Examples of inattentativeness

[Geoduck]

Okay, BlackADDer, kick ass username!!! LOVE IT!

About inattentiveness:

I’m ignoring my kids now. LOL! Okay, for real:

I’m the kind of gal prone to purchasing gas (in places where you pre-pay) then driving off without actually pumping it. As far as daydreaming goes, there’s an episode I had in seventh grade that is my favorite to relate, because it explains sooo much:

I was sitting at my desk, and all of the sudden the girls around me start giggling. I asked them what the joke was. They told me they had been trying to get my attention for at least five minutes by waving their hands in front of my face. I was day-dreaming, just very intensely. That was my schtick in school, the day-dreamer, okay, still is my schtick.

I’m a very stream of consciousness talker, changing the subject or getting lost in the conversation, just because I can’t remember what I was talking about. and zone out in mid-conversation. It’s very hard to follow a conversation, and very embarrassing when I zone out and wake up to “what do you think?” “Uh, well, that’s interesting?” is a response that only gets me so far. Sometimes I have to ask them to repeat themselves, which irritates my friends immensely. I’ve learned to tell them that I’m really having a hard time with my ADD, and most of the good friends understand, but probably are still irritated.

My brother, who has ADHD and Esotropia (where your eye turns in when your focus changes), gets cross-eyed when he’s zoned out during conversations, because his focus changes when he’s “in the zone.”

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[Anonymous]

Do any of you have trouble separating foreground from background? When I go to the store, maybe to buy Campbell soup, all the cans look exactly the same to me. If I’m looking for chicken gumbo, I can never find it in all that sea of red and white cans. But if the clerk helps me find it, it’s as though the words CHICKEN GUMBO just leap out at me, and I can’t imagine how I missed it. The same with parking places – my boyfriend can spot a parking place the next block ahead but when I’m driving, I can pas up two or three because I don’t “see” them fast enough. Do any of you experience this?

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[Geoduck]

My dad does!!! He says it’s because of all the “war stuff” like shells, etc. he was exposed to. But my mom noticed this type of thing in him well before he went to Vietnam. The VA tested his hearing and said it was fine. He was in the Marine Corps for 36 years. Talk about making your ADD work for you. But of course, he would rather have hearing loss, than admit to having ADD. Trust me, if you met him, in five seconds flat, you’d peg him for an ADDer. He really should be our poster guy.

He can hear stuff at very low decibels far away, but if it’s in front of him, like the TV, he turns it up to drown everything else out. He may have some hearing issues and at age 75, I’m sure he does, but really, he’s always done this. My brother does it too. With the TV, I think that other noises distract him from listening, so he turns it up to drown the other sounds out.

I do get confused pretty easily if there’s a lot of noise around me. What really bothers me though, is several people talking at once. This happens a lot with my kids. It just grates a nerve because I can’t figure out who to listen to first. I’m sure that non-ADDers have this issue, but it really seems to get to me more than it should.

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[Anonymous]

I have the same trouble with noise. I struggle to concentrate on the TV if there is background noise. And I often sit in silence at parties because I am busy listening to bits of all the conversations around me.

When shopping, I will swear a particular item comes in a certain coloured packet only to find it is completely different to what I thought. And I often cannot find the one thing that is right in front of me. I hate it when they do their regular rearrangement of our local supermarket. I can never find anything. As it is, I usually end up going back and forth to pick up items I swear weren’t written on the list when I started shopping!!

My kids regularly chatter away to me until suddenly I realise they have asked me a question and I have no idea what they are talking about, let alone what the question was. It’s as if they are interrupting a TV program going on in my head. I try to keep following the TV program and don’t really concentrate on what they are saying. Chatter really irritates me and is a fast way to switch my concentration off. I like things short and to the point.

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[Curlymoe115]

The TV is really hard because I have to concentrate on the show. When I am hyperfocused anything drives me crazy. I really love it when DH and the kids start a conversation in the next room because then half my focus is on them and I have to turn up the tv to drown them out. Then they start screaming about how loud the tv is. Well take the conversation elsewhere then I could turn down the tv. I also miss what is right in front of me. Todays episode included going for groceries. I bought enough to get the free item, so I ran over grabbed the item and the coupon, went to the desk, told them I was overcharged for my cucumbers, got the money for the cucumbers, put them back in the cart, grabbed my receipts then headed for the car. Halfway to the car I look for the free item, I left it on the counter. So then I had to unload the groceries and then run back into the store. The customer service agents looks at me and says “I saw you leave and I couldn’t believe you left the item on the counter”, I just smiled back and said but at least I remembered the cucumbers. 😆

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[Anonymous]

I have some issues with noise also. If I’m driving the car, looking for an address, I have to turn the radio off. If it’s on, I can’t focus on street signs or house numbers. And I also have trouble of hearing a single voice in a crowded room – that happened today – I had to work really hard to hear the person I was listening to, and it’s exhausting after just a few minutes. It’s good to know that I’m not the only one experiencing these things.

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[Anonymous]

I have that same problem. I often have music up loud whilst I am driving, but I cannot stand any noise when I am trying to concentrate, so I turn off the music when I near my destination and have to start concentrating on finding a street or address.

I have struggled with discount coupons. I diligently put one under my car keys to remember to take it, put it in my pocket when I leave and check I have it when I get to the shops (all things I have FINALLY got into the habit of doing with my shopping list, so doing it with a coupon is not the struggle it would be otherwise). And then I have completed my shopping, left the store, put my hands in my pocket to get my keys, and found I have forgotten to use the coupon!! Aaaarrggghhhh!!!!

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[Cat Alberts]

Hmmm… examples of inattentiveness?

Leaving the gas on after taking the pan off. Or putting the empty pan back on and burning my fingers when I pick it up 2 hours later when I want to clean it. Or being distracted while making a hot water bottle and pouring boiling water over my own hand (it healed beautifully, but 2 days with a lot of pain).

Jumping onto a train only to realise 20 minutes later that it is going in the wrong direction. Or to the wrong site of the country altogether because I mixed the adresses of 2 people, and adding 2hrs to my travelling time, and lots of annoyed phone calls from the other people I was supposed to meet.

Spending money because I thought I had added and substracted correctly but finding out it was a minus, not a plus.

Bruises after bumping into things while deep in thought. Dropping stuff. Twisting ancles.

I thought I was a bit deaf because I could never understand what people were saying at parties with music. Thankfully, dancing is an option.

Never ever remembering anything asked in person, only when written down on my calender.

Boxes to unpack are ignored for a year, especially when they are in the middle of the room. They just bring more guilt, and increase the ignoring because of that.

I just thought of a good example while making tea 5 min ago, but I can’t remember now…

O, forgot the tea in the kitchen…

😆

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[Anonymous]

Getting a phone call from a friend who lives 2 hours away wondering where we are.

“We’re home, why?”

“We’re waiting for you to arrive for dinner”

“What dinner?”

“We talked about a date two months ago”

“Sh*&*T, I thought it was NEXT week”

My friend is the type of person who goes to extremes to do a huge and expensive meal. She ended up inviting the neighbours over to eat it.

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[Anonymous]

The day that I was ‘officially’ diagnosed with ADHD, my doctor had a lengthy conversation with me about meds, the risks, the benefits, etc. I was very reluctant to take them. One of the side effects of Vyvanse was the possibiity of increased mania. I’m also in treatment for bipolar disorder so I am very reluctant to even run the risk of mania. My doc understood. He wrote me the script, told me to talk to people I was close to and decide. I drove from my appointment to work completely consumed with the diagnosis, the meds, the potential for side effects. I got to work, parked my car, walked in the building and, LOCKED MY KEYS IN MY CAR!!

I figured it was the Universe telling me that I needed to at least try the meds. It’s been 3 years..

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[Geoduck]

Oh, shopping one…

I put all those cool re-usable grocery bags in the back of the car, so I won’t forget them. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the bags until I’m in the check-out line. D’oh!

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[Anonymous]

Ha, I did that this week!!!

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[Anonymous]

I didn’t read the whole thread, but some of you described OCD, and it is often a (trying to remember the word…) comorbidity, linked to ADHD.

I experience it my self, used to jump up and down in the kitchen with tears in my eyes because I didn’t believe my own eyes when looking at the stove to check if it was turned off. It could take me 10 minutes just to get out the freaking door! And all along thinking that this is not normal… Knowing that just made it worse… Often wound up taking a picture of the stove so that I could look at the picture of the stove when I sat on the bus on my way to work. Exhausting and painfull…

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[vyv]

Hi,

i can recognize myself in most of what is written (right there before i wrote ”what” i couldnt remember what i was gonna write) … well there you go thats a example …

I too when i leave the house or even when i have to go in the other room i check the stove, 1,2,3,10 times to make sure its off… it drives me nuts when i do it and i have to convince myself that its turned off…

 

In the middle of a conversation i often ask the person infront of me ”what was i talking about”

 

Cleaning the house … i start something and then do something else and always fnish late because i cant finish what i first did in the first place…

When i am thinking at some point i get this blank in my head where i dont even know what i was thinking about…

so there you are those are some examples…

I started vyvanse 30 mg only 2 days ago… I hope it helps me.

 

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[blackdog]

LOL 😀

Oh, these all sound so familiar. Let’s see…

Every morning for at least 10 years I opened the wrong cupboard when I went to get a cup for my tea/coffee. And I will open the cupboard to get a plate out and get a bowl instead, and vice versa. And then there are the times when I stand there with the door open trying to remember what it was I wanted to get.

Once I make the tea or coffee I forget about it and leave it on the kitchen counter. Sometime later I will find it, reheat it, and then let it sit and go cold again.

Once I was cooking before I went to work and  in the middle of my shift at work I suddenly dropped what I was doing and gasped, making everyone look at me, then blurted out “I forgot to turn the rice off!” Fortunately, my boyfriend had gone into the kitchen and seen it and turned it off in time to avoid anything more serious than a very messy pot.

I turn the air conditioner on but forget to close the windows.

And one time after doing the grocery shopping I was sitting on the couch typing emails and forum posts and whatnot and it vaguely registered in my mind that my butt felt cold. After a few minutes I became more aware of the cold sensation, looked to see what was causing it, and discovered I was sitting on a package of breakfast sausages.

And that is only a fraction of the entire list.

 

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