Trouble coming up with words? | ADHD Information

This happens to me very often. I clump it in with the cute/ditzy/funny
things everyone thinks I do:

- The whole "thinga-ma-jiggie" thing......I totally get that. "You know,
those things? Tha tdo that thing....you know???"
- If I can't dredge up a word, it's usually a SUPER simple one.
- Saying inappropriate things (this has served me well, I have raunchy
friends).
- Total randomness - "we should take a Moroccan cooking class," "I
wonder what Moby Dick was meant to represent." I'm so random, it's
beyond comprehension.

Anyhow, I understand :-)i hear this, and i felt the need to respond. a blank hour. the last. and so it seems the rest of you are my vanquish, or void for misgivings. i like that. and marko, dude. i related. and laughed. inside.

my favourite part was, "managing to grasp their attention long enough to lose it".
and your writing is superb.

but seriously, i'm taking a voy of silence.

be well,

peas.

For me it seems like in almost every conversation I have, I pause in mid sentence to think of that word I'm looking for. Everyone kind of staring at me, sometimes filling in the blank for me, sometimes just waiting. It's especially bad when I don't get enough Zzzz's. It's really frustrating. 

I have that all too often. Simple stupid little words.

Also when someone is having a conversation about something and I try to interact it gets all jacked up.  We talk, convo is going okay, then i say something funny, they laugh, but i can't tell if it's real laughter or fake. then i try to recall what i said. half the time, what i just said was confusing and how the heck did it end up with talking about that, and man, i sounded like a child right then. were they giving a courtesy laugh? what were we talking about to begin with. how can i bring it back to that?

crap.

      I can tell you what my problem is in two words; Brain Freaking Drain... ok, three words, but its gotten so bad the past year that I find myself struggling to keep my mouth shut to avoid falling off a cliff and taking as many listeners with me as will listen.  It encompasses all.. names, words, whole freaking ideas vannish into the twilight zone as I imagine that Rod Serling guy standing off to the side saying;  "Meet mArkY... confused, embar-assed, with a detour on the path that once led from his brain to his tounge, taking all his thoughts on a long drive... into the Twilight Zone".

      Sorry for the weak humor, but thats the only way I've found to keep myself from super-gluing my lips shut to avoid exposing myself to the blank look on people's faces as I manage to grasp their attention long enough to lose it.  I go to recovery meetings in both AA and NA where you sit at tables in groups and take turns sharring ideas.  I get real good ideas, but when I'm asked to share it feels as if my brain is like a crummy sound card in a computer... I can listen and think, but I can't speak and think.  Even if the words are their at that moment, as soon as I open my mouth... pooof!  their gone.  I'm not real surprised about it, after all when you tweek your brain with drugs for 27 years, drive under a semi-truck and bust your head open, its a miracle I'm not stairing out of an institution window or into a bedpan and forget which one to use when nature calls.

      I have found that at times it works great, and those times usually follow a few days of eating right and resting, two things I rarely do right.  So I'll get on a kick for a few weeks of doing so, but in no time I fall back into my old routeen of staying up all night, crash before breakfast and be to weirded out to eat lunch or dinner... Ill just grab a coffee and eat some candy for quick energy, duh.. now I can stay up all night again.  I hear eating lots of red delicious apples are good brain food... mostly in the peals.  Seems to help, but proper diet and rest are indispensable in battling blankness.        &n bsp;  mArkY the KIDD

What I hate about not coming up with the right words I meant to say is that then the conversation ends up in a totally different direction than what I had intented.  Then I am not even following the same thoughts anymore.  I find it hard to lead the thought back because I lack the concentration and before I know it. the whole thought process is down the drain or I am no longer interested.  It's very frustating for me.

that tip of the tongue moments define my life.

and even go as far as to define my persona here if i dont edit my posts,

 con  in a stressful interview i expose my weekness before my strength

pro  i can have grapevine conversations that meander through everything

i believe this is a root of adhd . its got to have wide reaching implications if they ever hope to unlock alzhimers

 

I say this is a root because i have to interupt people before that tippy word becomes elusive agian

 

 

i interupt and then forget what i saying    i dont get the pleasure of   experiencing art  in conversation   because i rarely can see a whole conversation in my head.-  only bits and pieces and mostly only what i paraphrase.   so i am often refered to as akward   because i have my own  rules for conversation.

ommas39243.598287037

I know exactly what you mean, I'm the queen of 'doobrees' and 'thingy-ma-jigs'

Very annoying when your doing a gig, speaking over the microphone and suddenly forget how to talk ARGH!

lol, sud be a new post, all the replacement words we use, wotsit-ma-call-it, thingy-ma-bobs, mostly for me, strange noices of frustraction.   It describes my situation exactly! I am pathalogically terrible with names .. I cant remember the names of poeople I went to school with my whole life. But words are also a problem..they are simple words l..things Ive said 2 minutes ago. I used to think its because I often get anxious when I talk to people (even though I dont think I show it) and its m brain freezing up. I put this problem in the same category as my inability to remember names.

I'm in a regular conversation, and I'm trying to come up with a word that's just as common as any other word I usually say, but I can't remember it. It's like my brain is scanning my vocabulary bank but can't find the word I'm looking for. The word is hiding behind a tree somewhere.

For instance, I was trying to tell my friend the other day that I took my family to the carnival. But I couldn't remember the word "carnival." I kept wanting to say "circus."  So I laughed and said, "Oh, you know, that place with the rides and the cotton candy. Jeesh, my brain isn't working today." 

But the fact is my brain does that pretty regularly. It's kind of embarrassing.

I know that one well. I had it just now, I wanted to say intentional ambiguity. Way to complicated for a dyslexic adder. It took two people to try and figure out works I was trying to come up with.  GAH! Its soo frustrating when you just cant get your brain to work properly and find the words nessersary to communicate anything intelligible to someone else!
well i get it real bad when authority walks up to me and asks what?

i used to think that this symptom was all add was because  i keep getting much worse  and is usually the difference between making it through an interviewor not at somepoint in any conversation i forget        

not what in thinking  but kinda like that other word  

 

 then im off on a new subject , and cant even remember what how i got on the subject i am now  and even start doing other things  as people are starting to to try to be in the same coversation. 

ok   whats this thread about again. ill re read

tip of my tongue  feelings     make me look like a fool sometimes and then i feel like one.

Hi Jessiecpt,
Can I ask what med you are trying? I'm thinking of asking for Adderall.
Hi Jessiecpt,
Can I ask what med you are trying? I'm thinking of asking for Adderall.

I am taking Ritalin but I am not thrilled with it. I am super tired and just not feeling well at all. I want to try Adderall but my ins. company wont cover it.

I'm in a regular conversation, and I'm trying to come up with a word that's just as common as any other word I usually say, but I can't remember it. It's like my brain is scanning my vocabulary bank but can't find the word I'm looking for. The word is hiding behind a tree somewhere.

I HATE THAT!! It happens to me every day. Yesterday for example, I was trying to tell my daugher to throw something in the hamper and I could not find the word HAMPER in my brain. I was looking directly at the hamper but couldnt find the word. It makes me soooooooo mad when this happens and I am instantly upset. I just started meds yesterday so hopefully that will help.

 

Today, I could not pull up the word for gutters, instead it was "those things that hang off the house and drain water".

And people's names. OMG! I can't tell you how often I've drawn a complete blank, I'll know their face but if they are physically not where they are supposed to be (i.e. the place where I normally see them) or are not dressed the way they normally are (in a swimsuit at the pool) then I draw a complete blank.  Embarrassed the crap out of myself this week doing that same thing.

Okay, reading all this stuff is convincing me I have to go to the doctor. I've not been diagnosed yet, but I'm convinced.

And my word-recall is also terrible. Once, in university, I got to class, and sat down in the front row (the front helped me pay attention). The prof from the class that was just finishing up walked up to me and asked who was teaching my course. I totally blanked. I tried to make a joke out of it and instead made an ass out of myself. She just blinked at me and turned and walked away. I wanted to disappear! Wow,

I never knew this was a symptom. I can relate to everything you're all
saying here.   I sometimes feel self-conscious because I sometime can't
remember a word...like that thing that unclogs the toilet.

Eleni Kundeleni39260.8604282407

Holy moly.  Don't even get me started.  I lose words/trains of thought CONSTANTLY.  It is like my mind is already two sentences ahead of my mouth and then forgets what was in the middle.

I forget stupid small words, but also sometimes more complicated ones when I do seminars.  I talk in front of groups of people 2-3 times a week and it is rare where I don't have a moment where I am like "uh......what's the word?"  I do not usually get lost in my train of thought or go off on tangents because I use Powerpoint.  My best friend who keeps me on track!

Otherwise, I am all over the place.  Forget what I was saying and/or say whatever pops in my head.  I hate "did I say that?" moments....

Some of my "replacement" words:

doo-dad

thingy-ma-jig

doohickey

whatzit-ma-doodle (or thingy-ma-doodle)

who-zee-whatzit

etc....

 

Might I say... take a speech class, take a interpersonal communication class... then learn a few memory techniques… I can’t remember a name for the life of me… when I am talking in a small group or one person I will say sentences out of order fuse words together … see me giving a speech to 10,000 people and you would never know… Names, I have to take a moment but the techniques do work… you just have to remember to do them… I will get cocky and think “oh I got it, I don’t need follow the memory tech” only seconds later thinking to myself “crap, what’s their name?”