Are some ADDer's sensitive to touching & being touched by others?

I also have SAD, but I was wondering if there are more ADDer's like me. I got so panicky when my mom had surgery & I had to help her with dressing & attending to her other needs. Geez I felt like I was going to pass out I'd get so anxious.
sigh.

It's only been since I've been taking Ritalin that I've felt comfortable with my nephew leaning against me while I read him a book. He is very affectionate & sometimes I feel overwhelmed babysitting him, but I love him dearly.

I tried to explain this to other people, but they give me this blank look so I've all but given up trying to understand this. My psychtrst wondered if this causes problems in my marriage, but thinking about it now I do believe it does. :0

Like this morning he had a virus & was feeling terrible, but I found myself feeling uncomfortable giving him touches of comfort. I've never put that togather bfore. Then I have been very blessed to have a good relationship with my hubby. wow.

Sorry I've been babbling here, but seeing this has really helped me. hmmm.
But all input & suggestions welcome

Thanx
De

A lot of this sounds familiar to me too, I am sometimes, but often not, comfortable with people in my body space, even people I care deeply about...

Some of it was I think other kids tried to beat me up a lot as a kid. But sometimes it's just an irritation. A lot of ADDers are physically very sensitive and any contact is a terrible distraction.

I have talked to a lot of people with ADD who also have sensory issues too.

This is very common in children and adults with ADD. Sensory issues can include an over- or undersensitivity to touch, movement, sounds, lights, etc. Many of us seem to have a particular dislike for light touches. And I know several ADD moms who got so much physical contact with their infants during the first few months that by the end of the day they just didn't want to be touched! Not such an easy concept for the DHs to understand... :rolleyes:

Kay and I think this is the effect of living with the part of ADD that really is a kind of distraction. We don’t filter sensory information as dramatically as normals do, because we are able to pay attention to more than one process of conscious awareness at one time.

A normal only has one conscious self model, and it is totally absorbed by whatever they happen to be paying attention to at any particular moment. In that sense their filter is absolute, but our experience isn’t exactly the logical opposite.

How much we filter our sensory information varies dramatically from moment to moment, depending on how much we are trying to balance, how important it seems, and how our previous experience molds our idea of what is important enough to warrant continuous awareness.

Sometimes we can be so absorbed that we’re oblivious, more so than any normal. And other times we can be so hypertuned to our sensory gestalt that we’re unable to settle ourselves into a ground state. It all affects our social interactions, so the reactions of those around us to our state feeds back to our idea of ourselves, further affecting the state, and so on.

Kay has a nice metaphor she uses for this. She talks about how full her bucket is, how much stuff she’s trying to juggle all at once. We ADDers tend to take on whatever seems necessary, to a fault. When life hands us more than is reasonable, we just put it all in the bucket anyway, no matter how full it is already.

If your bucket is full the smallest thing can cause it to overflow, and when that happens we lose the whole thing. Of course, we blame that last little thing for causing everything to fall apart, so we sometimes develop compulsive behavior patterns intended to guard against them.

I’m sure everybody’s seen or experienced this, a sort of aggressive fussiness bordering on hysteria as we try to keep small distractions at bay while lugging around a bucket full to the brim. Sometimes we can become stuck for a bit in that guarded, hyperaware state, or near it, and any kind of extraneous stimuli will seem overwhelming.

If those stimuli have an associated social significance, like the touch of a lover or a child, the feeling that it is unwanted can weigh heavily on us. Depending on the circumstances, that burden can build up to the point it becomes a significant issue.

This is completely different from the normal’s experience. We carry our buckets everywhere, so a tense week at work will affect our ability to do normal family things. When normals walk through the front door, the switch is as absolute as their filter. They literally can’t focus on what went on at work at the same time that they interact with their family. (They may be affected enough by the experience at work to change the character of the family interaction, however.)

It’s obvious that we have to be at the right place at the right time, or the whole experience will be missed (and the negative effects along with it). There are as many different versions of the experience as there are ADDers. But we think the most common form is an occasional intrusion on our ability to focus, an unwanted awareness of the stimuli that distracts from our immersion in the main activity of the moment.

For example, we want to cuddle a child while reading them a bedtime story and feel the emotion triggered by the physical contact as a part of the gestalt experience, all part of one thread of conscious awareness. When circumstances bring about a hyperawareness of the touch itself, it occurs as a separate and competing thread of conscious awareness.

Our response to the competing thread defines the quality of the whole experience, ranging from mild disappointment (because the intensity of the experience of reading to your child is muted) to annoyance, to runaway feelings of inadequacy as a parent. (All of which, we might point out, have been described before in these forums.)

A lifetime of these effects takes its toll, even if they only seem like an annoyance. As we get older, we can develop a hypersensitivity to the social noise implied by the sounds and sights of a crowd of people, like that at a mall or in a movie theater. It’s even possible to feel it when driving, as subtle variations in traffic communicate the thoughts and intentions of the crowd of drivers around you.

Kay and I both have personal experience with this sort of thing, the occasional hypersensitivity to touch, light, or sound as well as problems with crowds. We think this is the major reason for the panic attacks and various social phobias we ADDers can fall prey to.

Meds help a lot, but understanding it is what let Kay develop the bucket metaphor that, for us, is a major coping mechanism. When we see our buckets start to overflow (because they always will, you know; we’ve got ADD) it just doesn’t have the same emotional impact it used to.

And we don’t really notice the hypersensitivity the same way anymore. When we feel the inability to settle into a grounded state, to focus in on one gestalt conscious experience, we address it as a component of living with ADD.

We don’t try to force ourselves to carry on an experience that is being compromised by the hypersensitivity. Instead, we deal with the circumstance, and don’t expect ourselves to be able to function the way we want until we’ve dealt with the competing thread of awareness.

It’s a little like not expecting yourself to continue watching a movie while the TV catches fire and burns. No one would feel bad about being distracted from the movie by the fire, or about stopping to put it out.

And it doesn’t matter if it’s making love (instead of watching a movie) and something as trivial as knowing that the sheets need to be changed (instead of the TV catching fire). As soon as we realize that we’re being distracted, we just stop, laugh, and jump up to change the sheets.

Stuff like that just doesn’t have any impact on the way we feel about ourselves anymore. And besides, clean sheets always feel great. (big grins…)

LOL!

Some of your stuff is really hard to follow but at the core there are things which are right on.

Kay and I think ...

It’s a little like not expecting yourself to continue watching a movie while the TV catches fire and burns. No one would feel bad about being distracted from the movie by the fire, or about stopping to put it out.

hello sbelle,

You re not the only one to be sensitive about contact with other. From several months i had to learn how make insulin injections for one of my sons...A nightmare for him from the pain, and for me because before usually i faint when i saw the needle going into the skin. Not anymore ...

have hope, humans are able to cope with many things, its just take time

enough of me

I m thinking of a pool vote about other symptom i suspect about add . It could be something like this :

" which of these problemes do you associate with add ? :
1 ) problem with time sense ?
2 ) problem with space orientation
3 ) problem with synchronisation of two or more sensitive responses ( hearing, touching, speaking, smelling ... )"

How can i do this into the forum ?

xav, here are the instructions for posting a poll. (If you click on the FAQ link above, you can search for answers to most of your technical questions about the forum.)

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heh, this might seem a bit odd to ask, but is anyone else -extremely- ticklish? I always thought it was one of my little quirks but after reading this, it got me kind of thinking. The slightest touch on the sol of my foot causes me to retract my leg violently. Probably the most ticklish person I know :-)

Actually, I used to be very ticklish as a child. I don't remember why or when, but sometime during my childhood I "shut off" my ability to be tickled. Its very very hard to tickle me now. I think it was a defense mechanism for me, as I probably felt out of control when tickled.

I have certain sensory overload issues...such as, when driving through unfamiliar territory...I can't listen to the radio. I dislike certain fabrics, and wont wear certain clothes because of the way they feel on me. And unless I'm very comfortable with someone, I have a real issue with people touching my face. Go figure...lol

Ive been wondering if I shouldn't be listed Add/SAD instead of viceversa. Its great to find others that don't look at me with a blank stare when I talk about touch, eyecontact or personal space.
Ive got a major in social work & minor in psych & I had no clue (well 4yrs ago) that Add incompessed such emotional symptoms as well as hyperactivity. Im blown away that I spent so many years having & trying to do self help for SAD when Add symptoms appear to be a majority of the problem.
Anyone else taking a meds combo like Ritalin & Celexa? My hubby has been asking me if the interaction is slowing the positive affects of the Ritalin. & I am rather confused, bcause I like the pyschtrst I see, but somehow I wonder how up to date his knowledge is? I wanted to try SA Ritalin, but he said he hadn't had much experience with it, but he suppossed I could give it a try. Honestly meds & treatment of Add & anxiety is like sailing unchartered waters. sigh:)