Whilst being baked now I've come to the conclusion that hyperfocus is our brains natural way of wanting to be, for whatever reason that may be. It is our anxiety about our own attention problems that causes this break-up from the pleasurable hyperfocus... when we self-medicate its the place we want to be...

hyperfocus is our natural state. If you stop caring about the person in the other room is going to think of you because you can't concentrate on what they are doing enough to know when they will be coming into this room'sview and talk to you again. But your mind WANTS and FORCES you to listen to this awesome Queens of the Stone Age song and not let you listen for her no matter how hard you try, so you become anxious. Instead, lets not care if she thinks you are slow and stupid because you will take a second to process what the hell is going on with her before you process what she actaully said and then figure out your answer, but worrying at the same time that it will not match up to what she is actually thinking and that you will still appear stupid in some way... all because of this attention problem. So you see get rid of the anxiety about it and you will be free to hyperfocus on what your FREAKIN MIND wants you to! :D happy times then... give up to the mind...

Whilst being baked now I've come to the conclusion that hyperfocus is our brains natural way of wanting to be, for whatever reason that may be. It is our anxiety about our own attention problems that causes this break-up from the pleasurable hyperfocus... when we self-medicate its the place we want to be...

hyperfocus is our natural state. If you stop caring about the person in the other room is going to think of you because you can't concentrate on what they are doing enough to know when they will be coming into this room'sview and talk to you again. But your mind WANTS and FORCES you to listen to this awesome Queens of the Stone Age song and not let you listen for her no matter how hard you try, so you become anxious. Instead, lets not care if she thinks you are slow and stupid because you will take a second to process what the hell is going on with her before you process what she actaully said and then figure out your answer, but worrying at the same time that it will not match up to what she is actually thinking and that you will still appear stupid in some way... all because of this attention problem. So you see get rid of the anxiety about it and you will be free to hyperfocus on what your FREAKIN MIND wants you to! :D happy times then... give up to the mind...

maybe its bc i've missed my dose today and cant focus, or maybe its your writing, but i can't understand pretty everythign you wrote. lol.
thats the problem of writing those amazing theories you get when ur baked, bc once your sober they dont make sense. lol. or maybe it does make sense and i'm just not being able to focus. :)

care to re-word it? lol

I think Mincan is just encouraging us to stop giving each other grief over our ADHD ;)

maybe its bc i've missed my dose today and cant focus, or maybe its your writing, but i can't understand pretty everythign you wrote. lol.
thats the problem of writing those amazing theories you get when ur baked, bc once your sober they dont make sense. lol. or maybe it does make sense and i'm just not being able to focus. :)

care to re-word it? lol

I have heard that Straterra does not work well, maybe its true....... Sorry Mincan, I don't get it either, that said, I can be painfully slow understanding somethings

I have heard that Straterra does not work well, maybe its true....... Sorry Mincan, I don't get it either, that said, I can be painfully slow understanding somethings


lol i second that. recently switch from stattera to ritalin bc it wasnt working too well. i feel even more add than usual trying to read his post. haha.

... give up to the mind...

exactimundo
:-)

(to your entire post)

give in to your brightest hopes :-)
(which immediately previously masquerade up until realisation - as

our
deepest
fears)

though for good reason

good stuff
- really so.

as our deepest fears

ever loved
and lost

and then found an incomparably greater love

(no
;-)

me neither ---


--- but that's the idea)

Yes, I've found out that my life has become one reoccuring line of Post Tramatic Stress Disorder from the age of 9 onward... before this I was happy and lived in my hyperfocus mode as a manic happy child... then the terrible depressions and anxieties started, over the worry of previous worries...this is insane... i realised today whilst baked... to be happy in my mind or my environment, whichever it is...and not worry about the other whilst in the one.

Mincan

Thanks for explaining it. It makes perfect sense now.

Can you imagine the ****ing hell my life has been...to deny my existance.

Can you imagine the ****ing hell my life has been...to deny my existance.

I sure can, I have been there myself, though it sounds like I was not near having the problems you did, that said I was not diagnosed until I was 51 and lived on a roller coaster and frankly thought that was normal. :( So in that respect I am happy for you to have an early start to a better future.

Holy **** I just made myself laugh.

maybe its bc i've missed my dose today and cant focus, or maybe its your writing, but i can't understand pretty everythign you wrote. lol.
. :)

care to re-word it? lol
LOL..it made perfect sense to me :D
I was smiling as I was reading it, imagining my days in class..I was just like that..

thanks M :p

Can you imagine the ****ing hell my life has been...to deny my existance.

Yes, i can imagine although i dont know ur exact situation, it made be a lil different. but i had PTSD for over 8 months and still do a little bit.
I had severe family issues since my parents weren't exactly great, and my sister was constanstly being incarserated in hospitals bc shes bi-polar, and then i had presures from every direction including work, school and friends.

I found sanity in my most adored actived, riding me Yahama R1 alone with no particular destination, just the fun of feeling the air and intense speed and danger. It brought me a rush of adrenaline, and also made me relax when everything else seemed to crush my life.

Then one day (august 11th, 2007) i crashed it bc some ******* was late for work and didn't pay attention to signs. I broke a few ribs, and my arm. But the worst part was that I gained a phobia towards the only thing i trued loved, bikes. It then caused a downward spiral, that lead to me speeding in my car to find satinty when times are crazy, and then i got 5 tickets and 14 points in one shot for getting caught going 76 miles over the highway limit!!
That futher caused my PTSD to get worse and my add symptom to go insane and the depression that neared suicide.

It effected my existing add so severly that even the strongest dosage i was prescribed (adderall 30mg IR twice daily) was hardly doing anything. I was depressed and it got to a point that i hated my life and the fact that without the drugs i litteraly couldn't function, i ****ed me off even more, and i would often think about the most negative forthcoming future.

With each passing day i realized my life declining faster and faster, at the same time i had to cope with 16 credits in a major university, and 3 part-time jobs, and all the problems with which the PTSD started from.


Now things have relaxed a bit, but i'm still screwed which over four big ones ($4000) in debt bc of everythign and i can't seem to organize my life and get my extreme homework done even when i have time. I save it for the last possible second then i can't finish and i get frustrated and mad at myself for being so imcompetant and allowing myself to get horrible grades in college.

Soo.... what can we do? Procrastination, inattentiveness, occasional hyperactive, forgetfulness, and lack of time management. Those are the things that keep me from being able to live. :/

... sigh.


well, in the end at least theres everyone in these forums thats forced to live through similar things and the fact that all you guys make it and are here helping everyone, reminds me that theres still hope. :) A thanx to all.

wow its crazy eh?

Holy **** I just made myself laugh.


:D You made me laugh too! You probably have no idea haw many times you say "whilst".....whilst baked!! ;) Even funnier....I understood every word of it.

On a serious yet positive note, despite all the horrible things you have been through...you strike me as having and awesome personality and sense of humor! I wish you could see it! Then maybe you would know how strong you really are!

All of you are, really....:)

My take on hyperfocus is that it's the brain trying to balance things out. Life is all about balance - yin/yang of you want. Our brains hyperfocus on things because our concentration valve gets stuck. Our brain chemistry is desperately trying to balance itself out - it can't and so swings from one state to another. Much like BPers swing from one state to another. It's the brain attempting to find the medium - going from extremes is better than staying in one spot after all, because overall it's balanced.

Much like someone balancing on a tightrope. They'll move along, but a slight miscalculation, and their arms will swing around and around trying to counter the off balance and impending doom. Then... oops overbalance the other way... swing, swing, swing.... then back again..... then balance.

With us it's more like.... swing, swing swing... oops back the other way.... swing, swing, swing... oops back the other way.... swing, swing, swing.... oops back the other way.... swing, swing, swing.... oops back the other way... swing, swing, swing..........

Whether you're ADD or ADHD it's still the same. It's much easier to not force our brains into a false balancing act, and let it do itself.

However, having said that.... I find it easier, (less angst), to pretend...... :)

WOw, I';m learning so much about hte core of my problems with ADHD that I've never knew I never knew, what you've said is how I've felt... I can either be hyperfocused either externally or internally, but not good at one of each, plus times of utter blah where I cant think, my brain just wants to do nothing, its meh.... I don't know...

I'm more inclined to believe the basis of hyperfocus lies in the fact that people with ADHD have enlarged amygdala (not to mention stimulants produce hyperfocus more often) than a revelation brought about by marijuana. ;)

yes but an amygdala is responsible for emotion response to stimuli is it not?

yes but an amygdala is responsible for emotion response to stimuli is it not?

It sees increased activity for emotional stimuli, yeah.

Makes sense, no? I think you'll find it hard to hyperfocus on things that aren't personally involving or interesting, whilst stimulant drugs lower the threshold of what's interesting, probably accounting for increased occurrence of hyperfocus.

Amygdala is responsible for a very wide variety of things, emotional or not. It is an information processing centre, a memory storage centre, and a stimuli ordering centre, to name a few.

To quote on memory, for example:

Evidence from work with humans indicates that the amygdala plays a similar role. Amygdala activity at the time of encoding information correlates with retention for that information. However, this correlation depends on the relative "emotionalness" of the information. More emotionally-arousing information increases amygdalar activity, and that activity correlates with retention.

Is an amygdala anything like an Amykins?

yep, gets the emotions up! :D

yep, gets the emotions up! :D

LOL! 9 times out of 10 I totally get you and then you throw me for a loop!

Yep, don't want you to get comfortable! I'm the MAN IN BLACK!

LOL, now, see, I have no idea what that means!!!

EXPLAIN. NOW. OR I WILL GO NEANDERTHAL ON YOU!!!!!

LOL, now, see, I have no idea what that means!!!

EXPLAIN. NOW. OR I WILL GO NEANDERTHAL ON YOU!!!!!
Is that a promise Amy? :)


Inconceivable!

Another fan of Princess Bride I see?


Now..... I understand this is an exhibit on hyperfocussing, or have we gone off track AGAIN?:)

not off track ...we are now hyperfocusing on the Princess bride since Min won't explain how Neanderthals with concubines and the "nice" guys!! :)

When I hyperfocus on the wrong things how am I not supposed to feel guilt? How can I enjoy playing video games for hours because I can't break my attention, because I'm in my zombie-Dexedrine or Concerta mode? Guilt is necessary here because if I just gloated in the fact that I'm wasting hours by hyperfocusing on something stupid and not doing something I actually need to do then I'd never get anything useful done. Today I've been browsing the Internet for hours when I should actually be working, like so many other days, and the self-torture and the little person inside me (who wants to be successful) screaming "STOP BROWSING THE WEB!!!" has made my day worse and worse.

Ranting... but I wish I didn't have to take meds. Aah. So, hyperfocusing can be GREAT (housework/work/homework/and these times are few and far between) or TORTURE (video games/net/staring at the wall).

Still trying to figure out how to lean the odds more in my favor.. I figured out that usually if I start working on something I need to do, THEN take a pill, by the time it kicks in I'm glued to the necessary task. Unfortunately I can't do this every day. Like, if I need to get out of bed and go to work I'll take a Dex, then in the shower I concentrate on washing my hair, shaving, etc. too much and I'm late anyway.. Didn't always work like this but does now.

VERY frustrating.. it is so hard to enjoy the quirks of ADHD when they're ruining your life :(

I strongly disagree that just because you believe you know what's best in your mind, it isn't always so. A meth addict's brain is telling him that all he really wants to do is get high, and that's all he wants to focus on, but that isn't best. Hyper focusing on something that is keeping you from doing things you should most likely be doing is simply focusing on something because it's fun, and who doesn't like fun. The problem is realizing how irrational it is to become enraged or highly annoyed from being pulled away from something like playing a video game for 8 hours to wash dishes.