.
[Read: “A Living Contradiction” – The AuDHD Experience]
What Is Perseveration?
Perseveration is the tendency to fixate on particular thoughts or feelings, with real difficulty disengaging from them. Though fixating on a favorite topic or hyperfocusing fall under the umbrella of cognitive perseveration for some, others take perseveration to mean getting stuck on a thought, task, or action long after it is useful, productive, or relevant. (There are other types of perseveration, like verbal and motor.) Perseveration tends to be involuntary, and can cut into sleep, work, and ordinary life.
Perseveration is part and parcel of the inflexible thinking that’s a core trait of autism and found in some other forms of neurodivergence. Emotional and attention regulation issues also play a role in getting stuck on looping thoughts, often of a negative nature. (Rumination is a common form of perseveration.) While it may not seem like it, chewing over the same thought or feeling, even if it’s distressing, can be a form of mental stimulation – another reason the behavior persists.
How to Manage Perseveration
Cognitive flexibility — the brain’s ability to disengage from one thought and shift to another — is linked to better mental health. That’s why learning to get unstuck matters. Here are a few ways I’ve learned to escape the loop of perseveration:
- Build cognitive flexibility deliberately. Engage in an activity that forces you to mentally shift, whether that’s completing a puzzle or going for a walk. (It’s easier to break out of thought loops with physical activity.)
- Time-box. Give yourself a defined window of time to perseverate. Within that timeframe, don’t do anything else — just think about the topic on your mind. When the timer runs out, give yourself permission to shift. Chances are that the topic will have loosened its hold over you.
[Read: “Can’t Stop Worrying? Just Schedule It for Later”]
- Externalize the loop. Sometimes putting your thoughts in writing gives you the clarity you need to keep them from circling back.
- Name the theme, not the moment. Often, it isn’t really about that one conversation, but a recurring fear or insecurity underneath it (e.g., being “too much,” being secretly disliked). Look for patterns and triggers in the scenarios that keep you stuck.
For many years, the most difficult aspect of perseveration for me wasn’t the loop itself but not knowing that this pattern of behavior has a name, and that other neurodivergent people were experiencing it, too. I had to find my own — often unkind — explanations for being stuck in loops.
While knowing about perseveration doesn’t make it go away, it makes it easier to manage without shame. I now know that something isn’t deeply wrong with me. I simply have a trait that other people have found their way through.
Perseveration, Autism, and ADHD: Next Steps
ADDITUDE IS HUMAN
Artificial intelligence does not create or edit any written content published by ADDitude. Our editorial team is 100% human, and our mission is simple: listen to and serve our readers with hand-crafted, expert-informed resources. To support ADDitude, please consider subscribing. Your readership and support help make our commitment possible. Thank you.
Advertisement
