30 something adult with ADD currently taking Focalin. As I am now becoming able to really put effort into my career, I find myself feeling stupid in regards to my ability to learn and comprehend.

Honestly, it appears I BS'd my way through 10 years of corporate employment and 5 years of college on my personality and enthusiasm alone. I am having a difficult time learning and comprehending concepts/phrases I get from reading or presentation.

While I can "somehow" pull out a project with brute effort in a short period of time, I never really understand what's going on....for some reason I have to have the ENTIRE picture in my head before I can even attempt to comprehend any details.

The only way I learn is hands-on and even then it's haphazard and un-orderly..

Anybody here feel like they have never learned how to "learn"? What are you doing to correct it? I really don't feel like I know anything anymore...like I've been present in body but absent in mind.

It's like starting grade school all over again.

Thanks

RC

YES!!
My brain doesn't seem to know how to learn. It won't hold on to information! It's terribly frustrating. I'm trying to learn now and feel like I'm getting nowhere. :(

YES!! back at you too!! Good, I"m not alone.

What kills me is I never showed any learning disabilities in school except scoring below average on some auditory/listening stuff. Heck I was "gifted" and was taking SAT in 7'th grade.

Even with my new found "focus" while taking Focalin, it still doesn't seem to change the basic flaw....

RC

If you mean learn through books and such then Im right there with ya. I cant learn through books and college was just so boring I couldnt stand it! I also can learn really well doing something but when it comes to learning from text I cant do it.

I learn by doing...problem is there isn't enough time to do what I'm trying to learn.

RC

I feel that way too. I've spent my entire life BSing through school and never picked up the skill of how to genuinely learn!
It drives me nuts because I WANT to learn, no more BSing because I have to be very knowledgeable of what I'm learning to make a career out of it. I think it's stupid that at ae 19 I'm trying to teach myself the skills they learn in like, the first grade.
Things just don't stay in my head...I've given up trying to learn so many things that should not be hard, especially if its remember specific details like similarities or differences between two related things..it just can't happen.

Wow, didn't know this was common, i'm so glad to hear others have this too.

I feel that way too. I've spent my entire life BSing through school and never picked up the skill of how to genuinely learn!
It drives me nuts because I WANT to learn, no more BSing because I have to be very knowledgeable of what I'm learning to make a career out of it. I think it's stupid that at ae 19 I'm trying to teach myself the skills they learn in like, the first grade.
Things just don't stay in my head...I've given up trying to learn so many things that should not be hard, especially if its remember specific details like similarities or differences between two related things..it just can't happen.

Wow, didn't know this was common, i'm so glad to hear others have this too.
I feel the same way. I also learn by doing or watching the discovery channel.

I didn't learn how to learn from reading until I was 22 and took a professional development through my school that taught about active reading strategies. I am better now, but still have work to do.

I'm the same way as far as learning by rote goes. I've learned to pretty much read a page and then sketch the subject i'm learning, be it in detail or a symbolic image, I can hardly stop studying when I do this because its simply so enjoyable. I'm able to learn a semester of material in about 3 days doing this.

I cannot learn anything I'm not interested in. To remember any info i have learned :-) that using the pedagogical approach of read-listen-do (or something like that) helps.

However, If I read a book, and someone asks me details about it, I cannot answer, but somehow it feels that I have learned something anyways. I more of remember the images i got in my head while reading it, the mood, feelings, nuances and such. Stuff that I cannot express in words. If i could draw better, I probably could paint a great review :-)

apparently i've haven't learnt the concept of time yet, it's like i know somethings comming up but it seems ages away until it's for the next day then if i actually remember about it it's like ARRGGGHH!!! rush around and try and do it before the times up!

Me too! I can never catch up until the class is over! Even then I didn't end up doing all the reading I should have done! :faint: apparently i've haven't learnt the concept of time yet, it's like i know somethings comming up but it seems ages away until it's for the next day then if i actually remember about it it's like ARRGGGHH!!! rush around and try and do it before the times up!

I really relate to your feelings about learning. I think many of us feel that we go through careers and life BS'ing because we appear to get "it", but struggle with what the "it" even is. I've had some great jobs and know that it was my work ethic and determination that enabled me to promote and be seen as a "bright" employee.

The struggle to remember things, recall things, or just absorb info to get it into thoughts that we make sense of are common, I think to those with ADHD. My take is that other people just process faster, it is not that we can't, it just takes a lot longer, for me anyway.

We have to focus on the good stuff about our brains...........there really are many things, just think how creative we are in trying to overcompensate for our inner struggles. We have to embrace who we are and be OK with that. I think that is the answer to the struggles in dealing with ADHD. I agree though, learning things is a tough one!

I know the feeling man. It's a pain in the butt to be reading a book and realize you don't remember what happened last paragraph. I have a tendancy to do that same kind of thing in conversations, I'll only remember bits and peices of them if I remember the conversation at all.

You should have seen me trying to finish the Da Vinci code while I was in the hospital. I would have never gotten that done had it not been for the massive amount of time in a room basically by myself.

Yeah, it's a real killer.

I'm totally a tactile learner. Any class with a lab I'm good at. I have to use multiple methods to remember what I study. Pictures and colors help. If I can relate the info to something practical that helps too. I tape lectures and sit up front in class whenever I can. I'm done with most of my basic classes which bored me to death, ie US Govt. Luckily I tend to hyperfocus on things that interest me so I'm excited to finish the last half of my courses which focus on my future career.

I more of remember the images i got in my head while reading it, the mood, feelings, nuances and such. Stuff that I cannot express in words. If i could draw better, I probably could paint a great review :-)You should try a study method called mapping. You don't have to draw well, just well enough to know what you're looking at.

Sadly, I teach and am 2/3 through grad school, and I still don't get :confused: how best to help myself learn. When asked, I retain almost nothing of what I've read. It's pretty pathetic to know I've read, highlighted, and taken notes, and yet have no basic idea what it was about unless I'm looking at the text.:faint:

When I'm teaching, I am perfectly able to connect my students with ways that will help them. But I get very muddled when it comes to my own reading. But then, nothing really makes sense to me anymore.

be well,
tristan;)

I have the hyper type and without dexedrine I find that although I don't learn things completely I tend to learn a lot just from rapidly switching from one thing to another so I feel kind of Advanced rather than Deficit in that sense I tend to be hyperaware of evrything in the environment... a clock in another room ticking can wake me up at night... and that can be bad but... being hyper can help sometimes even now... at work if I am not being motormouthed and blunt, I'll skip my initial dose and start and almost complete about everything and then when i take the dexedrine i finish it... does anyone ever do that??? I can squeeze a day or two to do that every once in awhile but it helps sometimes

This is a very good topic.

I remember my Testing Psychologist mentioning this to me... that often ADHD/ADDers never learned how to learn. (A.K.A. "Meta-Learning")

Meta-learning is learning how we [ourselves] -=best=- learn. Everyone is different.

I remember as a lad I took a class called Educational Psychology. It was full of just such info as how we learn. This has been so long ago that I don't remember much about what was taught, just that I was blown away by what I learned about learning. I was a senior at this time. If I had taken this class as a freshman, it might have turned my life around as a student. Maybe you could get ahold of a textbook and check it out.
By the way I still don't know jack about psychology. That class was required for teacher certification.

tend to learn a lot just from rapidly switching from one thing to another so I feel kind of Advanced rather than Deficit in that sense I tend to be hyperaware of everything in the environment..

From what I gather this “style” is associated with our hyperactivity type ADD as I am like this also! Try to “make” myself learn forget it because learning just doesn’t happen with “make”…..when I want to learn “it” simply happens.

They couldn’t teach me punctuation with years of schooling. When I needed to learn punctuation to pass another class in college years later I learned punctuation in a week-end!!!

For me slowness, repetition and “force” are the ways NOT to learn if I have to sit still for a predetermined amount of time forget it!!!…..I learn best with an intriguing concept and a search engine throw in a debate and I am like there!!! It is the stimuli thing!!!!

How about a few ADDed concepts. IMHO this would be a good thing so here is some thing to “chew on” think about ect……


Visual-Spartial Learner (http://www.visualspatial.org/what_is_a_vsl.htm)


***Quote
Visual-spatial learners think in pictures rather than in words.
They learn better visually than auditorally. They learn
all-at-once, and when the light bulb goes on,
the learning is permanent.

They do not learn from repetition and drill. They are
whole-part learners who need to see the big picture first
before they learn the details.

They are non-sequential, which means that they do not
learn in the step-by-step manner in which most
teachers teach. They arrive at correct solutions
without taking steps, so “show your work” may
be impossible for them.
End Quote***

This site has a cool cartoon which most here including me may relate!!!

There is even a "test" to take to see if you fall into this catagory! I answered "yes" to 15 out of 18!

The only ones I answered no to was #5, #16, and #18!

Hey try it! Never know when an answer presents itself besides we all some how learned to read and write....Most of us have careers or are working toward one okay? So sheer stupidity in this crowd simply does not ADD (pun intended) up!

I learn by doing...problem is there isn't enough time to do what I'm trying to learn.

RC

I totally and completely agree with this statement. I also fooled everyone into thinking I was smart from high school to law school (okay I now believe I am rather intelligent but that took a few years to iron out). Oddly enough, I DID cry for help back in high school, but everyone thought my "joke" was really a joke. Reminds me of the song from the Bee Gees--"I Started A Joke" is the title, I think....

I always feel better coming here to find allies...the rest of the world really just doesn't understand. =T

yeah! that 'getting the whole picture' issue is a big problem for me. Im in medical school and i cant start doing anything and i can read and read but wont really understand unless i have a big map of it. its a big problem b/c you can only make the map after youve gone throuhg it already so after i do that, i need to go in and really understand it all over again for it to make sense.