Whats your hyperactivity look like?

[sar316]

My hyperactivity includes the overwhelming urge to blurt out my thought, because if I don’t the thought/question is long gone, no matter how relevant or important it was. I wander around the house like I’m lost the second some one hands me a phone to converse on for longer than 30 seconds. I find that I either bounce my leg or I rock in my chair and I makes me look like a freaking crazy person. I often don’t realize that I’m doing it until someone points it out to me, but that makes the urge to move even more intense as now I’m focused on it. Meds help, but they wear off and back to rocking, swaying, wandering or bouncing I go. If Im anxious about something it gets way worse.

How does your hyperactivity look or do you have any suggestions that I could use to calm it down?

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[Galadriel724]

Duck tape? That was my first impulsive response. I have the same problem and I know that even with tape across my mouth I would probably make as much noise. “mmmph mmph mmmmph!”
I wish they made shut up pills. I take adderall and it helps but not nearly as much as I’d like it to with the motormouth. In one of Russell Barkley’s lectures he explains it pretty well. When kids are thinking they usually have their thoughts spoken out loud in a narrative. If you’ve ever seen a toddler talking to no one, that’s what he means. Usually kids make the narrative silent when they hit about school age. ADHDers tend to not do that as much. If I am thinking my mouth is moving. I recently asked my sister, who has some ADHD tendencies but is not impaired by them, and she said she does the same thing. She also said that if she is by herself her lips are moving but she doesn’t actually speak out loud. When there are people in the room, she does. She knows it doesn’t make sense.
My boyfriend just read the duck tape part and laughed because he knows that it is true.

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[kc5jck]

I will play the concertina and watch TV reading the closed captioning.  Or, I may be working on the car, cooking, or other physical activity, and think of something totally unrelated.  Things which will occupy my mind both physically and mentally.

In meetings or watching TV, I will often stand instead of sit . . . and play words with friends on the iPhone.  When sitting, I will fidget, sometimes noticeably, sometimes not.  Sitting in church, I will count the number of pipes on the organ, how they are arrayed, then figure how many octaves they span then I’ll get the hymnal and read the index, or zone out.

I will stay up at night until physically and mentally exhausted, often doing trivial and inane things before going to bed.  Then I may wake at 4 or 5 in the morning and my mind takes off “doing laps.”

I believe that hyperactivity doesn’t have to be physical, but can be mental.  And that it is physical when younger and becomes mental as one gets older.  Different ways to manifest the same syndrome.  It’s this hyperactivity whether mental or physical that causes the “attention deficit.”

Thoughts fly by so fast, they never make it to the mouth.  Speech is soooo slooow.  Those thoughts that do get vocalized come out in sentences that are seldom completed because the mind has left the thought far behind for the next.

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[Fochaosed]

Tap my feet or bounce legs, esp. if stuck just sitting, waiting. Waiting rooms, other peoples sofas [on my sofa I fold clothes, peruse flyers, brush kitty, surf or email, sew something… can not “just sit”]. This bouncing/tapping is bad on the bus as the bouncing seat disturbs the person next to you. And they may think you need to go pee. Less likely to occur if I remember my headphones and listen to music. Then part of my mind is also occupied with resisting the urge to sing along when in public. Tap fingernails on the desk or countertop if hands are idle. Talk to myself (“what was i doing” “that doesn’t make sense” “think think”) or “hu hooh hmph” with mouth closed type noises when trying to regain a lost train of thought or when organizing thoughts or problem solving in my head. ooh look, a hole in my shirt. I kind of visualize writing on a blackboard in my head, the vocals fill the dead air between thoughts when not “writing”. Stir crazy/cabin fever makes for a rough vacation if everyone else just wants to chill. Beach time is torture – one can only look for shells and read a mag for so long. I am more inattentive and impulsive. This is a “H” as it gets for me.

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[Fochaosed]

No function to edit posts?
addendum… though not sure if it’s hyperactivity, maybe more impulsiveness, maybe poor conversation skills. Trouble getting to the point and finishing. Rephrase a few times, go back to it a few minutes later to add something else or give another example to make it clearer. I am prone to spew a rough draft and multiple revisions rather than a finished copy, regardless of whether I take more time to think before I speak.

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[Rick Green – Founder of TotallyADD]

This is me. Okay, it’s me playing Bill. But it’s me.

http://totallyadd.com/the-boring-meeting/

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[sar316]

@Larynxa wow!! That is PERFECT!!! I’ve never seen or heard anything that so completely summarizes what its like to be in my head, ALL of the time!! It’s amazing how often I have to ask people to repeat themselves due to the brain noise.

I am ADHD (with the hyperactivity) and I’ve become slightly confused. So for the sake of technicality, as I’m new still new to the ADHD world, whats the difference between hyperactivity, impulsiveness and perseverance? I feel that I have impulses to move, speak and fidget. Once started I feel that I’m doing it no longer as in impulse, but as a hyperactivity like a motor run object (some times completely unaware that I’m doing it) and at some point along this continuum I feel like it becomes perseverance as I don’t always quit when I should.

So for the sake of my understanding and so that I can educate those who have to live with me, what are the differences between hyperactivity, impulsiveness and perseverance?

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[Galadriel724]

@Rick
My job is pretty mobile but we have a mandatory 90 minute meeting every morning. I quirm, put my knees against the table, spin in my chair, and make stick figure pictures on my notepad. I also make mind maps on my iphone. And play games. Every once in a while I accidentally activate Siri, which makes a loud beep. Doh! I used to get embarrassed but then I realized that due to the nature of my work, many team members also have the same issues. We all work in psych so being a bit loopy is expected and tolerated.
At one point someone put some action figures on the table (and a Stretch Armstrong). I have endless fun making them have epic battles, which is not annoying to my team members, it’s just amusing. My neighbor sitting next to me often critiques my work and adds to the pics.
I have to go to a quarterly meeting where the grand poobah stands and talks to us for 3 hours. There are mostly neurotypical people at that, so I bring silly putty. It doesn’t help. Still trying to figure out a way to deal with those…
I guess my coworkers really make my job possible. That’s actually why I decided to join the team.

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[phoenixmagicgirl]

tend to bounce my leg if I’m sitting down or if I’m standing I tend to pace a lot or tap  my hands on something… I also talk a lot!!!! Just ask my family, friends, co workers and boss. When  I get hyper focused there’s nothing that can distract me. I’m not hyperactive just inattentive.

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[Galadriel724]

I for got to mention what is probably my most common behavior that has to do with the hyperactivity. I hate to sit still, and need to do something all of the time. So, it doesn’t sound real exciting, but I crochet constantly. I don’t finish most of the stuff I start, but it is stimulating and relaxing at the same time. I can make some pretty, ummm, different stuff too. If you look at my photostream there is a one eyed dectopus that I’m pretty impressed with…

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[sdwa]

For me  it’s obsessive focus on whatever is throwing me off track at any given moment. Like when I’m trying to solve a problem, and my mind spins off a hundred different ways to approach the problem – and each way raises its own one hundred questions or options, which in turn raise even more possibilities, until I feel so overwhelmed I’m completely paralyzed and give up. I can’t figure out why to choose one path over another. I know that sounds demented but it’s a real problem. Anyway, that’s what my mental hyperactivity looks like. 🙂

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[Patte Rosebank]

@sdwa, that’s because you’re brain is trying to capture EVERYTHING…and then trying to capture EVERYTHING that each part of EVERYTHING conjures up, and so on, and so on…

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[Blue Yugo]

I don’t have the “H” in my diagnosis, but one of the 2 hyperactivity traits I do have is the foot tapping and/or leg shaking thing when I’m seated.  I noticed it in first grade and remember thinking “Gee, I hope this doesn’t carry through my whole life.  I guess I can stop when I want.”  (Yes, in Mrs. Harrison’s first grade class I thought such a thing.)  I never outgrew it, and I can’t stop.  Having 2 of the 9 markers for hyperactivity doesn’t put me into the combined subset.  Then again, maybe I’m one of the % for whom the hyperactivity symptoms didn’t carrying over into adulthood…not enough of it anyway.

A few holiday seasons ago, I took a temporary position working six 11-hour days at an Amazon warehouse (lost 15 lbs in that time, I may add).  My feet hurt so bad, I’d cry when I got home…but the constant activity of loading trucks and sorting boxes manually kept me going.  Now I’m back to being a programmer at a mostly-desk job.  I like the work, but I bore easily.  I day dream.  I multi-task.  I find myself checking emails in the middle of assembling a web-based training course.  One of my legs is always idling like some sort of rogue piston out of an engine.

And meetings…I HATE meetings!  Especially if I have little to contribute or listen to.  I don’t make binder-clip dinosaurs or paperclip bi-planes, but I would if I could and still keep my job (and the respect of my serious, non-ADD co-workers…fat chance).  I fiddle with things.  I put 2 or 3 pens between my fingers so I have “claws” like Wolverine or something.  I doodle…or pretend to take notes when in fact I’m making a to-do list or (shhhh…) scribbling an idea for my currently in progress novel…  Inside, I’m rumbling with impatience.  I “want out” and feel a part of me is clawing the walls.  Heck, you KNOW I stop paying attention once they hit on parts that don’t involve me or I just don’t care.

But you see…this is why I don’t let anyone at work know I have it.  I’m afraid I’ll be booted to some reject pile and relegated to the ranks of the unemployed.  It’s bad enough I can’t hide my restless foot and leg.  Still, I’ve got ADD…not ADHD.  Or, is the “H” just hidden a bit with the advancement into what’s supposed to be adulthood?  Something to discuss perhaps when I see my overpriced doctor on Friday.  After all, since I can’t afford it, it might be the last visit I go for (for a while).

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[Patte Rosebank]

@LittleBlueYugo, there’s one big advantage to that leg-shaking:  It can burn up to 350 calories a day, depending on how long and how enthusiastically you shake that leg.

One Lindor truffle has 80 calories, so you can work off 4.375 of them, just by doing what comes naturally!

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[Author]

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