As my mind has always been ADD, I natrually thought that everyone had the same thought process as me, especially BEFORE I got a diagnosis.

For example, I was suprised to learn from my doctor taht most people do NOT get a burst of energy when they haven't slept for a day or two....evidently, ADDers do get hyper when most others would normally crash.

Similarily, I always just assumed that everyone daydreamed like an ADDer. I mean, from my point of view, why wouldn't they? Of course, over the years, I"ve learned that this simply isn't true.

There are other things that I knew I was quirky with, but had not associated it with ADD--like, my hypersensitivity to collars, food, noise, etc. Or my ridiculous lack of balance or clutziness.

Anywas, just curious-- what things have you discovered that are not, in fact, "normal" for the rest of the world, but are to you?

I once told a colleague in work that I found dull tasks a lot easier if I had a good film or TV program in my head to get me through it. She looked at like I was crazy, I just told her that I can remember details of things really well so it was almost as good as actually watching the thing :D I also tend to remember back certain sequences in films but put myself in it, lol

Another thing was about going off on tangents, I'd often be looked at like I was nuts due to me branching off into a seemingly different topic altogether. In reality the thing I branched off into was just me going too far into the conversation and skipping a lot of the intermediate steps (if that makes any sense, I've just woken up, lol).


I used to wonder how people managed to put up with idiots making noise, then realised that most can actually filter it out enough so that it doesn't annoy me. Whereas my filter filters out most of the wanted noise and leaves the unpleasent one to take main focus.

I used to wonder how people managed to put up with idiots making noise, then realised that most can actually filter it out enough so that it doesn't annoy me. Whereas my filter filters out most of the wanted noise and leaves the unpleasent one to take main focus.I always wondered that too, any noise or movement around me will distract me unless it is music or tv or something like that. When teachers tried to teach whatever they want to teach me they just turn into background noise like everything else. I thought that happened to everyone until I got diagnosed with ADHD.

One time I mentioned to a friend and a teacher that it would be good to have tables that you could work on by standing up so you are able to move around, they just looked at me like "Why would you want to stand up and work?"

I'm still floating around, exclaiming every now and then, "You mean that's ADD? I thought everybody did that. Doesn't everybody do that?"

I had never realized that people can put their keys in their pocket in the morning and at the end of the day...they're still there!!!

And it also came as a shock that people actually have reasons for pretending to be interested in something...when they pay attention to something, it's intentional because they want something (ie I always wondered why women were always so interested in hearing about my senior thesis). You mean other people don't just focus in on whatever catches their attention with no real regard for priorities? You mean those women might have been interested in something more than my thesis? Oh wow, what a crazy world we live in!

Oh, and most people walk into a room with the intention of getting a specific object or performing a specific task. They not only know which room it is, but what they are looking for and where it most likely is. And they meant to walk into that specific room, too! I thought everyone would walk into a room and go "now what was I looking for again...." or "oh, wait, this isn't the kitchen!"

the shifting flashes of awareness coalesce into narratives retold,
shiftly ever so slightly despite the echo

webs
flimsy yet
incorrigible
shimmer

reverberating ever new notes

let's listen
together
strumming a string

I thought everyone would walk into a room and go "now what was I looking for again...." or "oh, wait, this isn't the kitchen!"Unfortunately I was always aware that other people weren't going through this, so I often tried to pretend that I knew where I was and what I was doing.

But yeah, I was always annoying people with things I would say...sometimes just the sheer quantity of words...except the people who I now realize were also ADD...we'd have lively, animated conversations punctuated with, "Now how did we get onto this topic?"

And I don't remember when exactly I discovered that not everyone has a stream of words going through their minds endlessly. When I was in groups who were practicing meditation, I just figured no one was really able to empty their mind of all thoughts. In fact, I still do believe that. They're just fooling themselves or faking it, right?

This is the sort of stuff that baffles me :) Quite honestly I feel like I'm cheating now when I take Ritalin. Now that I can sit still in class and pay attention to the lecture I'm stunned how that is "normal" for people. Or the fact that people can sit down and read books, get projects done... It's a strange feeling being able to get things accomplished now...

Almost everything.


what things have you discovered that are not, in fact, "normal" for the rest of the world, but are to you?

The non priority carefree aspect of it and even now the "A-ha's" or "revelations" that seem to be a complex discovery process that in the end is common sense to begin with

Quote:
Originally Posted by Hyperion
I thought everyone would walk into a room and go "now what was I looking for again...." or "oh, wait, this isn't the kitchen!"

Unfortunately I was always aware that other people weren't going through this, so I often tried to pretend that I knew where I was and what I was doing.

Me too, sometimes walk into a room and have no idea what I'm doing there to I make it up as I went along. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't and I look stupid. :D

Another thing that I knew wasn't 'normal' was when I would be going somewhere, for exmaple a classroom. And I would go into a day-dream or something distracts me and I would walk straight past it. So I pretend im going somewhere else first so I don't look like an idiot. :cool:

you may laugh at this ( its kinda funny but embarrasing too)

all the way until 15 years old i thought (thanks to a family member who is a cop) that if males smoked marijiuana they grew breasts, and if females smoked then there breasts would shrink... when i realized that i felt so stupid... and i rememeber hanging out with a friend at school and the "school dealer" was out in the parkign lot about to leave so we talked ot him seeing what he as doing (it was end of school everyone was hanging out) and i rememebr standing there thinking "damn he must smoke alot of pot, to have breasts that big" as he was a somewhat buff guy and had some niced sized pecks... i felt like an idiot... i thought that was true for several years from the age of 8 i thought that...

I'm on the other side. I was aware that I went through things no one else seemed to. I'd get tired way to easy after reading, I couldn't concentrate for long periods of time, concepts or ideas that were stupidly simple for others were in fact a huge struggle for me..

But I think I'm starting to see things in my ADD that I figure everyone can do. For example, I can multi-task like you wouldn't believe it! *lol*

But I think I'm starting to see things in my ADD that I figure everyone can do. For example, I can multi-task like you wouldn't believe it! *lol*

I thought all ADDers could play simple games on the computer while talking to relatives, or respond to a post during a conversation but they can't . . . Gary bounces around from the time he gets out of bed in the morning until he falls in it but when he is on the phone a bomb could go off and he wouldn't hear it. . . .I cal listen to different conversations but only respond to one at a time. . .

My mistaken philosophy has always been if I have thought of it every one else had too. . . it had to be obvious for me to get it. . . apparently this is not always the case what is obvious to me isn't necessarily even connected in other people's minds.

I discovered I was different in kindergarten when other kids could sit still and I couldn't it. . . I used to wonder how people could sit in one place for an hour with out it hurting. . . .so much they had to wiggle around to stop the pain. . . .I learned I was different in kindergarten from a friend who said sitting in class didn't hurt her. . . . .she didn't act like it hurt either. . . .I really got the message in the first grade when my friends swore their left hand and right hands looked different . . . okay mine still look the same way to me. . . . I place a plain silver ring on the ring finger of my right hand when I was doing clinicals in nursing school (I graduated in 1982) it have not removed it scense and I am assuming it is still my right hand.

I thought it was normal to feel disconnected to everything and everyone. To feel like people's reactions to me weren't real or that they really aren't my friends. I figured since I didn't feel connected to people, they didn't feel connected to me. People actually have deep, meaningful friendships and relationships?:confused:

And I don't remember when exactly I discovered that not everyone has a stream of words going through their minds endlessly. When I was in groups who were practicing meditation, I just figured no one was really able to empty their mind of all thoughts. In fact, I still do believe that. They're just fooling themselves or faking it, right?
I was so unbelieving that I took the ADD self-rating scale and the description of hypermind to several people I considered similar to myself, and said, 'you do this too, right? It sounds familiar, right?' And they all looked puzzled and said, 'no....boy, that must be HARD to live with'. I was totally shocked.

This is the sort of stuff that baffles me :) Quite honestly I feel like I'm cheating now when I take Ritalin. ...
I thought I'd feel that way too. But this is the dead honest truth.... I had to start wearing reading glasses several months back. I fought it, oh I fought it. My eyes have always been excellent and I did not want to have to need a crutch. Now I slip my glasses on without a second thought because it's a means to an end---what I want to read, with clarity.

When I take ritalin I feel like I've just put on glasses, mentally. And when the meds wear off, well, I'm working fuzzy again. And so I'm perfectly willing to 'put on my glasses' mentally if it means I can stay on the right page. That's about the level of emotion that comes with it....I've had no hesitation at all. But I tell you, if I ever need hearing aids.... now THAT's gonna be a battle to accept.

Finding out I had ADHD was like getting that one puzzle piece in the right place when you'd been trying forever, and 'unblocking' finishing the rest of it.

I think, for me, several things always felt 'normal', but in the context of ADHD, found out...not so much.

- Cleaning house and only getting halfway done because the phone rang, the dog needed out, I got involved in a magazine I intended to throw away and got sidelines by a story pimped on the front cover.

- That short story/compilation books always tended to stick with me/I was able to read better than novels.

- That directions to or from somewhere didn't confuse everyone else.

- That I can remember a pom pom routine from 25 years ago with clarity, but what I had for lunch yesterday escaped me.

- That waiting at a stoplight or grocery line drove me batty.

- Why I was always considered an outgoing person, but inside, I feel very shy. (blurting out the first thing that comes to mind tend to make people assume you are an extrovert! Go figure!)

- Why I could think of the greatest projects or concepts, but finishing them was a pipe dream.

Yes, I thought everyone had the same problems I did. I just thought they somehow handled them better.

I remember a woman I worked with a long time ago who would come into the office on Monday and talk about all the stuff she got done over the weekend. Cleaning out closets, organizing her refrigerator, canning and freezing vegetables, on and on and on. I maybe got some laundry done and that was all I could handle. I couldn't believe how much she could get done in one weekend! Why couldn't I? I had no idea it was because she is "normal" and I am not.

I thought everyone forgot what other people told them about themselves. If one of my coworkers had been gone for a week, when they got back I would say, where have you been? Which, if they had told me all about their vacation plans, I would remember it as soon as they started talking about it and I would feel like an idiot. But, I have friends at work who not only remember that I was on vacation, but where I went and that it was a family reunion and they asked me about it! How do they do that? Why can't I do it? Well, it's because they are normal and I am not!

I especially agreed with this post:



I think, for me, several things always felt 'normal', but in the context of ADHD, found out...not so much.

- That directions to or from somewhere didn't confuse everyone else.

- That waiting at a stoplight or grocery line drove me batty.

- Why I was always considered an outgoing person, but inside, I feel very shy. (blurting out the first thing that comes to mind tend to make people assume you are an extrovert! Go figure!)

- Why I could think of the greatest projects or concepts, but finishing them was a pipe dream.

I always kinda felt "diffrent"

I was always being told to stop daydreaming, alltough I never really wiggled alot,

Teachers would always point me out in class for doing something, or not paying attittion,

I just didn't know how the outher kids could stand it, it was all just so boreing....