Memo to Aaron: come back to planet Earth

This is interesting. I have a friend with ADHD and she always says she never sees the details - that she only sees the big picture, and that this is how ADHD is different from ASD. I did suspect that it couldn't be quite that simple. I'm guessing the executive dysfunction thing is the same as with ASD.
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Click my eggz and baby dragonz:

[la rana|0 likes] [|reply]

There are four or five... or three... different types of ADHD. What I am complaining about for the majority of this entry is hyperfocus, which is at times a great gift to people with ADHD, but these days for me it's an ongoing curse. I can only imagine that your friend's ADHD must be different to mine because I want sssoooo badly to be able to keep my eye on the bigger picture, I envy your friend if she can forego the details! She must get things done very quickly, if a little sloppily!
Some people are trying to argue that ADHD is a type of ASD, and while there are a LOT of similarities, I think the science behind it is a bit different, like different reasons producing somewhat similar results, there are also overlapping symptoms like um... er... sensory processing disorders, which can also exist on its own and look a lot like ADHD and ASD. *goes cross eyed* Executive functioning disorder, have read about it but I couldn't figure out is this a new term for an older thing or is it a disorder in it's own right or is it a symptom of some learning disorders or what huhhhh.

Yep, I'm not arguing it's the same or different - just curious the extent of overlap. Hyperfocus is of course a huge part of ASD too. But what you were describing here also sounded like executive dysfunction because of the difficulty getting things completed - it's an organisational difficulty with getting things done. With hyperfocus it's possible to focus on something so intensely and single-mindedly that you complete it, so that's why I was thinking executive dysfunction.

Out of curiosity, do you take Ritalin? My friend takes Ritalin, not regularly, but just when she needs to be organised and get something completed, and she says it works for her - gets rid of the fuzziness in her head. But other times she likes the fuzziness, so she only takes it when she has to complete something. I wish there was a similar drug for ASD. Apparently Ritalin makes ASD traits worse - as in hyperfocus, which I assume from what I read is a bigger deal in ASD, but both you and my friend have it too, so I'm not really sure.
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Click my eggz and baby dragonz:

[la rana|0 likes] [|reply]

I take dexamphetamine which is the same sort of thing as Ritalin. I take it all day every day Sometimes I hate it, it makes the hyperfocus so bad at times I don't even realise my stepson is talking to me (he has autism, funnily enough!) but if I don't take it, I can't get the smallest task done, like cooking sausages in a pan for example. Standing in the kitchen, sausages sizzling away, but I still burnt them to a crisp because I forgot I was in the kitchen to cook, not stare out the window for half an hour.

That's interesting - so maybe the hyperfocus is partly a side-effect of the drug.

I'm always burning my dinner, because I go onto the internet and forget I'm cooking something! I did buy a timer, but I forget to use it! I want to get an iphone or ipad, with all the little apps you can get to organise yourself!
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Click my eggz and baby dragonz:

[la rana|0 likes] [|reply]

The hyperfocus is there without the drug, but the drug also ... Yeah. It helped a lot when I was in school but now as an adult where you actually need to be able to be aware of more than one thing, it's not as good and I wish I'd learned some major time management/organisation/blah skills when I was younger as well as being put on the drug, rather than being put on the drug and assuming "hey presto! Problem solved!" the issues of having ADHD as an adult are completely different than what they are as a child so yeah. Also my ADHD symptoms have worsened a hundredfold as my eating disorder got worse so yeah my brain chemistry is more fucked than it would have been otherwise.

I got an iPod thinking I'd use it to organize myself... Now it's just another distraction!!!

Yeah, same with me, much harder as an adult, where I have to be aware of all kinds of things - multitasking required to pay bills, cook meals, keep one's home tidy, do laundry, earn a living, etc. I'm always making strategies, but it's hard to keep my strategies organised! I do use apps on the internet to help organise myself, so my thinking is that with an iphone, I could be bringing those apps with me everywhere. But yeah, it'd probably be a distraction too!
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Click my eggz and baby dragonz:

[la rana|0 likes] [|reply]

I'm totally with you there! Last week I tried to write a paper all day Wednesday. Started early in the morning, kept going into the night. I didn't end up writing a word of it until 3:30 Thursday morning. It was due at 10AM.

[polywog|0 likes] [|reply]

hence why I never finished my uni degree! Although I did get good grades in what subjects I managed to complete. *pats self on back for achievements from over 5 years ago that can hardly be called achievements because once again they never went anywhere* ... O_O *HEADDESK*

I think I'm only going to finish a degree, myself, because I am stubborner than the very fabric of reality. If I can make lights turn green and headaches disappear when bidden, I can make myself concentrate. For a while. But I allow myself brain breaks, too.

[polywog|0 likes] [|reply]

Litereally, my brain feels like this every day.