Attention Surplus Disorder ;)

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Attention Surplus Disorder, or ASD, is a term I have playfully coined for What I Have Got. I think it might fall under the qualifications of Aspergers though, so if you'll hear me out I will try to elucidate enough about myself to hopefully get someone's confirmation of what I suspect might be the case.

From www.aspergia.com

[Note if the rest of this is too long to read, the first sentence of each paragraph should be enough, the rest being hopefully amusing clarification.]

I do over focus--it's one of my most defining characteristics. In fact, on two consecutive and independant school assignments where I was supposed to get someone to describe me in a single word, the word chosen was "intense." Once something manages to actually catch my attention, it has it utterly and totally. Not to say I get anxious trying to divert my attention somewhere else; I simply can't stop obsessing over my current preoccupation. However, I've in the course of my high school and college been focused on music, biology, computers, mathematics, philosophy, chemistry, biochemistry, music, biology, chemistry, computers, and finally sociology, in approximately that order. Far from a singlespecialist area, my focus has drifted entirely too much for my tastes. I tend to focus on such an area, get exhausted and tired of it, and move on to the next, while retaining my interest for the original should it ever pan out again.

I do have difficulty understanding human reactions, to the point that I myself feel like some creature observing in from the outside. But. I don't have much social anxiety. Far from fearing and loathing crowded situations, I simply have the Amazing Power to ignore people completely. When I do try to interact the blinding confusion and unreadable social nuances do drive me off into solitude after a while, but I've had no problems say for instance in a class lecture because there is only Me and the Teacher. In fact, I have many clear memories of my early childhood, and they are all devoid of people, as if the children chased themselves out of my head and left only playgrounds and toys behind. This does get to be a problem when I forget that there are other students (I usually gain a bad reputation for asking deep tangential questions so much it interrupts the proper lecture itself) so I do make some effort not to ignore my fellow classmates. But for the most part they just don't bother me until I get stuck (mashed, squashed, dragged kicking and screaming) into a group project, or after the class is over and I can socialize with my small, select, trusted group of friends.

Friends... I lose those a lot. Not from breaking apart, I simply have trouble acknowledging them at all when they're not right there in front of me in my face chatting. I have some good friends, but the last time I ever really contacted them since my unwilling social isolation recently (school took my financial aid away) was about 2 years ago. I have many good friends online, but I am afraid for their sake to really make myself out to be as nice as I'd like, since a year later they might find me totally ignoring them without any of us really understanding why.

Yes, I'm hypersensitive to light, noise, though not pain. I seem to be immune to getting grossed out, and the one time recently I got a bad bee sting in my foot, digging out the stinger from the venom laden wound with an alcohol sterilized razor blade bothered me entirely too little. But yes, I have been told by an optometrist that my eyes are too sensitive even--just his friendly advice that I might have more vision problems past middle age if I didn't get in the habit of wearing sunglasses. I tend to find shade and gloom quite soothing, and the direct exposure to sunlight about as pleasing as being forced to listen to a mosquito constantly buzzing in my ear. As for noise, loud percussive high frequency stuff does spook me, loud music, shouting crowds, the whooshing of cars seeming to be especially bad what with how I live over here in what should be named Asphaltville, CA.. Earplugs: I really recommend them.

My motor skills, well my reflexes actually, are definitely not up to par. I usually take two instants to react compared to most people's one. I had a friend once who delighted in the fact he could reach forward and beep my nose before I could even twitch. Not badly balanced, and flexible when I can bother myself to stay in shape. But definitely slow to the draw. Also a little hand tremor I've got, that gets worse with exhaustion, made chemistry lab a total nightmare. Needless to say, I'm not very enthusiastic about chemistry anymore, since the profession is nothing but working on laboratory experiments.

Finally, I definitely have trouble recognizing faces and expressions. Everyone's face seems so flat and I dunno, just blah. Oddly I do enjoy art with expressive faces, but not photographs or humans. It's just a face. I have had luck online because of that, because the playing field has become even since the "mundane" types have as few facial cues as I do. Also some trouble have I with eye contact: I don't mind staring into people's eyes, but I just don't get anything out of it so my attention mid sentence usually tends to wander.

No, it doesn't wander to the breasts. I don't particularly like those either.

So does that count as Aspergers? Other people I've known who claim the disorder/social eccentricity of Aspergers have been kind of flat voiced unfriendly types, best I can describe. I'm pretty friendly, though once you get me started on something I will talk, chat, or post (as in this message) until the cows come home. ("MOO!" I'm quitting already, lemme alone!) I've been trying to figure out why I have persistently had so much trouble maintaining social connections, and in this dark hour when I literally have not one single person to socialize with in real life, I feel it is time to take action on it. (Can't afford school, unemployed, no communityiin this town, and religion can't find me so don't ask ) Do any people here suffer from such quirks I have described above? If so, how do you get by in life? What obstacles have you faced in becoming self sustainable and on the right academic career track, and how did you overcome them? It gets to the point I am so focused I can't stop posting on message boards long enough to get out and look for an entry level job that'll actually get me money for school that'll get me a degree type thing. I do so miss school.

EDIT: Case and point, I was too focused on posting to realize there were multiple topics on the forum, one explicitly labeled "New people, post here"

Your post is almost a carbon copy of how I would describe myself. Especially with the facial and light issues you have. When I look into a face of a stranger, I usually see nothing in their face or I see anger, regardless of the mood they may be in otherwise. As for light, I have large pieces of posterboard hung up over the windows in by bedroom to block out the light. If I go outside, I usually put on a strong pair of sunglasses.

I obsess over friendships and why they aren't working as well as they might and maybe this makes things worse. It can be a nuisance having a very analytical "male" mind coupled with lots of female hormones racing around my body. I wonder if anybody else has this kind of thing.

Hmmm...
About feeling that you observe people as if you are alien and studying their behaviour. That one hits close, that's exactly how I feel alot of the time.

I feel this post is biased against me because I have ADD!! I get the message....

lots of people here have ADD/ADHD this post isn't bised against anyone

According to my shrink, ADD would be more accurately named "Attention Management Disorder" because the hyperactive and inattentive subtypes have the same basic cause: an inability to raise or lower attention levels to suit the situation, either deliberately or automatically. Someone with the hyperactive subtype is unable to increase attention levels enough to avoid distractions, and therefore constantly switches between various tasks but never spends enough time on one task to complete it, whereas someone with inattentive subtype actually (and paradoxically) has too much attention vested in a single task and can't reduce attention enough to allow switching between tasks to occur. A primary argument in favour of this interpretation is the fact that central nervous system stimulants like Ritalin work for both hyper and inattentive subtypes, not by increasing attention levels directly, but by increasing our ability to control our attention levels.

Go figure.


/me is impressed/


I think many of us would love to see the sources!