Some unexpected discoveries

So … I now had two appointments with the main therapist of the doctor’s practice and I’ll get an indication letter. Normally this would have only required one appointment but somewhere at the end of the first one she said: “Well, I guess I can give up to just ask you the required questions. We need a second appointment!”

This was quite embarrassing since it meant I have talked too much. So be it, yesterday I had the second one. These two hours have been among the most intense ones of my life. Deep questions - some of them quite intrusive - and a lot of moderation from her side. And in the middle of the second date she said: “I have a totally different question for you: have you ever been diagnosed from ADHD?”

Bummer. I’m thinking about getting a clinical test for some time now since I suspect I might fall somewhere into the ADHD spectrum. How could she know? Her explanation was: “I see a lot of typical symptoms. I’m not a specialist but it seems to be obvious.” 😱

ADHD symptoms can differ wildly from person to person so here is what I currently notice for me:

• Problems with object permanence: I get an invoice, I open it, I think “Oh, yes, you need to pay this. Let’s put it in a safe place on my desk.” and then I completely forget about it because it’s not in my sight. Same with food I buy and put in the fridge. As long as it is right in the front row, all is good. As soon as goes to the second row, it’s not there for me anymore. I don’t know how much food I already have thrown away just because I forgot about it 😕
• Executive dysfunction: sometimes (not very often) I know I have to do something. It’s important and urgent. Yet I can’t do it. Thinking about ‘just get a grip and do it’ makes me feeling sick like I have to throw up. Like I said, it’s not very often the case. As a child this was a serious problem with school. I did quite OK but some things did cost me (and my parents 😬) so much energy and nerves …
• Hyperfocus phases: this is something I really love and never want to lose. Sometimes I pick a topic and I dig so deep into it that I’m losing any sense of time. Luckily I’m able to channel this into the evenings and weekends so I don’t lose days 😅 Ask me anything about Antonio Vivaldi, about the neuroscientific background of emotions (especially empathy), about the simulation of the adoption of innovations, the phenomenon of flow (greetings to Mihály Csíkszentmihályi), the differences and implications of explicit and tacit knowledge (see Michael Polanyi & Ikujirō Nonaka), the rendering of graph networks on web pages using JavaScript, the NIH (not invented here) syndrome in technology management, philosphy of science (A.N. Whitehead, W. Van Orman Quine, Thomas S. Kuhn), constructivism (absolutely try to find some works of and interviews with Heinz von Foerster and Humberto Maturana!), 20th and 21st century harpsichord music and harpsichordists, the history of computing (John von Neumann, Julian Bigelow, Alan Turing, asf.), some rather special topics in quantum mechanics … I think you get the idea 🤣
• Information overloading: when I start to talk about one of my favorite topics I can’t stop. I don’t notice that I’m overloading a conversation partner. I just keep on going and I seem to delve into mansplaining (which technically I can’t do since I’m not a man, haha!) and being a smart ass. But in fact I’m just so focussed on something I love that I can’t understand that someone else maybe is not interested at all. Very annoying - not for me but for you 🤓
• Slow reading: it’s not that I’m dyslexic but often I’m not a fast reader. Not because I can’t decipher a text but because in every other sentence I get stuck reading it over and over again because I noticed that my thoughts were wandering around and I didn’t pay attention. So I start over and over again. This never happens with topics I’m very interested in (see hyperfocus above). There I’m super fast, never have to repeat something and can memorize every shitty detail. 🥳
• Remembering things some told me orally: worst thing you can do to explain something to me is to schedule a meeting to tell me orally. I will (certainly) understand everything, but five minutes later I have forgotten seventy percent of it again. It just doesn’t stick. This isn’t always the case. Luckily it happens quite rarely. But it is annoying nonetheless.
• I hate routines: I currently have no routines, for nothing. I don’t like them, they are not easy for me to maintain and I don’t see much benefit in them.

This all sounds like I have a terrible time, always annoy people and am not able to do anything productive, but none of these things are dominant or ubiquitous. They are just annoying and sometimes cost a lot of energy.