Facing The World
How to deal with friends, family, coworkers and colleagues who may not understand, not care, or even dismiss your diagnosis.
He Can Focus When He Wants To
June 20, 2011
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This is great! I experience exactly the same thing, but sometimes I fail to explain, or I don’t explain it good enough, to people around me. Next time, I will just copy this one, or simply have people watch it. After all, this is funnier than my explanation.
This is probably the best of Rick’s video shorts. Funny and so dead on true. The final comment expresses something I’ve said (or thought) far too many times. The most difficult aspect of ADD in adults is that other folks think it’s voluntary. They think we simply make poor choices, that we don’t care – and in this video, Rick very aptly shares the deep pain we feel when we’ve managed, once again, to let someone down. Thanks Rick.
This is fantastic! Short, sweet, and to the point. Always takes a lot of editing to get there doesn’t it Rick?
I’ve lost count of how many times I heard this sentiment while growing up, and now my wife and I are hearing it from our son’s teachers.
I’m going to INSIST every teacher that makes this claim watch this clip from here on in.
If they don’t start changing their attitudes, I’m going to tell them to quit calling me asking for advice when they shut down because of being pressured when they’re stuck.
Prior to “ADD and Loving It” and TotallyADD.com, I didn’t realize this was a symptom of anything other than procrastinating. I’ve never liked cleaning (although I like things clean) but when I was in school and had a project due you better believe two things: FIrst, I waited until the last possible moment to start and Second, before I typed word one, my entire house was clean. Including ishy things like the toilet and kitty box and difficult things like under the stove and fridge, the ceiling and so on. Before I knew it, it had been hours since I “started” my project, the house was clean but my paper was bank! How I made it through college, I’ll never know..
My worst problem with hyperfocus comes in the evening if I start working on a project (that I really love, of course), and then next thing I know, it’s way past midnight or 1am and I’ve got to get up early in the morning, and I don’t get enough sleep. (Like right now, I had planned on going to bed an hour ago!)
I also do this with jigsaw puzzles and looking for shark’s teeth on the beach. I have to be almost literally dragged away from doing these things because I could spend hours and hours and hours doing them.
It’s been helpful to set alarms on my ipod touch to get me to stop (“Nag” is a great app for this, btw), but usually I forget to set it in the first place!
Rick, you never said where this ice cream shop is, the one down the street… Oh, the video is still going….
Yup. (No one understands.)
ooooh. man. yeah. this has been me my whole life, and, right now, since I’m supposed to be working. lol! ooh look, lemon drops! yum! my hands are kinda sweaty. i think i need to wash them. then i’ll put lotion on them…and make a christmas card good idea! oh crap i missed that deadline….
I wish this description of hyperfocusing was in the original movie as it more accurately conveys the positive and negative aspects. I still don’t like the term “hyperfocusing” as it doesn’t reflect the lack of control that we have over the trait. Some times it is on task and we are extremely productive,but most times it is not on topic and happens at the worst possible time, e.g. when you were supposed to be getting the keys and running to an appointment, you wind up spending over an hour looking up how to beat a level at a video game or reading tech news.