Zoning Out

[Anonymous]

Yeah, I’ve zoned out. I texted my husband before leaving school the other day, telling him I’d like to chat since I was stressed to the limit. He told me he would be leaving his office in about 10 minutes (he has about an hour’s commute as do I). Great! I’d head home, and he’d be home right around the shortly after because I was already headed that way.

I arrive home and grab the mail key and head down the street to the mail box. Wow! There’s a card inside from Canada Post telling me that there’s a parcel for me at the post office. Yeah! I head to the house, grab my car keys and head to the post office. I picked up the parcel and as I walk through the store (the PO is located in a drug store) and manage to ignore all the snacks (despite my growling stomach because I’ve missed breakfast and only had time for a container of yogurt at recess).

As I walk through the store I was thinking that the store was very empty. I guessed every one must be home eating dinner. I leave, drive home and hop out of the car. I’m shocked because there is a car directly behind mine in the driveway. WHERE did that come from? Hubby instantly hops out, (and I’m thinking where did you come from? He must have pulled in right behind me and I NEVER even saw him!! I’m sure not a very observant driver… kinda scary. You need to pay more attention to who is right behind you)

He walks up to me and says, “Are you okay? Are you in a brain fog?” Well, I had texted him that I’d had a bad day but am I in a brain fog? What’s he talking about? So I ask him that.

duh. Apparently he stopped by the drug store on his way home to pick up some candy and lo and behold, I was there in the store. Apparently, as I walked down the aisle toward him , he called my name. As I passed right by him, he called my name again. I just kept walking. Remember, this is the same store I had only a few minutes ago had noticed as being empty. He exited right behind me and hopped in his car and followed me home.

Brain fog. Yeah, I was zoned out. At least that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. It was one of those days that teachers like to forget. At least the teachers who teach a special ed contained “behaviour” class. Every single one of my students is ADD (+ a bunch of other really nasty other things. *sigh* Tomorrow is a new day!

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[moses]

I zone out all the time. Ill be watching a movie, then realize i don’t know whats happened over the last twenty minutes, then i rewind, to do it again, then i just shut it off and do something else.

when people are trying to tell me something it gets really bad, then i just nod, say yes, ;execute predetermined answer for(set parameter topic), then try my absolute damndest to remember what they were saying, after the convo is long gone. gets old rly fast but what to do right? for someone who has had, and has known he has add for twenty something years, you start to recognize the tiomes when you zone, what causes them, why they occur etc. then you try to encorperate  nifty tid bits to keep you involved. like little computer data packets. encorperation!

subject:conversation, subject:my own thoughts, Subject:conversation, repeat. refresh continue. its like. having to split two or three or five conversations in your head into little packages that can only be continuued if you refresh to the one your listening to from someone else.. omg what am i saying maybe i should rewrite this….

okay. so lets say your listening to someone and you zone out. you never completely ignore what the other person is saying, you just, start a new thread so to speak, its okay cuz you can do that four or five times before they realise you have a vacant expression/stare, the object however is to revisit all the conversations taking place as many times in two or three seconds as you can, like arevolving door, then by chance youll tune back into the person talking, catch up in half a second, incorperate what they say, then zone out again to do it all over. I find this helps, particularily whith larger and/or longer conversations, is to try to control the conversation to YOUR benifit, by coaxing them into your train of thought, by posing questions pertinent to what they are saying, but actually forces them to come to a conclusion that is more similar to the brain waves your producing, making the conversaton  little more smooth.. example

Lady:    “Hey Moses! you’ll never believe what happened to me today!”

Moses:   “you sure?, haha whats up what happened?”

Lady:     “I went to the grocerie store to buy some food”

Moses:     “uhuh, then what?”   <–zoning out response

Lady:       “Well blah blah blah Isle blah blah Ketchup bah blah blah”      <– totally adder zonage

Moses:      “Ketchup really? haha”       <-meanwhile thinking about the ingredients to ketchup, and how lisosine is found in its most concentrated forms only in heavily produced tomato products due to the way in which you process tomatoes whithout using heat,which would destroy the lisosine

Lady:       “yeah ketchup and blah blah blah person I met blah blah blah ago blah blah                   wasnt  working blah blah bah blah offered me a JOB!!!!” <—adders to the rescue!

Moses:     “wow a job that’s awesome!” <–doesnt dare ask doing what cuz she probably already said what it was…

Moses: (knowing ketchup is more interesting than random hu7man encounter)    “speaking of ketchup, did you know that tomatoes are more healthy for you the more they’re concentrated and processed?, due to the micronutrients involved, and how you process them using cold techniques rather than cooking them first?”.

maybe what I said is too confusing idk, makes sense to me tho 🙂

 

 

 

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[kc5jck]

Excellent description of what’s going on.

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[wanderquest]

@moses Makes perfect sense to me. That’s how I think during conversations.

If it’s someone close to me I’ll just cut them off and straight up tell them I didn’t hear anything they just said past “ketchup”.

 

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[blackdog]

I zoned out in the middle of  reading that post.

“it’s like having to split two or three or five conversations…..something something something”…wait, what did that say?….

I wouldn’t really describe it that way but I never really thought about it before. Im usually very good at filling in the blanks from the bits of conversation that I do catch and pretending like I know what’s really going on.

When I was younger it was most noticeable at school. The teachers were always calling on me to answer a question that I didn’t hear. And I remember hearing “yoo-hoo, Earth calling…” a lot. My brother nicknamed me Space Cadet.

At work I would always forget to do things that I was asked to do, especially if they told me the day before. I have been told more than once that I agreed to do something that I don’t remember agreeing to.

I zone out a lot during movies. Sometimes when watch a movie the second time it’s almost like watching a whole new movie. Especially if I don’t have something else to do while watching, like nibbling on popcorn or candy. And something in the movie will catch my attention and my mind will just wander away with it and I miss a huge chunk of the movie while I’m contemplating whether or not that was a plausible scientific theory or why they changed that part instead of leaving it the way it was in the book, or how it could have been written better……Sometimes it will be a really small detail, like the colour of lipstick an actress is wearing doesn’t suit her complexion and I wonder why the makeup artist chose that colour and then I can’t stop thinking about it every time I see her face.

And on that note, I have to try to turn my attention to the movie I am watching with my mom right now. Though there are so many other interesting threads I see at the top of the recent topics list now that weren’t there before….

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