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So let's say I want to sit down and read a book.
I will sit down, after a few secounds I will get back up to open the windows. Sit down again. stand up to turn on the light. Sit down. check the phone. Get back to reading my book. Get annoyed by the lack of background music so I turn on some music. Get annoyed by that music and try to find more fitting music. Back to reading. Read multiple sentences but they didn't really "reach" me if you know what I mean? Like your eyes are reading but your mind is elsewhere so you have to read them again. Get up to turn on the washing machine. While I'm at it, how about I clean the entire flat?
And this is me with basically every task. I often start to watch a youtube video in the morning during breakfast and finish it at dinner time. Sometimes I can get "in the zone" but that seems to happen so randomly and most of the times it's like how I described it above
Edit: Also if I'm in a situation where I can't easily get up and do something else, I will just zone out. I do this a lot at work, my hands are working but mentally I'm not there.
Edit2: Also I got tested for adhd earlier this week and there was this one test that I swear is only made to provoke you to lose your focus by pure boredom because it was going on for 10 minutes and I kept zoning out despite giving myself mental slaps every idk few minutes? to please focus because this is serious.
Ok, sorry I promise I'm done now
This is 100% me. I just recently got my meds and I can actually read again. Before I would be reading and I would fine my mind wondering without even realizing it. Not to mention I can actually focus on anything I want now. I may get the small random thought but it’s no long a train of thoughts.
I can relate to what you described with the book but for me it's more because reading a book is a mental task and then I would find everything that's easier/more interesting to be a lot more rewarding so I start washing the dishes, cleaning the room, go grocery shopping, anything except that main task and if I force myself to keep reading I just feel this pressure inside me that I need to stand up and do something else, and with pressure comes this feeling that I can't describe but basically like you feel really bad about life, probably miserable. But I recently tried a physical job (driving basically) and I could do it for hours and be fine except being physically tired.
My job is more one the physical side too. It's also pretty fast paced, I either run a lot or are constantly working with my hands. I don't think I could work in an office. They made me work in their office for a day and after idk an hour when the newness wore off I got confirmed what I always knew: I can't do office work. It's all my weaknesses in job form and it's so frustratingly boring. Like I get so uneasy. I usually don't feel restless during my normal job but during that one I was so tense and bored.
Not to share too much info but for example...
Today me and my GF were having some intimate time together and my thoughts kept wondering freely. One moment I'm focused on her and before I can blink I'm thinking about some scene from a b rated horror movie I saw 15 years ago.... bring my attention back and I'm imagine a conversation that's never happened in a world that will never happen...
Bring myself back, and suddenly I'm thinking about spaceships or wondering about some small sliver of a culture and why that culture developed that way......all while being intimate
theres ZERO control as to where the squirrels take my brain.
When studying important information, I'll get where I can't focus...... I'll read the same paragraph 20+ times and not retain any of it. I'll put my headphones in...... try removing myself for any sound. I'll try so hard to focus that I'll end up getting pissed off and depressed and nothing I can do helps me read or understand any of it
Okay that's what I imagined "can't focus" meant and even though I get moments like that too they're not actively making my life a struggle. Thanks for sharing
This is kinda embarrasing for me but yeah, that's my mind during intimate stuff too. Granted I'm also asexual so maybe that's an asexual thing in my case rather than a lack of focus thing because no attraction and all that but I feel like my mind still shouldn't wander like that.
Omg, I didn’t realize this happened to other people. It doesn’t matter if I’m physically enjoying the moment, my brain still wanders off and is thinking about something completely unrelated.
This also started happening to me as I got older. I guess my sex drive took some natural decreasing and it was no longer enough to keep my head in the game. It's actually what lead me to the doctor in the first place in a long winded road towards diagnosis.
I can focus fine, I just can't choose the things I can focus on. Perfect example: focusing on Reddit is easy mode - but I'm supposed to focusing on cleaning the kitchen right now.
Hmm, so this sounds to me like you can't stay on the task of cleaning the kitchen because it doesn't feel rewarding? So here focus is not about not getting distracted but about being able to force yourself to do/stay on task?
This is pretty much it. Generally the only way you can "force" focus is when your general anxiety/fear over an issue reaches a critical point where you know if you don't commit time to it immediately there will be severe repercussions.
And it's pretty hard to get around this because it's fucking impossible to play tricks on your own brain. Laughable even. I've been neglecting responsibilities my whole life.
The ONLY thing that's helped with this is medication. Therapy is like banging your head against a wall for me.
Its like playing whack-a-mole in my brain of what I "need" to do. At the end of the day everything is important, but im just zipping back and forth different tasks. Its not always like this, some days are easier than others. But the worst days, im just kinda frozen stuck trying to decide what to do, next thing you know the whole day has passed without actually doing anything.
It’s more about “struggle to have any control over my focus” - rather than “can not” focus.
Adhd brains tend to struggle with:
- Task Initiation
- continued focus
- hyperfocus
When we are in hyperfocus, we are amazingly good at focusing. I’m in my 50s & still pull all nighters to get stuff done for my job - I get in “The zone” and my work quality improves massively. Not great for waking up in time to go to the office the next day though!
TL;DR: it’s more about the struggle to **regulate our focus**, rather than just a pure struggle to ever focus.
Your experience matches mine closely. If I have a task ahead of me - something that's within my ability to do - but it's unsatisfying, boring, difficult, or (especially) ambiguous, I'll do almost anything else. I won't enjoy any of the things I'm doing to procrastinate, because there's an undercurrent of anxiety that I'm trying desperately to ignore.
Only when the anxiety reaches a breaking point do I start doing anything. And sometimes not even then, because being constantly anxious, combined with the normal demands of life, is exhausting. Sometimes I just shut down entirely. Lots of things never get done. So far I've managed to hold a career together but it's stagnated pretty badly.
Is it ADHD? I don't know. Probably.
The best way to think about it is that ADHD is, for historical reasons, a terribly misnamed disorder. There's this whole huge class of executive function deficits, of which the stereotypical hyperactivity is a subset.
A story from high school.
Had to read a book. My parents knew I wouldn't do it. They provided me with a distraction free environment - taking away my PC and smartphone.
Read a paragraph. At the end of the paragraph realized I lost attention by the third word and it was just my eyes drifting through the page while my mind was on a tangent which I couldn't even remember. This would happen every few seconds. A few seconds into the mind drifing I would realize it, get back on track, only to get distracted by my brain a few seconds later. It could take multiple minutes to go through a single paragraph.
Went through the whole book that way. Remembered almost nothing. The whole ordeal felt painful. If I was offered being beaten up in exchange for not having to read the book I would take it in a heartbeat. Remembered almost nothing.
Haven't touched a book since I ended school. I fear them.
See, your parents should have given you an environment with juuuuust the right amount of distraction instead of no distractions.
You need something to keep the toddler in your brain busy while the adult (or high schooler) does the thing it needs to.
For me, hard to focus means I can't tune out everything else external. Sounds around me, smells, bring hungry all prevent me from getting tasks done because instead of tuning all of it out, I am constantly pulled away by thoughts when I hear a coworker talk outside my office, or a mourning dove making that sound in the morning.
Can't focus means for me its. Lets say I want to do something. Its either very important I do it, or I genuinely want to do it with interest. I sit down, start doing it. I have no issues with distractions because I just completely get rid of them. I go as far as turning off the Internet if I get distracted. And I sit there trying to work but I just can't... I literary cannot. I try too hard my head starts hurting and I feel really angry. Basically a mental breakdown. At which point I give up, take a long shower, sleep and try again another time. By another time I mean... probably in 3 or 4 months.
A lot of it has to do with my thoughts just focusing on other topics so whatever I'm supposed to be focusing on goes in one ear and out the other and it has little to do with my interest unless I'm hyperfixating on it.
But I'm also just very easily distracted by my environment because I notice every single change in my environment. So if something moves, that's where my attention goes. If I hear a noise, that's where my attention goes. Hell, if there's a new smell, guess where my attention is going? Probably explains why I have so many sensory sensitivities - because I'm just sensitive to my senses in general.
But I've explained my racing thoughts to my mom who doesn't have ADHD but has an anxiety disorder and according to her, it's similar to her not being able to focus when she's experiencing a lot of anxiety, except my thoughts aren't necessarily anxious - there's just a lot of them.
Interesting, when something important like that is being told to me I would try to note it down but not because I can't focus but because I think I'm gonna forget all the details even if I do listen and understand what's being said.
Can't focus on the specific thing that your "supposed" to be focused on, like a teacher's lecture, is common for all ADHD. Can't focus on anything is fairly rare (though does still happen) for inattentive types like myself. For me, the difficulty in focusing on the thing I'm "supposed" to be focused on is usually tied to wanting to focus on something else. However, repetition of ground just covered always sends my brain searching for something interesting.
For me, "can't focus" means significant discomfort when directing my attention to the task to be focused on, paired with intrusive distracting thoughts. The discomfort is hard to properly classify, but it kind of feels like my brain is too "hot" without any actual temperature. The intrusive distractions will tie to any other source of even minute discomfort if they can, but addressing all such sources will just shift the intrusive thoughts to fidgety behaviors.
What you've described definitely constitutes executive dysfunction, but may not be ADHD in particular. Particularly, your second point sounds like learned helplessness to me.
Learned helplessness occurs when someone overbearing has taught you that doing the wrong thing is monumentally worse than doing nothing, and this lesson has been encoded in your psyche through trauma. Under such an influence, experimenting and exploring are verboten, and you are helpless without specific instruction.
How bad is being bored? For the average person, being bored appears to range from a relaxing state to a state of mild annoyance. For those of us with ADHD, being bored is psychologically torturous.
Stress from past trauma combined with stress caused by present environment and coping mechanisms that increase it instead of decrease because everything is done differently based on a VARIETY of differences spread across a BOX of the 3 types that people like to argue over that then prevents individuals from accomplishing things that they REALLY REALLY want to do.
Can’t trust people to tell the truth sometimes and despite popular belief the world isn’t full of Saints. Every other living thing fights for survival everyday but humans like to pretend the world we live in is actually a safe place.
Everyone is different, imagine the amount of mental effort required to do most of the things you do. I guarantee if you explained it to someone without ADHD their head would spin, it’s no wonder we suffer with poor focus and memory problems.
People with and without ADHD seem to struggle with understanding that everyone is different.
/rant Sorry OP I’m just venting and I hope everyone that reads this has a wonderful day.
On really bad days my vision gets blurry, like an unfocused camera in and out. I can’t fully process anything and I just end up staring at the wall, or if I an walking around I’ll stop in the middle of the room while zooning out for 5 minutes at a time. It also affects my coordination, like dropping things and bumping into things constantly. It’s frustrating.
I have multiple mamifestations of it...
There's the "this is an undesireable task, so my exective function shuts dow and all i want is to curl up in a ball and sleep"
And "I'm completely into the task, but I'm going to go down a rabbit hole on an insignificant aspect of it so i never finish"
And "I'm just gonna do this one thing first to get the juices floooohh, shit its 4am already?!?"
And the "sorry, i spent an hour catatonically staring off into space"
And the "looming deadline is quickly approaching and I'm so full of panic, anxiety, and shame that I cant do anything except maybe cry"
And the, "can you repeat the part where you said the stuff? I know its important, but I was too busy listening to an 8 second chunk of Bohemian Rhapsody in my mind"
And definitely a few more that i cant think of right now.
I think it's different depending on the situations.
During conversations, I sometimes zone out, lose track of what they're saying because there's too many details, or I just start thinking of something else completely. I'm usually able to come back, fake it, and pretend like I heard everything. But sometimes, especially if it's something important or with someone I really care about, I'll ask them to repeat themselves.
During boring tasks, I think I just dislike the task so much that I shift my attention to something else. Then I remember, oh I have to finish this. And that repeats until I get the task done. Unless I have some pretty solid strategies in place (or an urgent deadline).
In meetings, the inattention is really more related to my need for movement, I think. I cannot sit still in long meetings. I shift in my seat constantly. Much of my attention then goes to my shifting/movement. I sometimes try to sit/stay still so as not to bother other people, but it's often unbearable. Then, I try to find ways to satisfy that need without bothering other people/appear rude. If that's the case, I often cannot pay attention very well in the meeting. But I'm in a pretty accommodating office, so most of the time I'll just stand up in the back, and *then* I can focus much better. But if I don't have that, it's really hard to focus on the content of the meeting.
It just feels like my train of thought re sets itself the minute I think of or notice or hear or see something else. When I'm trying to talk to someone in a busy restraunt it's like I have to look at every single person and listen to every single voice. It feels like part if my brain is missing. Like my brain feels.like Swiss cheese. I have a lot of brain fog though and often wonder if I have something else going on too
I sit down to do some work. Oh, but first I need to make sure my desk is clean. Okay now I can work! Wait no I need to make sure I have some snacks so I don’t have to get up and get them and interrupt my work. Okay now I’m making my snack. Now I need to clean up my mess from making my snack. Okay whoops now I need to empty the dishwasher and clean the counters. Okay cool now I can take my snack to my desk. Okay now I need to find a podcast to listen to before I can start, and a back up one for when that one is done. Okay now I can work. But first I should go to the bathroom. Did I wash my face this morning? Okay I should wash my face. Okay now I can work. Okay now I’m working. I need to do a little research, I should look some stuff up. Oh wow, I didn’t know this thing! I should look into it more! Wow I’ve been looking at this not work related thing for a while, I should get some work done. But now I’m so tired and there’s only 40 minutes before I need to do something else. I should just a get a little work done before then. But now there’s not a lot of time so maybe I should just get ready to do my next thing!!!
This can manifest in so many ways for me.
First of all I'm a walking accident about to happen. No kidding. I've had eight surgeries on my neck and spine alone. I'm cut and have scars all of my arms and legs and I can't tell you how many times I've hit my head. To say I'm a clutts is such an understatement. Okay, I've lived in the same house for 35 yrs. Doing my chores I walk into chairs, I whack my arm on counter tops and cupboards, I slam my fingers in doors and so on and so on. Nothing's changed every time I hurt myself I say I'm not going to do that tomorrow and it doesn't even get to tomorrow before I'm doing it over and over again for 35 years. I have severe balance problems I just cannot pay attention to what I'm doing no matter what just walking around.
Then there's like what a lot of people have described here. I will sit down to do something right now at the moment I've gone back to school. Oh by the way I'm 51 years old male here. So sitting down to do homework or projects writing research papers doing precalculus. I don't know where to start where to end no matter if I've done the research and know how to write essays and at least average if not above average for the most part and most subjects. Doesn't matter if I try to focus or a complete a task I cannot keep concentration on one thing for more than 5 seconds before something else is popping in my head and then two more things are popping in my head and then pretty soon I'm holding my head with a headache and just give up.
Then there's procrastination. Paying bills, cleaning the house, running errands, and so on and so on. Just put it off to the last second and usually I'm not very good with deadlines.
The next two I will combine together. And I don't think I really have to get too deep into it you can pretty much form your own picture in your head. Forgetfulness and complete lack of organization which then it leads to other multiple problems.
Even with medication I still go through this.
I do struggle with procrastination too, especially on weekends where I watch Youtube videos all day. But I also have a “concrete” set of tasks for that day that I want to cross off. So whenever I get, say, 30 mins of motivation, I jump at the opportunity, complete one task and cross it off. Once I’ve crossed off one task, I want to cross off some more. And before you know it, I’ve spent a good 2 hrs doing real work, then back to youtube videos again until I find another opportunity to complete more tasks. At the end of the day I have had completed most of the tasks in my to do list for that day.
My brain is so full of different unorganized thought and a mix of empty information that it's overwhealiming to a point of all consuming noise that I can't control anymore and i can't do or think whatever task it was i am supposed to do.
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So let's say I want to sit down and read a book. I will sit down, after a few secounds I will get back up to open the windows. Sit down again. stand up to turn on the light. Sit down. check the phone. Get back to reading my book. Get annoyed by the lack of background music so I turn on some music. Get annoyed by that music and try to find more fitting music. Back to reading. Read multiple sentences but they didn't really "reach" me if you know what I mean? Like your eyes are reading but your mind is elsewhere so you have to read them again. Get up to turn on the washing machine. While I'm at it, how about I clean the entire flat? And this is me with basically every task. I often start to watch a youtube video in the morning during breakfast and finish it at dinner time. Sometimes I can get "in the zone" but that seems to happen so randomly and most of the times it's like how I described it above Edit: Also if I'm in a situation where I can't easily get up and do something else, I will just zone out. I do this a lot at work, my hands are working but mentally I'm not there. Edit2: Also I got tested for adhd earlier this week and there was this one test that I swear is only made to provoke you to lose your focus by pure boredom because it was going on for 10 minutes and I kept zoning out despite giving myself mental slaps every idk few minutes? to please focus because this is serious. Ok, sorry I promise I'm done now
This is 100% me. I just recently got my meds and I can actually read again. Before I would be reading and I would fine my mind wondering without even realizing it. Not to mention I can actually focus on anything I want now. I may get the small random thought but it’s no long a train of thoughts.
WHY THE PROFILE PICTURE???
I got hit by it so now others must as well lmao
Man... This is very toxic. And doesn't it also disturb you?
I HATE YOU 😭😭😭
I HOPE YOU
I can relate to what you described with the book but for me it's more because reading a book is a mental task and then I would find everything that's easier/more interesting to be a lot more rewarding so I start washing the dishes, cleaning the room, go grocery shopping, anything except that main task and if I force myself to keep reading I just feel this pressure inside me that I need to stand up and do something else, and with pressure comes this feeling that I can't describe but basically like you feel really bad about life, probably miserable. But I recently tried a physical job (driving basically) and I could do it for hours and be fine except being physically tired.
My job is more one the physical side too. It's also pretty fast paced, I either run a lot or are constantly working with my hands. I don't think I could work in an office. They made me work in their office for a day and after idk an hour when the newness wore off I got confirmed what I always knew: I can't do office work. It's all my weaknesses in job form and it's so frustratingly boring. Like I get so uneasy. I usually don't feel restless during my normal job but during that one I was so tense and bored.
Not to share too much info but for example... Today me and my GF were having some intimate time together and my thoughts kept wondering freely. One moment I'm focused on her and before I can blink I'm thinking about some scene from a b rated horror movie I saw 15 years ago.... bring my attention back and I'm imagine a conversation that's never happened in a world that will never happen... Bring myself back, and suddenly I'm thinking about spaceships or wondering about some small sliver of a culture and why that culture developed that way......all while being intimate theres ZERO control as to where the squirrels take my brain. When studying important information, I'll get where I can't focus...... I'll read the same paragraph 20+ times and not retain any of it. I'll put my headphones in...... try removing myself for any sound. I'll try so hard to focus that I'll end up getting pissed off and depressed and nothing I can do helps me read or understand any of it
Okay that's what I imagined "can't focus" meant and even though I get moments like that too they're not actively making my life a struggle. Thanks for sharing
This is kinda embarrasing for me but yeah, that's my mind during intimate stuff too. Granted I'm also asexual so maybe that's an asexual thing in my case rather than a lack of focus thing because no attraction and all that but I feel like my mind still shouldn't wander like that.
Omg, I didn’t realize this happened to other people. It doesn’t matter if I’m physically enjoying the moment, my brain still wanders off and is thinking about something completely unrelated.
This also started happening to me as I got older. I guess my sex drive took some natural decreasing and it was no longer enough to keep my head in the game. It's actually what lead me to the doctor in the first place in a long winded road towards diagnosis.
I can focus fine, I just can't choose the things I can focus on. Perfect example: focusing on Reddit is easy mode - but I'm supposed to focusing on cleaning the kitchen right now.
Hmm, so this sounds to me like you can't stay on the task of cleaning the kitchen because it doesn't feel rewarding? So here focus is not about not getting distracted but about being able to force yourself to do/stay on task?
This is pretty much it. Generally the only way you can "force" focus is when your general anxiety/fear over an issue reaches a critical point where you know if you don't commit time to it immediately there will be severe repercussions. And it's pretty hard to get around this because it's fucking impossible to play tricks on your own brain. Laughable even. I've been neglecting responsibilities my whole life. The ONLY thing that's helped with this is medication. Therapy is like banging your head against a wall for me.
Its like playing whack-a-mole in my brain of what I "need" to do. At the end of the day everything is important, but im just zipping back and forth different tasks. Its not always like this, some days are easier than others. But the worst days, im just kinda frozen stuck trying to decide what to do, next thing you know the whole day has passed without actually doing anything.
Yeah, sounds very familiar.
It’s more about “struggle to have any control over my focus” - rather than “can not” focus. Adhd brains tend to struggle with: - Task Initiation - continued focus - hyperfocus When we are in hyperfocus, we are amazingly good at focusing. I’m in my 50s & still pull all nighters to get stuff done for my job - I get in “The zone” and my work quality improves massively. Not great for waking up in time to go to the office the next day though! TL;DR: it’s more about the struggle to **regulate our focus**, rather than just a pure struggle to ever focus.
Perfectly articulated. Thank you.
Your experience matches mine closely. If I have a task ahead of me - something that's within my ability to do - but it's unsatisfying, boring, difficult, or (especially) ambiguous, I'll do almost anything else. I won't enjoy any of the things I'm doing to procrastinate, because there's an undercurrent of anxiety that I'm trying desperately to ignore. Only when the anxiety reaches a breaking point do I start doing anything. And sometimes not even then, because being constantly anxious, combined with the normal demands of life, is exhausting. Sometimes I just shut down entirely. Lots of things never get done. So far I've managed to hold a career together but it's stagnated pretty badly. Is it ADHD? I don't know. Probably. The best way to think about it is that ADHD is, for historical reasons, a terribly misnamed disorder. There's this whole huge class of executive function deficits, of which the stereotypical hyperactivity is a subset.
Right, I've also heard (from Russell Barkley's videos) that ADHD doesn't reflect what this disorder really is.
A story from high school. Had to read a book. My parents knew I wouldn't do it. They provided me with a distraction free environment - taking away my PC and smartphone. Read a paragraph. At the end of the paragraph realized I lost attention by the third word and it was just my eyes drifting through the page while my mind was on a tangent which I couldn't even remember. This would happen every few seconds. A few seconds into the mind drifing I would realize it, get back on track, only to get distracted by my brain a few seconds later. It could take multiple minutes to go through a single paragraph. Went through the whole book that way. Remembered almost nothing. The whole ordeal felt painful. If I was offered being beaten up in exchange for not having to read the book I would take it in a heartbeat. Remembered almost nothing. Haven't touched a book since I ended school. I fear them.
See, your parents should have given you an environment with juuuuust the right amount of distraction instead of no distractions. You need something to keep the toddler in your brain busy while the adult (or high schooler) does the thing it needs to.
Just cant sit down to study by any means possible even violent threats
For me, hard to focus means I can't tune out everything else external. Sounds around me, smells, bring hungry all prevent me from getting tasks done because instead of tuning all of it out, I am constantly pulled away by thoughts when I hear a coworker talk outside my office, or a mourning dove making that sound in the morning.
Can't focus means for me its. Lets say I want to do something. Its either very important I do it, or I genuinely want to do it with interest. I sit down, start doing it. I have no issues with distractions because I just completely get rid of them. I go as far as turning off the Internet if I get distracted. And I sit there trying to work but I just can't... I literary cannot. I try too hard my head starts hurting and I feel really angry. Basically a mental breakdown. At which point I give up, take a long shower, sleep and try again another time. By another time I mean... probably in 3 or 4 months.
A lot of it has to do with my thoughts just focusing on other topics so whatever I'm supposed to be focusing on goes in one ear and out the other and it has little to do with my interest unless I'm hyperfixating on it. But I'm also just very easily distracted by my environment because I notice every single change in my environment. So if something moves, that's where my attention goes. If I hear a noise, that's where my attention goes. Hell, if there's a new smell, guess where my attention is going? Probably explains why I have so many sensory sensitivities - because I'm just sensitive to my senses in general. But I've explained my racing thoughts to my mom who doesn't have ADHD but has an anxiety disorder and according to her, it's similar to her not being able to focus when she's experiencing a lot of anxiety, except my thoughts aren't necessarily anxious - there's just a lot of them.
[удалено]
Interesting, when something important like that is being told to me I would try to note it down but not because I can't focus but because I think I'm gonna forget all the details even if I do listen and understand what's being said.
Can't focus on the specific thing that your "supposed" to be focused on, like a teacher's lecture, is common for all ADHD. Can't focus on anything is fairly rare (though does still happen) for inattentive types like myself. For me, the difficulty in focusing on the thing I'm "supposed" to be focused on is usually tied to wanting to focus on something else. However, repetition of ground just covered always sends my brain searching for something interesting. For me, "can't focus" means significant discomfort when directing my attention to the task to be focused on, paired with intrusive distracting thoughts. The discomfort is hard to properly classify, but it kind of feels like my brain is too "hot" without any actual temperature. The intrusive distractions will tie to any other source of even minute discomfort if they can, but addressing all such sources will just shift the intrusive thoughts to fidgety behaviors. What you've described definitely constitutes executive dysfunction, but may not be ADHD in particular. Particularly, your second point sounds like learned helplessness to me. Learned helplessness occurs when someone overbearing has taught you that doing the wrong thing is monumentally worse than doing nothing, and this lesson has been encoded in your psyche through trauma. Under such an influence, experimenting and exploring are verboten, and you are helpless without specific instruction. How bad is being bored? For the average person, being bored appears to range from a relaxing state to a state of mild annoyance. For those of us with ADHD, being bored is psychologically torturous.
Stress from past trauma combined with stress caused by present environment and coping mechanisms that increase it instead of decrease because everything is done differently based on a VARIETY of differences spread across a BOX of the 3 types that people like to argue over that then prevents individuals from accomplishing things that they REALLY REALLY want to do. Can’t trust people to tell the truth sometimes and despite popular belief the world isn’t full of Saints. Every other living thing fights for survival everyday but humans like to pretend the world we live in is actually a safe place. Everyone is different, imagine the amount of mental effort required to do most of the things you do. I guarantee if you explained it to someone without ADHD their head would spin, it’s no wonder we suffer with poor focus and memory problems. People with and without ADHD seem to struggle with understanding that everyone is different. /rant Sorry OP I’m just venting and I hope everyone that reads this has a wonderful day.
Literally what happens when a camera tries to focus but it keeps droning back and forward. But in my head.
On really bad days my vision gets blurry, like an unfocused camera in and out. I can’t fully process anything and I just end up staring at the wall, or if I an walking around I’ll stop in the middle of the room while zooning out for 5 minutes at a time. It also affects my coordination, like dropping things and bumping into things constantly. It’s frustrating.
to me it means both being distracted by different things and interrupting my activity to do them, and spacing out/daydreaming.
I have multiple mamifestations of it... There's the "this is an undesireable task, so my exective function shuts dow and all i want is to curl up in a ball and sleep" And "I'm completely into the task, but I'm going to go down a rabbit hole on an insignificant aspect of it so i never finish" And "I'm just gonna do this one thing first to get the juices floooohh, shit its 4am already?!?" And the "sorry, i spent an hour catatonically staring off into space" And the "looming deadline is quickly approaching and I'm so full of panic, anxiety, and shame that I cant do anything except maybe cry" And the, "can you repeat the part where you said the stuff? I know its important, but I was too busy listening to an 8 second chunk of Bohemian Rhapsody in my mind" And definitely a few more that i cant think of right now.
I think it's different depending on the situations. During conversations, I sometimes zone out, lose track of what they're saying because there's too many details, or I just start thinking of something else completely. I'm usually able to come back, fake it, and pretend like I heard everything. But sometimes, especially if it's something important or with someone I really care about, I'll ask them to repeat themselves. During boring tasks, I think I just dislike the task so much that I shift my attention to something else. Then I remember, oh I have to finish this. And that repeats until I get the task done. Unless I have some pretty solid strategies in place (or an urgent deadline). In meetings, the inattention is really more related to my need for movement, I think. I cannot sit still in long meetings. I shift in my seat constantly. Much of my attention then goes to my shifting/movement. I sometimes try to sit/stay still so as not to bother other people, but it's often unbearable. Then, I try to find ways to satisfy that need without bothering other people/appear rude. If that's the case, I often cannot pay attention very well in the meeting. But I'm in a pretty accommodating office, so most of the time I'll just stand up in the back, and *then* I can focus much better. But if I don't have that, it's really hard to focus on the content of the meeting.
It just feels like my train of thought re sets itself the minute I think of or notice or hear or see something else. When I'm trying to talk to someone in a busy restraunt it's like I have to look at every single person and listen to every single voice. It feels like part if my brain is missing. Like my brain feels.like Swiss cheese. I have a lot of brain fog though and often wonder if I have something else going on too
bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored bored (bored)
I sit down to do some work. Oh, but first I need to make sure my desk is clean. Okay now I can work! Wait no I need to make sure I have some snacks so I don’t have to get up and get them and interrupt my work. Okay now I’m making my snack. Now I need to clean up my mess from making my snack. Okay whoops now I need to empty the dishwasher and clean the counters. Okay cool now I can take my snack to my desk. Okay now I need to find a podcast to listen to before I can start, and a back up one for when that one is done. Okay now I can work. But first I should go to the bathroom. Did I wash my face this morning? Okay I should wash my face. Okay now I can work. Okay now I’m working. I need to do a little research, I should look some stuff up. Oh wow, I didn’t know this thing! I should look into it more! Wow I’ve been looking at this not work related thing for a while, I should get some work done. But now I’m so tired and there’s only 40 minutes before I need to do something else. I should just a get a little work done before then. But now there’s not a lot of time so maybe I should just get ready to do my next thing!!!
Typing this from my car in the grocery store parking lot thinking “I should go in and get my groceries”
This can manifest in so many ways for me. First of all I'm a walking accident about to happen. No kidding. I've had eight surgeries on my neck and spine alone. I'm cut and have scars all of my arms and legs and I can't tell you how many times I've hit my head. To say I'm a clutts is such an understatement. Okay, I've lived in the same house for 35 yrs. Doing my chores I walk into chairs, I whack my arm on counter tops and cupboards, I slam my fingers in doors and so on and so on. Nothing's changed every time I hurt myself I say I'm not going to do that tomorrow and it doesn't even get to tomorrow before I'm doing it over and over again for 35 years. I have severe balance problems I just cannot pay attention to what I'm doing no matter what just walking around. Then there's like what a lot of people have described here. I will sit down to do something right now at the moment I've gone back to school. Oh by the way I'm 51 years old male here. So sitting down to do homework or projects writing research papers doing precalculus. I don't know where to start where to end no matter if I've done the research and know how to write essays and at least average if not above average for the most part and most subjects. Doesn't matter if I try to focus or a complete a task I cannot keep concentration on one thing for more than 5 seconds before something else is popping in my head and then two more things are popping in my head and then pretty soon I'm holding my head with a headache and just give up. Then there's procrastination. Paying bills, cleaning the house, running errands, and so on and so on. Just put it off to the last second and usually I'm not very good with deadlines. The next two I will combine together. And I don't think I really have to get too deep into it you can pretty much form your own picture in your head. Forgetfulness and complete lack of organization which then it leads to other multiple problems. Even with medication I still go through this.
It means that when my brain is under-stimulated by something it starts searching for more stimulation elsewhere.
I do struggle with procrastination too, especially on weekends where I watch Youtube videos all day. But I also have a “concrete” set of tasks for that day that I want to cross off. So whenever I get, say, 30 mins of motivation, I jump at the opportunity, complete one task and cross it off. Once I’ve crossed off one task, I want to cross off some more. And before you know it, I’ve spent a good 2 hrs doing real work, then back to youtube videos again until I find another opportunity to complete more tasks. At the end of the day I have had completed most of the tasks in my to do list for that day.
My brain is so full of different unorganized thought and a mix of empty information that it's overwhealiming to a point of all consuming noise that I can't control anymore and i can't do or think whatever task it was i am supposed to do.