Repetition gets a bad reputation.

Growing up autistic, I often repeated thoughts, behaviors, routines, conversations, phrases, and ways of regulating myself—and for a long time, I assumed that if something kept coming back, there must be something wrong with me that I hadn't figured out yet.

So I kept digging.

Eventually, I realized repetition itself wasn't the problem.

In this episode of Imperfectly Better, I explore the different roles repetition has played in my life: emotional regulation, predictability, rehearsal, learning, processing change, building skills, and sometimes simply enjoying something enough to do it again.

But repetition can also become a trap.

I talk about the difference between genuinely processing something and what I call “orbiting”—restarting the same question over and over while hoping one more insight, perspective, or explanation will finally give you certainty.

Along the way, we get The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, mining for ore, stirred-up lakes, treating myself like a data analytics project, and the question that has helped me become much more discerning about my own loops:

Does this repetition help me return to life—or does it keep asking me to escape it again?

This is the next episode in my seven-part series inspired by Kaelynn Partlow's Life on the Bridge, exploring her experiences alongside my own life as an autistic person.

Learn more about Life on the Bridge

Explore Kaelynn Partlow’s YouTube channel

Podpage Website

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