With an official AD(H)D diagnosis ?

[BurnedOut]

I'm wondering what low working memory and ADD actually feels like. Post your opinions and experiences

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[QuickTwist]

I can't remember anything - even if I try and tell myself to remember something, it doesn't work. Just weird or interesting things stick, mostly.

I play a game called Forum Mafia fairly regularly. I am not bad at the game, but I would be twice the player if I could remember what people said earlier in the game.

As far as ADHD goes, I would say the two are not as related as you might think. I am on meds for ADHD, but meds don't magically let me remember things I want to remember, they just make it easier for me to focus on what I need to do at the time.

 

[BurnedOut]

I can't remember anything - even if I try and tell myself to remember something, it doesn't work. Just weird or interesting things stick, mostly.

I play a game called Forum Mafia fairly regularly. I am not bad at the game, but I would be twice the player if I could remember what people said earlier in the game.

As far as ADHD goes, I would say the two are not as related as you might think. I am on meds for ADHD, but meds don't magically let me remember things I want to remember, they just make it easier for me to focus on what I need to do at the time.

I can relate.

I can't pay attention and I've to constantly keep on reading the same stuff over and over again. This is especially frustrating while prepping for my law exams because I simply can't remember any instructions after simply a second or two. So I've to rock my vision back and forth. I only manage to remember stuff by writing it down repeatedly. It's debilitating. I can learn things sure, but the next day I feel I know nothing. I am not on meds, my shrink says I've LFT but I'm not given any official ADD meds. Mostly anxiolytics and ADs because they work okay.

I had my WM tested, I scored in the 1.68th percentile for monkey ladder memory test, 95-99th percentile for spatial discrepancies detection, 78th percentile for visuo-spatial WM, 70th percentile for symbolic memory (the highly varies on my attention level at that moment). I managed to pull off 98th percentile on digit span only once. Otherwise, it's around 80th percentile normally and sometimes 10th percentile depending on my attention span. I can barely pay attention if I don't find the stuff interesting. I've difficulties reading novels for that reason and potentially annoying occurences while learning programming

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[QuickTwist]

I can relate.

I can't pay attention and I've to constantly keep on reading the same stuff over and over again. This is especially frustrating while prepping for my law exams because I simply can't remember any instructions after simply a second or two. So I've to rock my vision back and forth. I only manage to remember stuff by writing it down repeatedly. It's debilitating. I can learn things sure, but the next day I feel I know nothing. I am not on meds, my shrink says I've LFT but I'm not given any official ADD meds. Mostly anxiolytics and ADs because they work okay.

I had my WM tested, I scored in the 1.68th percentile for monkey ladder memory test, 95-99th percentile for spatial discrepancies detection, 78th percentile for visuo-spatial WM, 70th percentile for symbolic memory (the highly varies on my attention level at that moment). I managed to pull off 98th percentile on digit span only once. Otherwise, it's around 80th percentile normally and sometimes 10th percentile depending on my attention span. I can barely pay attention if I don't find the stuff interesting. I've difficulties reading novels for that reason and potentially annoying occurences while learning programming

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Want to know my big problem? It's embarrassing, but you could have figured it out if you have seen serecs post. I don't get the English language... at all. I can't remember the rules that govern the english language so I am constantly misspelling the same words over and over and over. Luckily I have a spell checker in my browser so it doesn't actually look like I am bad at spelling, but believe me, I am prolly not even close to 50% of the population with this. I scored better than 45% of people in the English category of the ACT, but I scored better than 93% of people in the science and reasoning portion. So it's not even that I am dumb. You know that Mafia game I said I play? I have problems with people understanding me in that game all the fucking time. The reasons for this are a double whammy: First, since I AM actually pretty bright, I see things and reason things out that usually never occurs to most people. On top of this, I notice DIFFERENT things that are not really standard for these games, so even with that people kind go "wut?". But on top of this, because I am so very very bad at english (I am assuming it's a problem in my executive functioning or something) I can't articulate what it is that I am thinking on to paper very well. The thing that makes this later thing difficult is that I am analyzing some pretty complex shit and so there is a lot that is just plain old missed from my mind to my posts. It's extremely frustrating to have people not be able to understand me all the time.

 

[BurnedOut]

Want to know my big problem? It's embarrassing, but you could have figured it out if you have seen serecs post. I don't get the English language... at all. I can't remember the rules that govern the english language so I am constantly misspelling the same words over and over and over. Luckily I have a spell checker in my browser so it doesn't actually look like I am bad at spelling, but believe me, I am prolly not even close to 50% of the population with this. I scored better than 45% of people in the English category of the ACT, but I scored better than 93% of people in the science and reasoning portion. So it's not even that I am dumb. You know that Mafia game I said I play? I have problems with people understanding me in that game all the fucking time. The reasons for this are a double whammy: First, since I AM actually pretty bright, I see things and reason things out that usually never occurs to most people. On top of this, I notice DIFFERENT things that are not really standard for these games, so even with that people kind go "wut?". But on top of this, because I am so very very bad at english (I am assuming it's a problem in my executive functioning or something) I can't articulate what it is that I am thinking on to paper very well. The thing that makes this later thing difficult is that I am analyzing some pretty complex shit and so there is a lot that is just plain old missed from my mind to my posts. It's extremely frustrating to have people not be able to understand me all the time.

Typical high IQ ADD case. Do you face problems with circumstantial speeches and not thinking before speaking ?

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[QuickTwist]

Typical high IQ ADD case. Do you face problems with circumstantial speeches and not thinking before speaking ?

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Hmm... Not so much. Ironically, this comes out more in Mafia in how many posts I make in a game rather than IRL. RL is slow enough to where I don't have as much of a problem with this. But I will say, if I am trying to communicate a complicated idea IRL it's difficult as hell. This is maybe what you are talking about, but I see it a bit differently in that I think circumstantiated things don't necessarily have to be complex, if that makes sense??? The way I see it is that circumstances are only as complicated as in as unfamiliar that they are. Even a very peculiar circumstance can be understood with ease with the context of this being a regular occurrence. Like praying before a meal, for example. If you were to take a person who had no understanding of religion and dropped them in a church service it's debatable if they couldn't stop laughing hysterically or be so turned off that they would openly revolt to such things said.

 

[BurnedOut]

Tried doing an ACT science section thing. I had to read the passage almost 5 times before answering one question

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[QuickTwist]

Tried doing an ACT science section thing. I had to read the passage almost 5 times before answering one question

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My secret was that I didn't overthink the questions. I just kinda gave it a once over and made my best guess knowing that more answers would be in the order of B, C, A, D.

 

[BurnedOut]

I've often been told since my childhood that my analytical skills go way beyond average. Funnily, I'm often the lowest scorer in the English in my class because I analyse it naturally very penetratively and arrive to a conclusion which is apparently wrong but however, I still managed to beat my teachers very easily with their level of thinking which I think is very basal. Drawing summaries from huge paragraphs is like a herculean task for me because I can't keep track of the theme of the passage I'm reading which is why I had to read the act paragraph almost 7 times to answer one question because I couldn't keep things in my mind. However understanding the paragraph was stupidly easy however it still is hard to remember facts and answer questions based off them.

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[QuickTwist]

I've often been told since my childhood that my analytical skills go way beyond average. Funnily, I'm often the lowest scorer in the English in my class because I analyse it naturally very penetratively and arrive to a conclusion which is apparently wrong but however, I still managed to beat my teachers very easily with their level of thinking which I think is very basal. Drawing summaries from huge paragraphs is like a herculean task for me because I can't keep track of the theme of the passage I'm reading which is why I had to read the act paragraph almost 7 times to answer one question because I couldn't keep things in my mind. However understanding the paragraph was stupidly easy however it still is hard to remember facts and answer questions based off them.

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Ironic that pretty much none of your posts are one-liners, lol.

 

[BurnedOut]

Ironic that pretty much none of your posts are one-liners, lol.

How is that ironic ?

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[QuickTwist]

How is that ironic ?

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It's not really. I understand you are just explaining you full thought process. It just looks ironic (the opposite of what is expected) because you can make long posts but can't remember what is said in long posts.

 

[BurnedOut]

Good one

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[Ex-User (14663)]

I have a comically bad memory when it comes to things that don't fall into some structure. For example people's names.

 

[Black Rose]

Working memory 92
Processing Speed 86

From my examination, the report says I do not have AD(H)D. But it feels like I am unable to utilize internal cognition. When I am in bed at night I have so many thoughts that I cannot keep track of them that I forget what I was trying to figure out. Same when awake during the day. I simply do not think in the normal way of thinking which is conscious internal manipulation of variables. I mostly rely on intuitive and verbal cognition. I connect things in my mind consciously and unconsciously. I try to find patterns in what I know. But I still cannot hold that much in my head at once nor process it very fast. I get by on irrational cognitive understanding. This means I am not a calculator and the patterns I see are not necessarily useful. It took me 15 minutes to write this paragraph.

 

[Teax]

My secret was that I didn't overthink the questions. I just kinda gave it a once over and made my best guess knowing that more answers would be in the order of B, C, A, D.

This would be an example of failing the point of the test. Even if you pick the right answer. The point was whether your consciousness is "wide enough" to fit the (abstraction of the) problem inside. Specifically, three things are being tested:
1. Whether your system of abstractions is sufficiently rational. Because being rational is important for science.

Those who are confronted with a topic for which they do not have a useful representation of the world for, it will look like this (non-scientific topic example):

I have a comically bad memory when it comes to things that don't fall into some structure. For example people's names.

2. Whether you have a sufficiently trained abstraction apparatus. Those who have a useful representation of the world, but never practiced it/applied it in projects will not have developed the skill to abstract situations "on-the-fly" and
2b. will not have developed additional auxiliary abstractions that help compress the map of the problem in your working memory. If you're lucky, this case will look like this:

I had to read the passage almost 5 times before answering one question

 

[BurnedOut]

I have a comically bad memory when it comes to things that don't fall into some structure. For example people's names.

I always need to have some associations to with the fact in an abstract or in an episodic way to permanently remember it. Once that happens, I can remember details with utter vividity. Moreover, I don't possess a good WM for facts, numbers and letters, my episodic working memory is much much better and actually 'records' events. This makes me great at remembering entire situations along with people's body language and the point that they were making. Guess my audiospatial are better corporealised.

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[BurnedOut]

Working memory 92
Processing Speed 86

From my examination, the report says I do not have AD(H)D. But it feels like I am unable to utilize internal cognition. When I am in bed at night I have so many thoughts that I cannot keep track of them that I forget what I was trying to figure out. Same when awake during the day. I simply do not think in the normal way of thinking which is conscious internal manipulation of variables. I mostly rely on intuitive and verbal cognition. I connect things in my mind consciously and unconsciously. I try to find patterns in what I know. But I still cannot hold that much in my head at once nor process it very fast. I get by on irrational cognitive understanding. This means I am not a calculator and the patterns I see are not necessarily useful. It took me 15 minutes to write this paragraph.

I surmise it takes forever for you to learn new things right ? Low PS and WM is directly correlated with Dyslexia and AD(H)D.

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[Black Rose]

I surmise it takes forever for you to learn new things right ? Low PS and WM is directly correlated with Dyslexia and AD(H)D.

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I can read fine but my spelling sucks.

My report says I can stay focused long periods of time. No AD(H)D.

As for learning, I need straightforward examples so that I can apply it generally. I remember that learning the metric system in 6th grade was easy for me. Science class was super fun. Computer class was harder, did not learn much other than I never learned to photoshop that well. I made a cheeseburger in AutoCAD. I type 14 words a minute, my sister can type 31 words a minute, the average person can type 39 words a minute. My hands always hurt after typing class. Now I hen peck everything because it is easier for me.

 

[BurnedOut]

I can read fine but my spelling sucks.

My report says I can stay focused long periods of time. No AD(H)D.

As for learning, I need straightforward examples so that I can apply it generally. I remember that learning the metric system in 6th grade was easy for me. Science class was super fun. Computer class was harder, did not learn much other than I never learned to photoshop that well. I made a cheeseburger in AutoCAD. I type 14 words a minute, my sister can type 31 words a minute, the average person can type 39 words a minute. My hands always hurt after typing class. Now I hen peck everything because it is easier for me.

That is quite unusual, you can read quickly but suck at spellings and grasp stuff easily. I suspect your WM scores are sort of wrong and the reaction test was skewed too. You don't seem like a slow leaned at all.

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[QuickTwist]

This would be an example of failing the point of the test. Even if you pick the right answer. The point was whether your consciousness is "wide enough" to fit the (abstraction of the) problem inside. Specifically, three things are being tested:
1. Whether your system of abstractions is sufficiently rational. Because being rational is important for science.

Those who are confronted with a topic for which they do not have a useful representation of the world for, it will look like this (non-scientific topic example):


2. Whether you have a sufficiently trained abstraction apparatus. Those who have a useful representation of the world, but never practiced it/applied it in projects will not have developed the skill to abstract situations "on-the-fly" and
2b. will not have developed additional auxiliary abstractions that help compress the map of the problem in your working memory. If you're lucky, this case will look like this:

Your point is moot considering I scored less than average on one portion of the test and far above average in another - both of which were based on a 4 option multiple choice.

 

[Happy]

Having ADHD is fucking shit. Obviously it's pretty low on the heirarchy of disorders, but nonetheless, it sucks.

My experience (off the top of my head) as a legit diagnosed ADHD adult:

• I love reading, and I love devouring books. But, it's a real struggle. I often can't read to the end of a page without my mind ending up somewhere completely elsewhere. I have the capacity to speed-read at a fast speed (>1000 wpm), but most of the time, I have to sit there reading at fucking turtle speed because it's the only way I can keep my damn monkey brain on the information. This is severely compounded when I have to read boring shit like long reports at work.
• It's incredibly hard for me to hold a conversation, and it usually takes 100% of my mental energy. It takes about 20 seconds of listening before I've completely forgotten what we're talking about and I'm just watching lips move. It makes it very hard to connect with people. It's not that I don't care what they have to say, but that's the impression they often get. I really wish I could be 100% engaged on even just 20% of the conversations I have.
• I really can't take care of myself. I'm known to forget to eat food or drink water for days at a time. I have a history of losing track of time and forgetting to sleep. I rarely pay my bills on time, and it's not for a lack of financial capability, but... well i don't even know why.
• It takes me a lot of mental effort to be prepared and be on time, and even then I still arrive at work at least 15 minutes late most days. I don't want to be like this, and I try very hard to not be that way. I've been obsessed with developing discipline for a long time. Its taken me years to get to a point that I'm only late for morning engagements. When I was in university, I typically didn't make it to most lectures or classes before they ended. Pathetic.
• Every single damn day I walk away from my car and lock it, then I go back to check I locked it because I can't remember. Then I go back to make sure I tucked my side mirror in. Then I realise I forgot something inside and the cycle repeats ... ad nauseum.
• My work sees me spread across several projects simultaneously. You wouldn't believe the state of my desk most days if I told you...
• I just don't even bother with deadlines anymore. It's probably going to be late. So be it.
• The thing that really pisses me off about ADHD is how watered down it is in the eyes of others. It seems every man and his dog claims to have ADHD these days. "Oh I have struggle focusing all the time and a read a checklist online, I must have ADHD" - yeah well that's just the human condition. We can't all be on ALL the time. If it doesn't hinder your functioning to a point that you can hardly take care of yourself - well you probably don't have it.
• I've walked away from my computer after typing each of the above points.

It's fucking lame. I just wish I could be a competent adult. Maybe one day the coping mechanisms will tip the scales...

 

[Niclmaki]

Somewhat related; I had a peer diagnosed with Adult ADHD (whatever that means - I didn’t know there were different flavours). She told our psychology professor and the professor advised her to not take the pills she had been given.

I should add that my peer was 35ish years old and had kids/husband. Also a very obvious ENFP.

Maybe I should have asked why my professor said that, but this was about a decade ago now. ADHD was just becoming the popular illness. I had (and still do) little knowledge of it.

 

[BurnedOut]

Having ADHD is fucking shit. Obviously it's pretty low on the heirarchy of disorders, but nonetheless, it sucks.

My experience (off the top of my head) as a legit diagnosed ADHD adult:

• I love reading, and I love devouring books. But, it's a real struggle. I often can't read to the end of a page without my mind ending up somewhere completely elsewhere. I have the capacity to speed-read at a fast speed (>1000 wpm), but most of the time, I have to sit there reading at fucking turtle speed because it's the only way I can keep my damn monkey brain on the information. This is severely compounded when I have to read boring shit like long reports at work.
• It's incredibly hard for me to hold a conversation, and it usually takes 100% of my mental energy. It takes about 20 seconds of listening before I've completely forgotten what we're talking about and I'm just watching lips move. It makes it very hard to connect with people. It's not that I don't care what they have to say, but that's the impression they often get. I really wish I could be 100% engaged on even just 20% of the conversations I have.
• I really can't take care of myself. I'm known to forget to eat food or drink water for days at a time. I have a history of losing track of time and forgetting to sleep. I rarely pay my bills on time, and it's not for a lack of financial capability, but... well i don't even know why.
• It takes me a lot of mental effort to be prepared and be on time, and even then I still arrive at work at least 15 minutes late most days. I don't want to be like this, and I try very hard to not be that way. I've been obsessed with developing discipline for a long time. Its taken me years to get to a point that I'm only late for morning engagements. When I was in university, I typically didn't make it to most lectures or classes before they ended. Pathetic.
• Every single damn day I walk away from my car and lock it, then I go back to check I locked it because I can't remember. Then I go back to make sure I tucked my side mirror in. Then I realise I forgot something inside and the cycle repeats ... ad nauseum.
• My work sees me spread across several projects simultaneously. You wouldn't believe the state of my desk most days if I told you...
• I just don't even bother with deadlines anymore. It's probably going to be late. So be it.
• The thing that really pisses me off about ADHD is how watered down it is in the eyes of others. It seems every man and his dog claims to have ADHD these days. "Oh I have struggle focusing all the time and a read a checklist online, I must have ADHD" - yeah well that's just the human condition. We can't all be on ALL the time. If it doesn't hinder your functioning to a point that you can hardly take care of yourself - well you probably don't have it.
• I've walked away from my computer after typing each of the above points.

It's fucking lame. I just wish I could be a competent adult. Maybe one day the coping mechanisms will tip the scales...

1.I keep on forgetting things endlessly. It goes on in a loop. I had to travel all the way back home to fetch a book for submission because I forgot to bring it despite understanding the gravity of the situation. (That's just one of the bullshit-memory incident )

2. I have trouble listening to instructions if I'm not paying attention consciously. Paying attention is a conscious activity for me and I've to kickstart my brain to be able to pay attention which again operates on the principle of if interesting then will-pay-attention.

3. I had informed my shrink about self diagnosing ADD months prior to this instance. She told me that I gave symptoms which were 'too perfect' and that I 'think too much'. After a few months, she diagnosed me of LFT and prescribed L-carnosine + anxiolytics to cope up with this. It worked but didn't solve the working memory issue

4. I get irritated very easily if someone gets repetitive, I strive to avoid boring lectures at college, I squirm and fidget a lot. If not that then doodling or simply joking around and not making anyone pay attention along with me. I've a hard time latching on to the boring stream of gibberish output which comes out of the lecturer's mouth.

5. I cannot rote things will. I can remember extremely random facts and situations with spatial awareness. But however, when it comes to learning dates, names and stuff related to that, I get real stumped. This makes me hate the education system big time because I've to write and rote stuff to cope up with that and it's not interesting at all

6. I don't think most of the times while I talk. Everything I say is circumstantial, not only that, it also extends to my writing skill. I can circumstantially analyse things in great detail without making it conscious at all. People think I deliberately employ brainpower and think but no, I can actually think at the moment with extreme rapidity. However, I later have trouble recalling my own words and this has put me into trouble a lot of times

7. I've some moderate emotional regulation issues which seem like cyclothymia sometimes. However, it's still a mystery whether it's a result of my apparent add or cyclothymia

8. I've extreme difficulty following multi-stepped instructions. You should see trying to solve a logic-based arrangements or a similar sum. I'm usually struggling to make sense of the instructions for a long time and then later it's again a hassle because I keep on forgetting them and end up making silly mistakes in a loop. I am bad at picking up what someone is talking as well especially when they are giving instructions. It processes very slowly and I'm usually clueless after the person is done with the soliloquy.

9. Silly mistakes. This has been a hot topic for my peers, parents and the teachers who have worked for me. I remember losing tons of marks because of making some stupid errors in maths. It still hasn't gone and I still have difficulty paying absolute attention to details. It also shows up while playing chess, programming or doing some clerical work and it's crippling. My clerical aptitude is close to nil

10. I've a hyperactive mind, I can endlessly debate all night long, program or just do my favourite stuff without any difficulty. At the same time, I oftentimes feel very drowsy throughout the day. My appetite strongly depends on my mental predisposition-at-that-instance. I skip meals or be a pig. It's confusing to my parents.

11. I still manage to work out, do mental workout oftentimes after not having any kind of food for long hours.

12. I lose track of time very easily if I'm engrossed.

13. Again, coming back to the memory thing, my parents and my peers have a shitload of funny anecdotes regarding me being forgetful. One of them is forgetting to bring a particular book to my college for 1.5 years despite my friend nagging me for that on every Wednesday.

14. When I study, it's barely for 5 minutes or something. I don't know whether you ADDs actually face these issues or this is some made up shit (no believe me, I have been facing this for decades)


On an additional note : I never byhearted a single thing even as a kid.


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[BurnedOut]

One more thing : while doing SAT/LSAT mocks, reading the question for 7-10 times is very normal for me while solving the paper

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