Do you ever Hyperfocus? | ADHD Information
Dave4now;Hyperfocus {HF} is one of things that my df {dear
wife} is unhappy with about me. It is annoying when
people interrupt us when we're in a HF mode. Why
can't they see we're in the zone, what's wrong with
these people anyways ? As if they could read our
minds {scary place!}
This is not an "odd synpton" for adders, but a very
"normal" one. The problem is {and dude it is a
problem} is finding a way to unfocus and reenter the
nOrmal world without the crash and burn effect.
I am a total wreck when I have to focus on things people need me to do at the spur of the moment. and the more tasks you give me, the more mixed up and confused I get. Suddenly I forget things and am fumbling all over my feet.
But...
If I work on a task I thought up, and am left alone, I fall into a world of me and it. I can work for hours without tiring and I will loose track of time. If someone tries to interupt me, I become very upset. I find it almost impossible sometimes to break away from the urge to work or do this one thing. Its like a magnet and I am a piece of metal. I have found to skip meals, sleep, and sometimes other very important tasks because I am lost in my project.
You know for a ADD person, at times I am pretty darn focused..
I find I get obsessed with things all the time, sometimes its the computer, sometimes the forums, and sometimes a project, but never ever is it two things at once, when I am in focus mode, I can't multitask, I only know one direction and its full speed ahead.
Anyone else run into this odd symptom?
The problem rises, if I stop and are interupted, often the project goes unfinished,
Thats me 100%. I went on a vacation a few year ago and when I returned, my electricity, phone and water were all turned off because I failed to pay the bills before leaving (no sh*t, I'm dead serious!) I think AD(H)Der's have focus inconsistency, not a deficit! I read somewhere that Albert Einsten was more than likely AD(H)D. I count that as good company!
[QUOTE=bepatient]*[/QUOTE]Hi Lis. Gotta luv ya, Gal. U R Precious, eh? Don't let me tell ya otherwise*...
*sounds of davdiornado wiping egg off'f face...
[QUOTE=bepatient]*[/QUOTE]Oh, shoot! BUSTED!
'cha doin' here, honey?
hmmm, I'm a poet too, I wonder how many of us are poets. I am told my poems move people, I am often asked for copies. I bet many of you write amazingly well also. I could never throw my poems away, each one is a part of me and time in my life. When I write, I know what emotion I want the reader to share with me and capture, so I write my words to wrap around them and capture it for them. The words are the least important part and are just the frame and I use small words that twist or turn, what I put inside my frame is how I write. I wonder if anyone but an ADHD could think that backwards and outside the box.
I wonder if its because we can reach emotions when we hyperfocus others can't get to.
Like for instance, I wrote this as I was trying to get a grip on myself and wether I was willing to try medication to treat my Mental issues and if it might hurt me.
My Boxno doors, no cracks
If I shake it, I know I am in
there, because I can hear me rattle.
I find my box has no holes to breathe
no handles to carry, no legs to stand upon.
It is forever heavy to carry about, but
I fear placing it down, for others to carry off.
I have found many tools to open my box,
some are sharp, and some are blunt
others spin and whirl
But I am reluctant to use them, for I do
not know How delicate I am in my box, and
fear that I will never be able to close it ever
again.
Maybe when I am hyperfocusing like this, I come the closest to understanding my feelings. Its like quiet time, where my brain can work without distraction.
[QUOTE=autumnstar]I actually did publish one poem in an anthology book for young adults. But I've never sent in any since then.[/QUOTE]Good for you! I can't remember ever publishing. A poem, that is. I'm copywrited on a research tome. So why didn't you send anymore? [QUOTE=Dave2u4now]hmmm, I'm a poet too, I wonder how many of us are poets.
[/QUOTE]Someone around here said they were a poet, and didn't know it...Anybody want a peanut?*
*For my criti'cs sake, this is a quote a/b poems from a famous movie, therefore I find it is neither weird nor ultra.
[QUOTE=Dave2u4now]When I write, I know what emotion I want the reader to share with me and capture, so I write my words to wrap around them and capture it for them. The words are the least important part and are just the frame and I use small words that twist or turn, what I put inside my frame is how I write. I wonder if anyone but an ADHD could think that backwards and outside the box.[/QUOTE]I don't know...
I know!
Ask ~~~name's hv bn chngd to protect the not always innocent~~~*
I think they can see the box [from within]
No matter how God rap'd it
*For my criti'cs sake, this is a quote from a famous movie, therefore I find it is neither weird nor ultra.
Davidornado38594.9206365741 [QUOTE=Dave2u4now]I wonder if its because we can reach emotions when we hyperfocus others can't get to.[/QUOTE]You'd be surprised what emotions can be reached by others who can get to*
*For my criti'cs sake, this is not a quote a/b poems from a famous movie, therefore I find it is neither weird nor ultra. Rather, I find it Ne Plus Ultra. Non-Pareil.
*
[QUOTE=Dave2u4now]hmmm, I'm a poet too, I wonder how many of us are
poets. I am told my poems move people, I am often asked for copies. I
bet many of you write amazingly well also. I could never throw my poems
away, each one is a part of me and time in my life. When I write,
I know what emotion I want the reader to share with me and capture, so
I write my words to wrap around them and capture it for them. The words
are the least important part and are just the frame and I use
small words that twist or turn, what I put inside my frame is how I
write. I wonder if anyone but an ADHD could think that backwards and
outside the box.
I wonder if its because we can reach emotions when we hyperfocus others can't get to.
Like for instance, I wrote this as I was trying to get a grip on myself and wether I was willing to try medication to treat my Mental issues and if it might hurt me.
My Boxno doors, no cracks
If I shake it, I know I am in
there, because I can hear me rattle.
I find my box has no holes to breathe
no handles to carry, no legs to stand upon.
It is forever heavy to carry about, but
I fear placing it down, for others to carry off.
I have found many tools to open my box,
some are sharp, and some are blunt
others spin and whirl
But I am reluctant to use them, for I do
not know How delicate I am in my box, and
fear that I will never be able to close it ever
again.
Maybe when I am hyperfocusing like this, I
come the closest to understanding my feelings. Its like quiet time,
where my brain can work without distraction.[/QUOTE]
[quote=Tornado] Great
post, David. I was moved by it, truthfully. I'm into the box thing, but
from a different perspective. Please forgive me for abusing your art to
make my own. [/quote] [quote=DavidO', in another forum]I have boundaries, and I will assure you I remain
in them. However, it appears that my box is of another design, so differences
are to be expected. I am not capable of pleasing everyone, and at this stage in
my life, no longer feel compelled to try. *
[/quote][quote=BoxOrnado] How do you like these boxes? [/quote]
[quote=BoxOrnado Copy'd but made you think he] http://www.adhdnews.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=6961&P N=1&TPN=42 [/quote]
*a not yet famous qoute that may or may not or mayn't or may be weird or ultra and get or not get the POINT across.
I see this a lot with ADD and ADHD kids in my classes I teach. They have a hard time breaking away from their hyperfocusing.
I think that they are afraid that they will forget the next minute what they were doing. They instinctively know that they will forget where they were, what they were doing. It's that this project or thing is so important to them that they do not dare quit because that will be the end of it and they know they won't be able to get back to it.
I think that is why ADD people interrupt also, I do that big time. It annoys everyone around you. It is like I know I will forget what I wanted to say in a minute, so I have to say it NOW!
I can't even watch a movie without hyperfocusing. If somebody wants to talk to me and I am trying to pay attention to ANYTHING I groan EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHHHHH, and if they tap me I flick them away and squirm.
This, and my pig sloppiness is why the BF used to affectionately refer to me as
"a sexier Oscar the Grouch"- when describing me to his friends.
It is also (1-2 reasons) why
we are in the middle of splitting up after almost 3 years living together.
Yeah, for about a month now. I've got to go back to work!!! I can't leave these forums...!!!
Oh, man! Where's the men in white suits when you need them?
Check this guy out:
DAvidornadog is a Gringo capitalist who brings his talents to a wide range of ventures. He is an enormously successful bankrupt entrepreneur and CEO founder of several enterprises that carry the thoughts of upheaval and rebellion. He brought revolution to the thinking industry by claiming he was ADHD and is recognized as one of the most fascinating business leaders in his own mind. He started his first business selling worms to golfers while he was still in grammar school.
!-- var SymRealOnLoad; var SymRealOnUnload; function SymOnUnload() { window.open = SymWinOpen; if(SymRealOnUnload != null) SymRealOnUnload(); } function SymOnLoad() { if(SymRealOnLoad != null) SymRealOnLoad(); window.open = SymRealWinOpen; SymRealOnUnload = window.onunload; window.onunload = SymOnUnload; } SymRealOnLoad = window.onload; window.onload = SymOnLoad; //--> This guy must have (hyperfocused):Scott Eyre, San Francisco Giants pitcher,
was diagnosed with AD/HD at 30.
So what did he have before then?
Do you think this guy can: (hyperfocus):?
Davidornadog, former NFL quarterback wannabee, never a host of ADHDNews.com pre-games, recently wrote a sentence in which he reveals that he has AD/HD, but he’s not admitting it publicly.
How about this guy (hyperfocus):
Davidornadog is one of the nation’s most uncelebrated contemporary artists, and an internationally-unknown fashion challenged dresser, urges people not to suffer from their AD/HD, but rather to enjoy every minute of it; a claim that recently won acclaim and awkward nominations.
Barb,
EXACTLY!
I haven't tossed mine - they're in a box down in the basement. I've tried to type them all on the computer but I get bored. I've seriously thought about paying someone else to type them up for me and to go to Kinko's to have them printed into some kind of format. Friends that I've shared them with in the past said they'd buy a copy.
You're right, it seems like another person did all that. I also can't just sit down and write anymore. I sometimes wrote 3 or 4 poems in one day and now, nothing.
What's weird is that these poems were rarely ever about me or something that happened to me. I'd write about friends' relationships or what they were going through. While I was writing - I could feel it and 'be in it' but as soon as the poem stopped, it was just like watching a movie - it wasn't 'mine'. Some of them could be sexual. My husband thinks that they were about old relationships that I had so he can't read alot of them. I can't get him to understand that when I'd get done writing them, I'd reread them and it would be like reading something that someone just handed me.
Nice to know that someone else had the same thing...
That's quite interesting ... I used to write also ... except rather than poems, I'd sit there and write horror stories ... like both of you, I no longer do it either ... hmmmm. I don't know if I still have any lying around ... even if I do, I'll probably never find them ... 
It's also kind of funny, because whenever it came to writing stories for school, they just weren't the same ... not detailed enough etc., etc.
I also used to lock myself in my room and read for hours and hours and hours on end. It used to drive my mom crazy. Some summers I'd read twenty novels or more ... 
Annia,
I also read a lot, I still do actually - whenever I can anyway.
I would read all the time. While eating, after school, before school. It drove my dad crazy when he'd want to talk to me and I had my nose in a book. I didn't like to be interrupted either.
Hyperfocus- that thing I do which my family hates because when they interrupt me I react with a very mean tone of voice and tell them to leave me alone!
I used to do the same thing Autumnstar. I had so many poems, short stories and songs by the time I was a young adult that they were a pain to move. So many notebooks! I tossed them all.
The weird thing now is that I don't feel the least but drawn to write anymore. When I think about it, it just seems like it would take too much energy even if I had an inspiring thought, which I don't. Its like looking back at another person. It is odd in that it was the biggest thing in my life for many years and now its gone.
When I think back, my first memorable experiences of hyperfocusing happened alot in high school. I called them my 'poetry moods'. I just knew that they would hit me and I would almost hear the words flowing in poems. I HAD to write them down, RIGHT THEN. The 'moods' could last for a few minutes, a few hours, the longest one lasted for the better part of 3 days. I would get absorbed into the moods, feeling the emotions, expressing them eloquently. I just knew that I was a complete b!tch if I couldn't concentrate on my poetry during these moods. All I wanted to do was just write, and write, and write. Until it was done. When the poem was done, it'd just 'lift' and the mood was gone.
I never had to make corrections to the poems. I would only have to make a few grammatical changes occasionally. I heard that Mozart wrote his music that way.
I wrote about 300 poems in about 5 years.
Autumnstar
I actually did publish one poem in an anthology book for young adults. But I've never sent in any since then.
Now that means I have to go get that box from the basement, go through them to find some. I just get lost in picking between my poems...
I do remember one stanza that ends a poem, it's one of the few things I've memorized:
"The night closed around me,
Kissing me with its strange chill,
But only my love could I see,
Only my love could I feel."
I don't know why, but it haunts me.
That's good Autumnstar!
Dornado, you don't want Barb to try to publish anything. The reason I tossed my writings is that I didn't know how to go about it and was too mentally frozen to find out.
I just might end up taking all the good stuff and losing it somewhere and then everyone would hate me and justifiably so!
I would contribute something though.
Let's not limit it to poems. We should include short stories also. It would be horrid to leave someone's work out. I do like the idea of a book by ADHDers.
barb38594.5274305556We could call it "Musings of ADD" LOL
Yea we could have different sections - essays, short stories, poems...
Falling Star:Did you publish?
I've a few in mind I'd like to publish.
How about we gather "The Best of ADHD Poems" from members and have Barb publish them?