Hyperfocus vs. Perseverance?

[Anonymous]

ok,i hear you, Biblio. but I am very tired right now. I will think more about your comments. The short of it is, I have always felt that I am an outlier…

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[Anonymous]

I just watched a few of the videos. completely unrelated to academic legitimacy… he is pretty harsh!!!! like he is pointing a gigantic finger at people with ADHD and yelling at them “you are diseased with no redeeming qualities to show for it”. Kind of felt bullied just by watching it! 0_o.

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[billd]

No, it’s the clinical descriptions. I’m a realist like that – state the facts, feelings be damned.

I agree that what some call the so-called “hyperfocus” is actually the lack of an ability to CHANGE focus to other things you SHOULD be doing, or paying attention to. Hyperfocus can be good when it’s real, but in ADHD, I feel most of the time it’s really inability to change focus. I’ve worked with aspergers folks here and now they hyperfocus……

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[caper]

Yeah, that’s one of his worst videos for me. Watch it and tell me that’s not condescension throughout it.

Maybe even smugness (contempt + happiness).

Hubris might even fit…

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[Anonymous]

Well, I feel better that I was not the only person who felt the “harsh” and what I perceived as condescending attitude….

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[Anonymous]

@biblio If Barkely was being clinical, I would take it as objective science, but he clearly is being emotional, condescending and dismissive. He did not say that the average outcome is negative, he said that every outcome has to be negative. He’s being like the jerk who says “Sure, the Giants won the game and passed for 400 yards with 10 touchdowns, but their running game was anemic, and they were just lucky to have won. They will lose next week.”

It’s one thing to say that ADHD is a disorder and not a gift. It’s something else to try to beat every positive sentiment out of the people who have it.

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[billd]

Biblio I’ve got it bad and didn’t really take offense. He sounded harsh like I do – probalby due to my ADHD….

so

>> This is a spectrum disorder people.

No offence, but I don’t think a violent reaction to the video is a very appropriate response. It certainly is an ADHD one though. <<

Yes, it’s a spectrum thing for sure – and the reaction in general is more like how I NORMALLY react. Wonder why I didn’t to this since he’s talking ABOUT me??

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[Anonymous]

Is there really any evidence that ADHD is a spectrum disorder? I see people throw around severity and “moderate” ADHD, but I can’t find any research at all that says that there are levels of ADHD. Surely people have different success coping in a healthy way, have different comorbidities and different personal histories, but there’s nothing to suggest that one person’s ADHD is any less impairing than another person’s.

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[quizzical]

@pete-puma: Good question. I’ve not seen any evidence either, just a lot of statements in books. However, since there are categories such as Inattentive, Combined, Hyperactive, etc. I would guess that the fewer of those traits you have, the less impaired you are going to be.

Anecdotally speaking, I consider myself less impaired relative to other ADDers, and I base that on some of the experiences I’ve read about here in this forum. This is in no small part due to the fact that I personally don’t have any major problems with hyperactivity or impulsiveness. More the opposite, really. Perhaps that could just be seen as impairment of a different sort, but that’s getting subjective, unless you can measure how many opportunities I’ve missed due to lack of action.

Regarding the Barkley lectures, I’m curious – who’s his audience? Is he addressing folks with ADD or is he speaking to the professional community? To me it seems geared more toward the latter, but I can’t tell for sure.

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[Geoduck]

LOL!!! Man, you all are a busy lot! Guess this is something people really can relate to and this is a guy that is hard to accept.

Perseverance comes from Persevere. It means you stick at something until you get it done, no matter what, right? Well, perseverence is like that, except that you don’t choose to stick to something once you get started, you just can’t switch gears.

This guy is very black and white, I agree. However, I like, pete-puma, tend to think that it’s possible to have different degrees of severity with ADD. I don’t know that this guy knows he’s being harsh. On the other hand, we are a sensitive lot, not having a full range of control over our emotions Still, if he is coming from a position of having studied ADD only after having studied brain injuries (he mentions the word injury a lot in his videos…makes me suspicious), he may just have this idea that ADD=Brain Injury. His black and white attitude just doesn’t pass what my science guy hubby calls the “sniff test.” It just feels wrong to me.

ADD is a frontal lobe disorder, correct? My buddy, now deceased, had essentially half of his frontal lobe removed due to cancer. Things like executive functioning (time management) reside there. He would do things like sit in the bathroom and not realize he had been there for 40 minutes doing nothing. He had zero sense of time. You could even tell when he talked, he was not exactly in a rush, but would really draw sentences out, not realizing how long he was taking to say what he needed to say.

This would make sense that if we have a problem with our frontal lobe, then it would be hard to switch gears (or other ADD things like having difficulty being patient, or gauging when to speak in a conversation). However, we have possession of our frontal lobes, unlike my buddy, so therefore, it sounds possible that we have varying degrees of executive function and possible that our brains could make some adaptations.

Our brain is a very remarkable organ in that it will compensate, especially if we are younger. If it is true that we are born with ADD, then wouldn’t our brain have learned to use some of these things to it’s advantage? Wouldn’t we figure out early on, even consciously, to spend time “perseverating” on things we like, and avoid (like cleaning) getting trapped into perseverating on things we don’t want to waste time on? Maybe what we call “hyperfocus” is really just perseverating on things that we have interest in, and “procrastination” is what we do when we don’t want to perseverate on something, avoiding a task until completely necessary. Maybe inattention, or the inability to perseverate, is somewhat related, but not opposite to perseveration, in the sense that lack of focus may have nothing to do with time management.

Meanwhile, I’ve been so hyperfocused (’cause I like talking to you guys) on cranking out this post that I’ve forgotten to eat my lunch. Hey, there’s a pretty squirrel out front, too! LOL!

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[Anonymous]

I recall reading in a CHADD article about there being 6 executive functions that were affected by ADHD. Oh, and here’s the link:

http://www.chadd.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Especially_For_Press&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=5802

The 6 areas are activation, focus, effort, emotion, memory and action. It stands to reason that someone might be doing well in some or most of those areas and failing miserably in others.

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[Anonymous]

Well after all the yakity yak on the site about Dr Barkley, I had to watch his video(s). I watched a few……hmmmmmm. I’m not sure how to sum up my thoughts without creating havoc….somethings he says I see…others maybe not, at least not consistently ???

My take is….there have been people throughout history who are adamant about their position and support the current popular thinking with zeal. Can you imagine at one time there were physicians going about (highly educated persons) claiming there were invisible creatures that would invade open surgical wounds and cause horrible infections and death. No-see-ums maybe????

It may have gone like this…..back then. (Doctor to Doctor….not that long ago)

No…..you can’t see them they are invisible…..but they are there!

No….I’ve never seen one, but I know they are there.

What do they do? They cause infections…really!!!

No I don’t know if they have legs, or how they do it!

No I don’t know what color they are. No I don’t know where they come from..but they are there!!!

You know what’s really crazy…..water seems to make them go away…yes simply washing your hands before surgery seems to scare them off.

No, I don’t know where they live or where they go……but….

Anyway…..undying, unquestioning subscription to any zealous position is……dangerous, and consistency may be the hobgoblin of little minds….

toofat

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[Anonymous]

@toofat, I agree. “Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” I’m gonna keep saying that until people stop trusting everything experts say inherently.

You just hinted at another advantage ADD provides society: we question everything. It drives people nuts, but there’s no progress without people challenging the status quo. George Bernard Shaw: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. All progress, therefore, depends upon the unreasonable man.”

@Geoduck and gameguy: I’m not sure I agree that ADHD has to be a spectrum disorder. There could simply be 3 types: inattentive, hyperactive and combined. And everyone with ADHD falls into one of those 3 buckets. With all their other assets and issues the symptoms may appear different (more or less severe).

I’m not a proponent one way or the other, but it irks me when people say someone’s ADHD is less severe. We don’t know until we walk a mile in their shoes, and Dr. Barkley hasn’t set foot in mine.

The other thing that really tweaks me off is that here is a guy who says that there is no scientific study that shows any positive benefit to ADHD (put another way, there has been no proof one way or the other), and then assumes (angrily) that people with ADHD who report a positive benefit are wrong or delusional. Just because we (sometimes) behave in a way that mimics or is similar to those with frontal lobe injuries does not mean (1) we have a frontal lobe injury or that we’re damaged or defective in some way; (2) that’s the same or only thing going on with us; or (3) that there is nothing positive about ADHD.

If you clap your hands behind a deaf dog he won’t jump. If you clap your hands behind a dog with no legs, he won’t jump either. That doesn’t mean the legless dog is deaf.

Why not just throw us all in the lake and see if we float.

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[Anonymous]

Pete-P, I could just follow you around for my daily giggle. I quite often read your responses too my partner, she also enjoys your rationale and has a laugh!!!! I agree (of course) ‘status-quo’ for so many things does not work!!! Social, political or otherwise. This mess we live in is supplied (thank-you) by non-other than highly educated, highly skilled “experts”…the best of the best!!!

I’m not speaking of ADD either, medical scientists who regularly put medication out into the market place only to find in a few short years it’s actually killing people or causes more ill than it could ever cure. It’s these same highly educated medical scientists that tell us we are “broken toys” and nothing else………….right. These same scientists actually testified with empirical evidence in the highest court in the land, that cigarettes are harmless, and certainly do not cause cancer!!!! They still sell them….$$$$$$!!!

The above are facts……I’m sure I could go on but……

Hyperfocus vs Per”sever”ance???? Sure maybe…….I don’t doubt that there is some truth there (there usually is), maybe for a larger segment than the ADD crowd, but is it everything………..I have my doubts. Who pays this cat, directly or indirectly…..what is his agenda, not that I really care actually ???? He sure tries hard to sound like the ultimate authority, and I for one find that frightening.

As for divergent thinking…

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” A. Einstein

toofat

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[Bill]

The concept of hyperfocus is bandied around the ADHD circles, sometimes as a bad thing (e.g. boys hyperfocusing on — being completely absorbed by — video games) and sometimes as a good thing (e.g. being completely absorbed by a task). In me, it was all about deadlines – avoiding work until the last minute, then shifting to hyperfocus (sometimes well after midnight, just hours before the deadline) and getting it done. Many times I thought, if only I could make this happen when I wanted it . . .

I’m not there yet, but I did have an insight today. In me, it’s a change in the perception of time, a feeling rather than a conscious measure. In the morning, it feels like I have all the time in the world, but when the deadline looms, it feels like time is the scarce resource, so I narrow my focus and turn off my peripheral awareness. It’s like having an antenna that picks up all kinds of transmissions, constantly scanning for interesting ones, and then changing it for one that can pick up only one station. In me, it’s not a gradual change. I can feel myself click over into hyperfocus, as if an internal clock were counting down the seconds to the last minute. I’d love to have one of those brain scanners that could tell me what actually happens in that moment. Do I switch from being “right brained” to “left brained”? I don’t know.

How do you experience hyperfocus? Be as specific as you can about what you think and feel. See if you can pinpoint the moment when it starts and ends. What triggers it? Can you make it happen or make it stop? The research continues!

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