ADD

I am fairly certain that I have MADD. What's MADD, you might ask? It's the term I've decided on for my particular brand of ADD: Melanie ADD. It differs somewhat from the typical ADD. Let me explain.

You see, I get bored incredibly easily, and lose focus constantly, but only with certain things. With other things I have the patience of a saint. Okay, probably not a saint, but some patience, anyway.

For example, I can sit down and read a book for hours and not get bored. And when I say hours, I mean like 10-12 hours, not 2-3 hours. When I want to study, I can focus like nobody's business. I can go over biochemistry problems and organic chemistry mechanisms unceasingly for a whole day, two days, several days even, without flinching. And don't even get me started on the number of hours I've spent writing essays.

Anyone who has been around me reading, writing, or studying understands the depth of that focus. You could talk about me right next to me and I wouldn't hear a word you say. You could have a dance party in the same room and I probably wouldn't notice. It is a wonderful (and for some people, infuriating) tic of mine.

On a side note, this sometimes pisses the hell out of my parents, brother, boyfriend, and friends. Often someone will ask me a question or say something while I'm reading. Moments later we will inevitably have a conversation that goes like this:

"Melanie. Melanie. MELANIE. Didn't you hear me?"

"Uh, what? Were you talking to me just now?"

"There is no one else in the room. I only said your name a dozen times. You even responded. I'm standing right next to you."

"Huh. So what were you saying again?"  And I won't have any recollection of any of that. That's how focused I can be (or oblivious, if you're irritated about it). This actually happened once while I was watching dancers, and two people were having a very loud conversation about me (jokingly, I assume) immediately behind me. I think I ruined the funny part by not noticing in the slightest.

I can also sit on a sailboat and think all afternoon without getting bored. I can be entertained for an hour or more with a piece of string, or a remote control (forget the TV), or a stick (see you can write in the sand with it, or make a little tepee if you have a few, or you can pretend it's a sword, or a staff, or any of another dozen things). I have in my life undertaken somewhat daunting tasks for days, like trying to make myself ambidextrous, or trying to catch wild animals (really, who hasn't?).

So what makes me think I am ADD?

It is all the other things. The conversations that start and end abruptly and change topic a dozen times in under a minute. The near inability to hold onto one thread of thought for minutes on end. The challenge of holding eye contact instead of gazing around at all the random things in the room/space I am occupying. I have (despite my obliviousness) noticed that most other people do not have these difficulties.

For example, you may have noticed how short these paragraphs are (generally). I am making a serious effort almost all the time when blogging to stay on topic. It's actually quite a bit of a problem, and one of the reasons I don't post as often as I should, and also end up with a lot of side notes (such as this one. I meant to say, I edit profusely. I didn't really want to admit that, but there you go).

My highschool friends used to tell me I was like a goldfish. By the time I'd swum to one side of the bowl, I'd forgotten the other side. I think they were more referring to my lack of memory than my poor attention span, but either way works.

Speaking of fish, the few times Brian has taken me fishing, it has been incredibly challenging to not reel in and recast immediately after casting. Supposedly you have to leave the bait hanging out for a while to attract the fish. This. This is ridiculous.

Anyway, what was I saying? Ah yes, what makes me ADD. Well like I said, there are many times I get bored really easily, and can't pay attention to anything. Work can be like this. Planning experiments is very mentally taxing, simply because I have to pay attention to a lot of things at once, and can't let my mind wander. Most of my screw-ups at work have little to do with intelligence and everything to do with focus. Unfortunately, one without the other isn't particularly useful.

This is also a reason I am pretty obsessive about lists and post-its. Really, really obsessive. Anna can attest to this since she lived with me in college. No joke, my desk was constantly covered in post-its. I couldn't remember or focus on anything I needed to remember long enough to actually commit it to memory, so I wrote it down. I would never have done homework otherwise, which maybe wouldn't have been that big a loss, in retrospect.

Anyway, the really curious thing that really led me to think about my ADD-ness is the internet. You would think that the internet has a near infinite capacity to appease boredom and keep one's attention. I mean, you can look up anything you want to know (just about), play more games than you probably knew existed, talk to complete strangers, talk to your friends, watch videos, read comics, write, and much more.

And yet, I get bored on the internet in a matter of minutes. I kid you not. I get on my computer in the mornings and three minutes later I'm like, "Well, the internet sure is boring. It hasn't changed much since yesterday." This happens about three or four times a day.

I feel like maybe I'm doing the internet wrong. Perhaps I should try playing more games. Or reading more of the news, or something. But so far everything I've tried gets boring really quickly. Writing is the only thing I can do for more than ten minutes without having to find something in real life to occupy my attention.

What about facebook, you might be wondering. That's boring too! I mean, I like the ability to connect with people far away and get in touch fairly easily, but I usually check facebook once a day or every other day. And even then I'll spend about five minutes looking at the news feed and then wander away. This is a real problem on gchat as I tend to leave a lot of conversations in the middle, to some of my friends' bemusement. Later, I blame it on science.

All I know is that the internet is a fairly boring place. Pretty much anything I can do on the internet I can do in real life, only it's better. Like play games! Settlers of Catan would be much less fun not in person, and one of my favorite parts of solitaire is being able to cheat. Yeah, I cheat on solitaire. That game is f---ed up.

Or meet people. That's more fun in real life too, especially since you can avoid the creepers much more easily.

Accessing information is a fair bit more challenging in person than on the internet, depending on what you need to know. But libraries do still exist, and my favorite means of finding stuff out, which is asking people, is also better in person. (On a side note, I tried asking someone for help online a little while ago and within five minutes was referenced to managemylife.com... I am now also convinced that people are more polite in person).

I understand that the internet is useful for lots of things. So far though, entertainment and appeasing boredom haven't made it on that list. This isn't to say there aren't things I love about the internet. I read about a dozen webcomics almost daily, love being able to read the news online, and check google traffic all the time. However, I still can't be online for more than ten minutes without getting bored, and I have yet to be bored and turn to the internet for relief. (The one exception to this so far has been watching Naruto. That show is awesome. I don't care if your six-year-old watches it too. He has good taste).

Now maybe this aversion to the internet is common. Perhaps there are many people out there who find the internet equally mundane. But I have my doubts.

For example, Brian comes home from work sometimes and the first thing he does is get online. I wonder at his mental prowess, since he works with computers all day, and yet still finds the capacity to handle them outside work as well. At first I wondered about this special power of his. Within two or three minutes I would be peering over his shoulder in vague amazement, pestering him with questions like, "What are you doing?" and, "What's so interesting?" But it turns out that the internet is actually relaxing/fun for him, and whatever he was doing wouldn't hold me interest in the slightest.

This internet-ease seems to be the case for many others. It would certainly explain smartphones. And Twitter. And a lot of other things I find baffling.

Anyway when I started thinking about how uninteresting I find the internet, I figured that there must be something wrong with me. Many people (probably most of the people I know) spend hours on the internet a day, doing all sorts of supposedly interesting or necessary things. Many more turn to the internet for entertainment on a regular basis.

It was in pondering this that I considered (not for the first time) that I might actually be ADD. An inability to focus on something might explain this bizarre disinterest. And also a lot of other things, like the spastic conversations, the meandering blog posts, the challenge of group work, and the random difficulties I encounter at work and in life.

To be fair, many of those things might be entirely separate problems. I probably have many. But I'm not talking about those right now. So moving on.

Okay someone just informed me that an ability to focus intently is actually a symptom of ADD. Frig. Perhaps I am actually ADD, and not just MADD, or SADD (sarcastically ADD) although I like both those acronyms better.

Also no, I didn't look up anything about ADD before writing this. I have no factual evidence whatsoever for anything in this blog post. This is based entirely on anecdotes and assumptions. So sue me.

Okay time for some cooking and then a book!

The End!