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submitted 22 hours ago by Stamets@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/adhd@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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[-] D_C@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 hours ago

Opposite here. Though I am not diagnosed.

I hear everything, aaaand it goes in and I can fathom most of the things going in even at the most inappropriate times...
During sexy times with the wife I hear a floorboard creak and it can put me off entirely. Was it the house settling. A burglar!??!! Maybe the dog, it's the dog. No, the dogs are in the living room. BURGLAR. No, it's just a creak. What was I doing again.

During my mother's funeral after her doing of a horrible bout of cancer and I'm devastated about it...but I hear a bird tweet outside and I am now thinking about which bird it was and why it was tweeting.

At the cinema and the guy 5 rows back opens up a packet of m&m's and I'm more totally taken out of the movie that I was engrossed in.

Middle of a conversation with the wife in a pub and that table over there are taking about their upcoming holiday, whilst that table over there can't work out how to use the salt and pepper mills...no, sorry, they've worked it out. No, he's got it upside down. Now the lids feel off. What was you saying, dear?

No idea if it's ADHD or I'm just (un?)lucky to have an overhearing superpower.

[-] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

AuDHD here. I also have very little filter for incoming noises. I suspect it's an auditory processing issue.

My "cocktail party" effect is weak, I sometimes struggle to hear words properly through phone calls (which is a big part of why I don't like making them), and if a show or movie doesn't have captions on I'll probably miss a lot of dialogue. I've had plenty of people ask, "Are you deaf?" or tell me to get my hearing checked when I ask them to repeat themselves, despite every hearing test I've ever taken showing that my hearing is better than average. It's not my ears that struggle, it's my brain's ability to filter/process/prioritize sounds that's unusual.

At the same time, I'm distracted by all sorts of details. I had an ex once remark that when people spoke a language he didn't understand, he found it easier to tune out. I thought that absurd; if anything my brain becomes even more distracted by foreign languages. I still detect (and can recreate) novel language sounds, even though linguists and brain-researchers claim I should've lost the ability to do that decades ago.

I wish I could get a brain scan when listening to sounds and compare the results to scans of other people. I can't help but think it would shed light on a lot of life-long issues and peculiarities.

[-] Pika@sh.itjust.works 24 points 20 hours ago

This is actually one of the most accurate descriptions for the ADD part of ADHD I've seen yet. You hear everything but nothing at once, and you don't even realize it till you get prompted about something you are listening to and you notice you don't recall the last like 2 or 3 minutes period.

[-] AceBonobo@lemmy.world 11 points 20 hours ago

Trying to focus on a task but all I can hear is someone out in the street talking inaudibly

[-] Whats_your_reasoning@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Or a song repeats on full-blast inside your head, drowning out your own thoughts, all because a car drove by an hour ago with the windows down and that song was on their radio. Now your brain won't turn it off.

My brain also does this neat/annoying trick where it connects details I see or experience with details from song lyrics. Like, I could have to stand on a corner waiting to cross a street, and my brain will decide to start playing, Take it Easy by The Eagles for the rest of the day... just because I was "standing on a corner" (though not in Winslow, Arizona.)

Some people think I have an irrationally strong negative reaction to catchy "ear worm" songs... but I figure it's because such songs aren't as debilitating to most people. For me, when songs take over my brain like this, I can't think a single sentence straight through. They legit hijack my brain and I've never learned a way to make it stop.* It's as distressing as it is distracting.

* I haven't learned a way to make it stop in the moment. However, I have found that anti-depressants help prevent this from happening overall. Just as negative thoughts stop looping through my mind when I maintain my Lexapro, songs are less likely to get stuck in my head. Just an interesting sidenote.

[-] python@lemmy.world 13 points 19 hours ago

Anyone else ever try to put on some music when like drawing or programming or something just to come to 5 hours later and realize that you forgot to put on the music and have been working in complete silence the whole time??

[-] Tippon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 18 hours ago

I've put noise cancelling headphones on to use my computer, and forgotten both the music, and the noise cancelling. I sat there for about an hour with headphones on that did nothing 😫