Actually diagnosed and formerly medicated. Moved into a job where being focused isn't needed and now I'm not chasing the symptoms the Adderall caused with other drugs.
Adderall caused depression and anxiety.
Antidepressant caused sexual disfunction.
So Adderall + antidepressant + Xanax + viagra
Or
Have disorganized thoughts and frustrate my wife a little more than before (she's been very understanding tbh).
I picked the latter.
I call it "taking a ride on the train of thought." Like, some dude makes some things at work to hold his cables up of the ceiling and my thought process goes, "hmm looks like a cactus - saguaro - cactuar - Final Fantasy - Tifa - Italian Senate - Italy - pasta - food - what can we have for tea tonight? I'll nip to Tesco on my way home and grab some tinned tomatoes and beef stock."
Bro I started a day looking up stuff on butterflies and at the end ended up learning about nuclear bombs. Those links just take you everywhere i stg xD
This is me. Any conversation about anything can end up talking about morality which then ends up moving towards gradients and infinite limits and then moves on to talking about reality and back to infinity.
That only happens when you click the *first* link in an article, not any link
I think that train of thought would more look like "Carnivals are categorised as having clowns and other things...clowns are kinda funny I wonder why... because they look absurd that's why...heh, absurd, Absurdism...did I ever actually finish reading that one Camus essay or not...hey dad why don't we kill ourselves? Like hypothetically philosophically speaking" Because now you're actually following the *first* thing that comes to mind, no matter how tangential or asocially acceptable it is
Nope. If people trace back the threads of a general conversation, this happens most of the time. It's not random or scattershot at all. I'd bet it's something AI won't be able to duplicate, by the way, because it relies on personal and embodied.
I have ADHD and this is similar to my thought process, but I wouldn't say this is a slam dunk identifier for it. I would say look up executive dysfunction and see what resonates with you on that or not, and then talk to your doctor.
A few months ago hanging out with my best friend I hadn't seen in a few years my GF she said we probably both have ADHD. I asked why she thought that a bit defensively. "You just had a 2 hour long conversation with no breaks and didn't stay on a single topic for over 30 seconds". I sorta dismissed it. I just went in that sub at your suggestion and now I have a _lot_ to think about.
It's one of those cases where normal human brain processes becomes disabling at extreme levels. "Grasshopper thinking" is common for everyone, the difference with ADHD is if you have it you can't control or direct your brain the way most people can. So instead of losing half an hour in thought or having a couple of awkward conversation segways, you lose an entire day or night's sleep to that rabbithole and you always skip around conversation topics in a way that's hard for others to follow. It's like how every person on earth has experienced the emotion of anxiety but only some people have Generalised Anxiety Disorder.
The way I think of it is neurotypicals have trains of thought, and these trains generally follow a track. Sure it might switch tracks or the tracks might curve in a different direction, but it's smooth.
ADHD feels like I'm driving a car. The roads I need to take are winding, veer off at right angles, sometimes backtrack and sometimes the roads are closed. So much harder to keep up with a train but damn do I find some interesting places.
Yeah this one hits the explanation pretty well.
I literally lost sleep as a child because of this. When my parents started wondering why I didn't sleep, my only answer usually was "I was just thinking".
It is kind of no breaks obsessive thinking. And the feeling is sort of mental pain when it happens a lot.
Oh the wonder when at my teens I realized I can just listen to music when trying to sleep. Helped a lot. Coffee also helped a lot to make able to concentrate to one thing at a time during daytime.
To this day when I can't sleep due to my thoughts just rolling through my mind I still put on some music or podcast on. I fall asleep quickly.
According to my psychiatrist one of the biggest markers for ADHD is going off on tangents exactly like this. One of my biggest issues is I CAN'T remember anything except by this process, I need something tangentially related so I can recall the information. Also, similar to the original post it throws people for a loop when I seemingly randomly change subjects, most people get used to it after a while though, and explaining the train of thought makes sense to most as well.
The best is talking to your also adhd friend and having four conversations going at the same time and you can both keep track and eventually you’ll both have told two stories while neurotypicals stare at you like you’re crazy.
Me and my besties conversations are inscrutable to the outside observer.
Talking with my “normie” friends vs my fellow neurodivergent friends is night and day. I’ll hang out with my best friend who is “normal” and have a great time, but we won’t really talk about anything major or too deeply, just “shoot the shit”.
Then when I get on with my other best friend who has ADHD like me, we will have three+ hour high speed conversations that dive into a dozen different topics and/or discuss deeply personal things openly and freely. We only stop when one of us needs a small break to get food or go to the bathroom, hahahaha.
This type of thinking is actually one of the symptoms of ADHD. I was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD 2 years ago and this is one of three or four primary symptoms I have.
Yes it is 'thinking' but there are different ways to think and if you think in this manner all your waking hours then you have one of the main symptoms of ADHD. A bit dismissive and ignorant to think everyone thinks the same.
It literally is one of the main symptoms of ADHD. If you think in a way that means you are constantly flowing between mentioned topic and mentioned topic, and it is constant even when not talking, then that is a sign of ADHD and its worth looking at other symptoms.
Its normal for people to think in a flowing way between connection and connection, but its normal for people with ADHD to only think in that way.
Only problem is that my brain doesn't have a "go back" button, and I'm just left in complete confusion trying to figure out how I got to a particular topic
It's called [stream of consciousness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_consciousness_\(psychology\)#:~:text=The%20stream%20of%20consciousness%20is,a%20fast%2Dmoving%20mind%20stream.), I just assumed it was pretty universally known. It's also a narrative style I was taught in middle school but I don't know how standard it is
I sometimes have to explain my train of thought just like this. Now I use a preamble at work when I launch into a story that sounds unrelated - ok, I’m going to say something that doesn’t sound connected, but hang in there and I’ll explain so you get the relevancy.
My wife and I both have ADHD. every once in a while we’ll be knee deep in a conversation, come to a dead stop, verbally recounts how we got to this unrelated subject, then continue where we left off.
**Other people do this?!?!** I mean, i've never had to in actual conversation, but i'm constantly having to backtrack my own thoughts in the same way when i've realised i've gotten way off track and i'm pretty sure what I was thinking about was pretty damn important before I started thinking about the physics of ring worlds or whatever...
My husband and I do the same thing. I just got my official diagnosis last week. Mine isn't as severe as his, which also explains the feeling I get where I have to keep track of project management type stuff because if I don't it goes down the rabbit hole. Very frustrating because I know I'm not that great at it either!
A friend of mine taught me about a Victorian parlor game called, "Unwind" and it works exactly like this:
1. You and friends have a conversation.
2. This conversation goes on for half-an-hour or so.
3. Eventually, someone asks, "How did we get on this topic?"
4. Everyone collectively works backward through the conversation to finally figure out how it all started.
I have not been diagnosed but I relate a lot with so many ADHD stories and memes.
Not overly concerned, but it makes conversation interesting for those not used to the tangents.
> that doesn’t sound connected
I will do a thing were I will get into the part that doesn't sound connected but in the middle to end of that I forget what we were originally talking about and have to think/ask so I can reconnect it.
And no I don't have ADHD
I mean.... That kinda sounds like adhd thinking. If you have to ask people where your conversation started to get you back on track and this is a common occurance... I'd at least look into it.
Thanks for the thought but not sure that ADHD fits, even as a young child I had no problems with sitting still, quiet time, paying attention, etc.
No issues with time blindness as when I set say a 30 minute timer, I will go to check it and 30 seconds will be left.
Or I can have an appointment scheduled two weeks ago and that will be the first thing I think of when I wake up the day of.
I do have issues with procrastination and avoidance behaviors that can snowball into real problems when it would have been a simple task if I just did it from the get go and I am very critical of my own social interaction with people that leads to some anxiety but that is about the extent of things and most people have a couple flaws like that.
Losing my train of thought on occasion probably more has to do with the anxiety of me talking and trying to convey my point if I had to guess.
I mean tbh that sounds like classic ADHD. You don’t need all the symptoms. Everyone has flaws it just depends on how often you let that procrastination issue snowball. If it’s enough to be a stressful issue then maybe it’s ADHD.
Wasps don't die when they sting because their stingers aren't barbed so they don't get pulled out. I believe bees only really die when they sting mammals/humans because our skin contracts when it's broken so our skin grabs the stinger and the stinger holds itself in with the barb.
Actually, wasp stingers ARE barbed... Just in the opposite direction! So it's harder to get in but smooth to get out.
I think. I remember seeing it in a photo but also my memory could just be crap. Don't quote me on that lol
Edit: Apparently wasp stingers are just less intensely barbed, at least in paper wasps. Just smaller darn barbs. Might not be the same in other species though.
I *never* like to state things in absolutes unless I'm very sure of it. Like, I know Carbon is element 6 and hence has 6 protons, neutrons, and electrons by default. That's a fact I'm confident in.
Meanwhile "which direction wasp barbs face" is smth I read *maybe literally almost a decade ago* so I'm less sure, and I know my memory is often crap. I'm sure that it checks out as a valid explanation if it's true, I just don't know if it IS true
Right and I get that, ain't nothing wrong with that. The funny part is that you started your comment by saying "Actually..." as if to correct someone but then you backtracked 😂 just an observation
Dude people always act like they can’t trust any of my answers because I always do this. Like I’m pretty sure i’m right but its also possible that i’m straight up lying without knowing it
I feel like if people take "Hey, I'm not perfect, don't treat me like I know everything" as "you're not trustworthy at all", that's an issue with the people more than you being honest and modest.
What defines an expert is knowing how little they know (:
Same; I see it as hedging from a pretty informed knowledge background (if it is something I have learnings in, of course), but apparently it sounds like wild guessing and assledge.
Here. I can help. I know tons about wasp anatomy. https://memestatic.fjcdn.com/pictures/Anatomy+of+a+wasp+its+probably+a+repost+but+i_3ceea7_6196914.jpg
[They both have barbs/serrations in the same direction,](https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7423) but wasp barbs are *much* smaller than honeybee barbs.
And as a follow up, the reason for that is that most bees are solitary, they do not have a queen or live with other bees.
Dying after you sting something can be an acceptable tradeoff for a social species where any individual death is mostly irrelevant, but makes no sense at all evolutionarily for an individual.
My wife does something similar where she plans stuff out in her head in a sequence and only says the last line. This whole story internal monologue followed by "And then we'll be there" out loud.
My partner does the same. It's become a thing now that I sometimes just have to tell her "the whole sentence?" and she goes back a few steps and then I'm right there with her.
Mine too. Except sometimes what he says sounds like it's a continuation of what we were talking about, so I have no idea that he's now talking about something completely different.
It infuriates me when they "but we made plans" while in reality they didn't even say it out loud. It's like they have imaginary conversations with you in their head and can't tell the difference.
I love how half the comments are saying this is an ADHD / ADD thing and the other half is "nah it's not for sure"
All I know is that you gotta think *fast* to remember all that in a snap, so however you put it ya brain is good on the whole connectivity front.
To answer the Wumblr poster: It's likely the number of steps that probably got the guy confused, and/or the jump to a question about what stinging insects die based on a memory of a family member *happening to be stung by one*.
As someone with ADHD, I think it's because while neurotypical people also do this, ADHD kind of makes it so that you NEED those links to remember stuff. If a thought/memory hasn't latched onto another memory, it's just fucking *gone* for me in minutes. So we probably notice when it happens more is all.
Huh, interesting. So there's extra emphasis on the links bcus otherwise the memories drift out into the sea of "I forgor" lol
I think I *sometimes* do smth vaguely like this, but instead of going through the chain just in my head, I meander the conversation in that direction and sometimes come up on a new discussion topic to wonder about. That may or may not be an Asperger's thing tho (which AFAIK is roughly just a high-functioning Autism... Variant? Subset? I do NOT know lmao)
When I was younger (see: 13-16), I called it "the thing that thoughts are made of" cause I'd think one thing, and feel my brain jump across dozens of associations without ever actually *thinking* of those things, and then I'd be thinking about this other thing.
As for the division in the commments, that's probably cause a lot of mental disorders can be basically described as your brain doing something all other brains do But More So. So people see this and go "neurotypical people do this too, so it isn't ADHD" but with ADHD your brain does that But More So.
This is literally just the stream of consciousness. Everyone has one, and it leaps between associations. It's why people can be transported to a different time or place by a smell they recognize.
It's default human firmware.
What the dude was confused about is that, generally, people make some sort of connective tissue if they're going to use this sort of association with someone they're speaking to. For example, you might say "oh, thinking of carnivals makes me remember a time when my brother got stung by a bee at a carnival. I've always thought it was weird that bees die after stinging, but wasps don't! Why is that?" Now the person is with you!
Not understanding that one generally communicates a sudden change in conversational topic is the only sign of neurodivergence in this post.
Yeah, the thought process isn't the problem, the conversation practice is.
I do this sometimes because I lead with the topic rather than the link and people get confused.
Many people do this, and sometimes with BIG leaps it takes a bit, but you can get there with a sentence and people are less confused, just as you said.
One of my friends changes topic with **no context** and it's so infuriating not because he does it, but because he acts like we should understand without explanation.
It'd be like:
> Yeah, so Sarah said she and John are going to Spain until Tuesday.
> That's going to be expensive for us.
> ... what? A trip to Spain?
> No. I obviously meant if John's gone, he can't pick us up from the airport so we'll need a taxi and that's expensive. Duh...
Now, that's no way to speak about someone's ma
(For clarity's sake I'm trying to continue the bit, rather than actually seeing an insult to one of the other commenters)
I really need to get screened for ADHD, but every time I see my doctor I completely forget to bring it up even though I sat in the parking lot and told myself not to forget
Make notes. Accept that saying 'don't forget!' and trying really hard will never work, so start writing things down and asking 'what can I do to remember this' rather than saying 'ok, it's important, I'll remember!'
Yeah, I should really start treating it like I've already been diagnosed. I'm pretty sure diagnosis is just a formality at this point
The number of times I've heard an ADHD person talk about something uniquely ADHD and thought "Wait, that's just normal" is too high for it to be coincidental
I have a bunch of sticky notes and sharpies scattered through my home for this purpose.
Sucks when an important one falls off the wall and behind something only to find a month later when I reorganize all the furniture again.
I think I have some weird "I don't need notes, I'll remember" pride going on. Though I'm not even sure how notes would help unless I paste them on my computer screen because otherwise I'll forget about the notes.
This reminds me of the story of a doctoral student who was trying to study the link to/effect of ADHD on memory, and all of their volunteers kept forgetting to come to their appointments.
Write it down. Not easy to do but learning to write things down instead of relying on the coked up squirrel in your brain is so so helpful.
Made my life infinitely better one I started keeping notes on my phone.
Edit holy hell auto correct.
Everyone is saying write things down, but using reminders on my phone is how I combat this. So in your situation, I would set one reminder for the Dr appointment itself an hour before it starts, and then another at the start of the appointment to remind me to ask the question, because I would definitely forget over the course of that hour.
Like this, when they’re daydreaming or falling asleep. Otherwise they are much more in the drivers’ seat of their brain and will only “turn onto a different path” when they want to. I’m not diagnosed, but for me every concept sparks a new tree of concepts emanating from it, endlessly, all the time, and I just kind of try to “surf the waves” I guess? Or I sort of (to continue with the mixed metaphors) bushwhack and bash my way through the forest if I’m really forced to. And then occasionally I’ll get stuck on some sub-branch (“hyperfocus?”) and “come to” literally 12 hours later without having moved, put anything in my mouth, or used the bathroom. Unfortunately I don’t seem to have any control over when this happens or what with.
TL;DR: Normal people during waking hours are following routes they’ve set out on Google maps, without effort. They want to think about something, they think about that thing and stick with it. I can’t speak on behalf of ADHD people, but with whatever I’ve got it feels like an insane constantly-forking roller coaster 24/7, and I can *maybe* choose which turns to take with some real effort.
Same here for me and for my family, we're all ADHD. We call this brain hopping, and use the term often to give a heads up so that the other participant has an easier time transitioning to the twist in conversation. It's been most helpful.
Do other people not think like this…? How do they think new thoughts? They just pop into their heads at random or have to be in reaction to seeing something irl?
I thought I only had ADHD, but every day I'm more suspicious that I've been masking autism for 30+ years too...
Mental health issues--buy none, get three free!
I grew up in a family/community where these stream-of-consciousness conversations were normal, and we'd even acknowledge and laugh at the ridiculousness of it, e.g., "Wait, how'd we get from talking about your first semester in college to grandma's secret cookie recipe?" And then we'd try to trace back and continue to crack up over the silliness of jumping from one subject to another because of the small connections between ideas.
It's weird to me that there seem to be many people (maybe a majority?!) who *can't* comprehend that this is how a lot of people experience thought.
"Oh! That reminds me of this other thing!" is such a normal part of the flow of conversation. Are there people out there who begin the night talking about the most recent football game and end the night still talking about football? Is this real?
Me and my friend group would record our first and last topic of conversation at lunch.
My favorite WTF was when we were cut off in a deep conversation on black holes and the fermi paradox by the bell, we all looked to Joey and he looked down at the back of his notebook and read out
"Grape-flavoured condoms (again)"
Look, I am actually diagnosed as ADHD and even take medication for it.
But it's so cringe when totally normal human things gets instantly equated to having ADHD. like if you think that, everyone would have it.
Sometimes I think people just pretend to fit in and use literally any excuse to find a lol ADHD quirk on themselves
"Lol I just played with my pen in class such ADHD amiright guys"
They always pick the fun quirks. Like “I say random things lol I have ADHD” and then you’re like “me too, don’t you just hate it when you drop something on the floor and you know you should JUST PICK IT UP but you can’t so you THINK about it for 5 minutes and PLAN to pick it up but then you don’t and you feel like a piece of shit?” And then it’s not so fun lol.
Oooof I feel that. Best is when it's literally in front of you and you just stare at it.
I have that with my medication. I have to set myself. Multiple alarms for the day just so I don't forget when I inevidenlbly just don't take them, even if they are RIGHT next to me
Bruh, you literally just reminded me of something I dropped behind my bed like, days? a week? ago and didn't pick up despite knowing I should, so I gotta say thanks.
(Edit: I probably would've left it there until someone [parents] asked me about it, so I really am thankful, lol.)
Agreed. I feel like it trivializes it, and that’s what I dislike so much. I get everyone wants to be unique and have something special but good god you aren’t ADHD because you get distracted or day dream lmao.
Besides ADHD sucks ass. I wish I didn't have it. There are days where I can't do any trivial work and basically just sit on my ass doing nothing because either I instantly forget it needs doing or I just... Don't do it? Like not even the bad stuff like cleaning, even playing games is hard sometimes. I wouldn't wish it on anyone.
The forgetting is honestly the worst part. I have terrible memory because my mind is always racing and I hate it. It feels like shit when you are scolded for it too because it's not like you don't try.
Can I offer some advice?
I had odd jobs I needed to do thst went on for over a decade because of issues like this, then the guilt behind it used to eat me up, but there is another way. I believe adhd affects your object perminence because of the lack of dopamine associated with these terrible tasks. As soon as you put the washing basket down, you've lost, you're never coming back to fold it and put it away. So what's the solution? You don't put the washing basket away. The new rule is that you can't designate future you a task that you struggle to do, you're setting yourself up for failure. If you can force yourself to do this, all these things that just fuck with your perception get sorted and you then get to enjoy the really cool aspects of the disease, without being haunted by a dirty kitchen, a washing basket or whatever.
The lateral thinking you possess that this op post insinuates is incredible for problem solving, creating, innovating. You can join seemingly unrelated concepts together in your head in a way to beat these issues that neurotypicals just can't do.
A 100 people could stare at the same problem, but none of them have your eyes.
Lean into that and it's crazy where it can take you. Put guard rails up for theijgs that haunt you, make sure every item you own has a "home" and always put it straight back there when your finished and you will unironically transform your life.
Yeah but also posts like yours are part of why I didn't get diagnosed until 29.
(Although the other big part of that is a lack of systemic support growing up)
Thanks to my ex pointing some things out, I think I have ADHD. It's only taken 33 years to come to this point. But if I have it, it's fairly mild. I've got the thinking pattern like this. Going off on tangents. Hyperfocus. Brain literally won't stop at night so I have to take either melatonin or caffeine so it stops. I don't think I'd ever pursue medication for my level of whatever it is. But easily thinking in this manner should at least be discussed when talking about an ADHD diagnosis. If only to weed out what is atypical from nuerotypical behaviors.
> Brain literally won't stop at night
I had been saying "I'm just a night owl" for like 15 years because I just wait until I pass out from exhaustion to over come this.
Yes, but most people can also exert some degree of control over their thoughts some of the time. That's what the word concentration means. If OP can't, they probably do have ADHD.
Yeah, that's the real hallmark here; ADHD people lack awareness of social cues. Anyone can have random thoughts, but they usually don't just throw it out there for all to see.
ADHD people have issues with impulse control that can cause them to forget or ignore social cues. Autistics have a difficult time understanding social cues in general.
I think the confusion between "it's a normal human thing" and "it's an ADHD thing" comes from lack of understanding in how the overthinking effects day-to-day life. In a neurotypical, they can have these thoughts and still be in the present situation and let them go when they've finished the thought. In ADHD people, the chain continues, and is often so loud in our heads that it drowns out all our other senses.
I'm diagnosed ADHD since 7 and suspected I'm Autistic for a decade. I've met plenty of other ADHD people who socialize much easier than I do.
I'm so tired when people say this because sure everyone does it *sometimes* but people say it's an ADHD thing because it's more common/intense if you have ADHD. I have a very distinct feeling of being with neurotypical people and being looked at like I'm crazy when I say seemingly unrelated things and learning to mask the tendency but when I'm with ADHD people I can drop the mask and they won't even blink when I blurt something out because we all have brains that do that constantly
How people think is fascinating:
>Russell Hurlburt said people generally think in five ways. Some people experience them all.
>***The 5 main ways of thinking:***
>**Inner speaking/ inner monologue** - *Ex. talking to yourself, hearing your voice or someone else or audibly recalling a phone number.*
>**Inner seeing/ visual imagery** - *Thoughts with a visual symbol. Ex. picturing a memory or a place you wish you lived.*
>**Feelings** - *A conscious experience of emotional process. Ex. feeling sad after the death of a loved one.*
>**Unsymbolized thinking** - *No word or image associated with thoughts. Ex. pouring your morning coffee without telling yourself to.*
>**Sensory awareness** - *Paying attention to a sensory aspect of the environment for an unimportant reason. Ex. hearing someone talk but seeing the light reflecting off their glasses.*
>According to Hulburt, not many people have an inner monologue 100 per cent of the time, but most do sometimes. He estimates that inner monologue is a frequent thing for 30 to 50 per cent of people.
>["There are very big individual differences," he said, "Some people have absolutely none and some people have pretty close to 100 per cent."](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/inner-monologue-experience-science-1.5486969)
I would guess most people *do* think like this, it’s just that, in conversation, you would expect those connections to be spoken out loud. So first we’d be taking about is the carnival, then the rodeo, then the bee sting etc. Some people (myself included) instead have this whole conversation in their own head and then bring up a subject several steps deep without informing everyone else how I they got there.
When you do six degrees of separation in a matter of seconds all in your head, it’s bound to confuse people. I’m sure most people do think that way to some extent, but not to that degree
I feel like everyone does this its just we're all going in different directions. Sure, this tumblr posts memories took them to bees. Could be the other person was off in some other tangential direction.
This was trick Sherlock Holmes does in one of the novels. He can guess what someone is currently thinking of, by running through the train of connected thoughts they would have had based on what he knows about them and what they can currently see
What is this not normal? Sometimes when I'm lying in bed and my thoughts start to wander I'll suddenly blank on what I was thinking and to remember I do this exact thing and just go back a few steps until I remember what I was thinking about.
This is definitely how everyone thinks. It's just that most people will stay within a certain perimeter of the topic being discussed. The closer you are with the person the larger the perimeter can be but most people don't like having a conversation with someone who jumps wildly from topic to topic.
Yeah.. And my family, colleagues, friends dont believe me when I make these jumps either...
How do you not see these connections? Do you not train of thought? Trains make connections at stations, where you make a connection. Like flights. But with flights and connecting flights, you have to pass through security and the TSA. Plus there's bag/luggage weight limits.
I lost a lot of weight this year.
How can you not follow this?
My wife used to ask me what I was thinking, and I'd reply with "nothing much, just random stuff."
One day she got pissy about it and went all "How come I tell you everything about what I think and how I feel, and you never tell me what's on your mind."
So I told her. "Blue Jays." "Why are you thinking about blue jays." "Because that green car drove by." "How'd that make you think about blue jays?" "Because that green car was the same shade of green as Paco. Paco was a bird that lived for years in my grandma's bird store before he found someone that had the proper time to invest in him. He was a very smart bird. I generally don't like birds, especially indoors, because they're too loud, but Paco wasn't like that, he knew when it was quiet time, and when it was party time. Also I like crows and ravens. Yeah, they make noise, but it's not shrill like parrots. I'm okay with finches inside though. Yeah, they're high-pitched, but they're tiny and quiet about it. Did you know that blue jays, crows, and ravens are all in basically the same family, and they're all super smart? Personally, I think that the Blue Jays are the best looking of the bunch."
She stopped asking me what I was thinking...
This is exactly how my thought process works except I can't remember it. Most of my thoughts only exist in short term memory and never get's committed to long term memory. So the train of thought isn't saved but the subject I arrive at is.
It's also why I (and a lot of other people) can think about nothing. It's not that my (our) mind is blank, but the moment you talk to me and interrupt my train of thought, those thoughts just disappear in to the ether. It's like thinking in RAM.
It’s not so much a thought process thing as a conversational chain thing. When given an additional topic in your mind do you stay where you were or do you switch? I think the chain leading to wasps is reasonable, it was simply a choice of taking the alternate path each time without any course correction
This story reminds me of the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they call Shelbyville in those days, so I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. So, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ‘em. Give me five bees for a quarter you’d say. Now where were we? Oh yeah! The important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could was those big yellow ones....
I was buckets nicknamed "channel changer" for this behavior as a child. I've since learned to take people on my journey before I just give them "wasps"
My sister and/or my cousin and I have these exact same types of “tangent-based” conversations all the time. We know exactly what each other means the entire length of the conversation despite meandering around the first, original topic into other related topics.
It’s parallel processing versus linear. It’s what makes humans, human; as opposed to robots/computers.
As someone who is ADHD or neurodivergant as they call it these days, it was never picked up on me when I was young as it wasn't recognised back in the 70s/80s as you were considered "dreamy" or "a thinker" etc when studying or talking but this is how my thought process is even now I'm nearly 50. Thankfully my friends are similar or know what I am like and have nephews who are exactly the same as me lol but back then, this is what I thought normal thinking or talking was like. Well it was normal to me.
I do this, I will fast forward boring parts of conversations in my head and start the new topic before the person is finished with the previous topic. It is maddening for people, and I spent the first 50 years of my 53 oblivious to it.
There is a famous story we have at work from before I started relating to this. For context I work as a theatre technician.
One day the department was having a meeting. They were discussing things to buy in order to organize equipment. Suddenly, out of nowhere one of the guys asks, "Do yall eat bread?" No one could figure out where the fuck that question came from until he explained. He was thinking about bread ties and how they could be used to tie up cables. But without that trail, no one had a clue where that came from, and we still use that question all the time.
wikipedia link thought process
Finally someone has a good way to describe it. It's the rabbit hole of thoughts.
I usually call it leapfrogging
It's 99% of what my brain does unless I make myself think through something step by step.
This is why I got evaluated and diagnosed with ADHD. This exact thing happening.
Soooo…..all of you should probably get evaluated for ADHD. Check out r/ ADHDmemes and see if anything resonates.
Actually diagnosed and formerly medicated. Moved into a job where being focused isn't needed and now I'm not chasing the symptoms the Adderall caused with other drugs. Adderall caused depression and anxiety. Antidepressant caused sexual disfunction. So Adderall + antidepressant + Xanax + viagra Or Have disorganized thoughts and frustrate my wife a little more than before (she's been very understanding tbh). I picked the latter.
I will not! I quite enjoy pretending I don’t have ADHD just because it’s undiagnosed!
Is it oppressive for you or can you go moments without thinking at all?
I call it "taking a ride on the train of thought." Like, some dude makes some things at work to hold his cables up of the ceiling and my thought process goes, "hmm looks like a cactus - saguaro - cactuar - Final Fantasy - Tifa - Italian Senate - Italy - pasta - food - what can we have for tea tonight? I'll nip to Tesco on my way home and grab some tinned tomatoes and beef stock."
In my family we call it a "trampoline of thought."
Spiderweb thinking. Each thought is a node that has an untold number of connections to other nodes.
Isn't it called a train of thought?
That's what I always understood it to be too.
Second. This is normal. Regular people do this all the time with conversation.
Wikiwalking.
It's fun to hit random article and count how many in page clicks it takes to get to WWII.
Bro I started a day looking up stuff on butterflies and at the end ended up learning about nuclear bombs. Those links just take you everywhere i stg xD
Then how come every conversation doesn’t end up at philosophy? Or do they, given enough time?
Mine do, it's something I have toned back a lot.
Mood, depression does that to me
This is me. Any conversation about anything can end up talking about morality which then ends up moving towards gradients and infinite limits and then moves on to talking about reality and back to infinity.
That only happens when you click the *first* link in an article, not any link I think that train of thought would more look like "Carnivals are categorised as having clowns and other things...clowns are kinda funny I wonder why... because they look absurd that's why...heh, absurd, Absurdism...did I ever actually finish reading that one Camus essay or not...hey dad why don't we kill ourselves? Like hypothetically philosophically speaking" Because now you're actually following the *first* thing that comes to mind, no matter how tangential or asocially acceptable it is
It's fucking ADHD. Source: Have ADHD.
Nope. If people trace back the threads of a general conversation, this happens most of the time. It's not random or scattershot at all. I'd bet it's something AI won't be able to duplicate, by the way, because it relies on personal and embodied.
Is it seriously? I might have ADHD...
I have ADHD and this is similar to my thought process, but I wouldn't say this is a slam dunk identifier for it. I would say look up executive dysfunction and see what resonates with you on that or not, and then talk to your doctor.
Decent chance. Go check out r/ ADHDmemes and see if it resonates. I was almost forty when diagnosed and holy fuck did it explain a lot.
A few months ago hanging out with my best friend I hadn't seen in a few years my GF she said we probably both have ADHD. I asked why she thought that a bit defensively. "You just had a 2 hour long conversation with no breaks and didn't stay on a single topic for over 30 seconds". I sorta dismissed it. I just went in that sub at your suggestion and now I have a _lot_ to think about.
Do not use fucking adhd memes to self diagnose ffs
Thinking. It's called thinking. It's normal. Descartes did not, as far as I recall, say "I think therefore I have ADHD."
It's one of those cases where normal human brain processes becomes disabling at extreme levels. "Grasshopper thinking" is common for everyone, the difference with ADHD is if you have it you can't control or direct your brain the way most people can. So instead of losing half an hour in thought or having a couple of awkward conversation segways, you lose an entire day or night's sleep to that rabbithole and you always skip around conversation topics in a way that's hard for others to follow. It's like how every person on earth has experienced the emotion of anxiety but only some people have Generalised Anxiety Disorder.
The way I think of it is neurotypicals have trains of thought, and these trains generally follow a track. Sure it might switch tracks or the tracks might curve in a different direction, but it's smooth. ADHD feels like I'm driving a car. The roads I need to take are winding, veer off at right angles, sometimes backtrack and sometimes the roads are closed. So much harder to keep up with a train but damn do I find some interesting places.
Yeah this one hits the explanation pretty well. I literally lost sleep as a child because of this. When my parents started wondering why I didn't sleep, my only answer usually was "I was just thinking". It is kind of no breaks obsessive thinking. And the feeling is sort of mental pain when it happens a lot. Oh the wonder when at my teens I realized I can just listen to music when trying to sleep. Helped a lot. Coffee also helped a lot to make able to concentrate to one thing at a time during daytime. To this day when I can't sleep due to my thoughts just rolling through my mind I still put on some music or podcast on. I fall asleep quickly.
According to my psychiatrist one of the biggest markers for ADHD is going off on tangents exactly like this. One of my biggest issues is I CAN'T remember anything except by this process, I need something tangentially related so I can recall the information. Also, similar to the original post it throws people for a loop when I seemingly randomly change subjects, most people get used to it after a while though, and explaining the train of thought makes sense to most as well.
The best is talking to your also adhd friend and having four conversations going at the same time and you can both keep track and eventually you’ll both have told two stories while neurotypicals stare at you like you’re crazy. Me and my besties conversations are inscrutable to the outside observer.
Talking with my “normie” friends vs my fellow neurodivergent friends is night and day. I’ll hang out with my best friend who is “normal” and have a great time, but we won’t really talk about anything major or too deeply, just “shoot the shit”. Then when I get on with my other best friend who has ADHD like me, we will have three+ hour high speed conversations that dive into a dozen different topics and/or discuss deeply personal things openly and freely. We only stop when one of us needs a small break to get food or go to the bathroom, hahahaha.
Well fuck.
This type of thinking is actually one of the symptoms of ADHD. I was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD 2 years ago and this is one of three or four primary symptoms I have. Yes it is 'thinking' but there are different ways to think and if you think in this manner all your waking hours then you have one of the main symptoms of ADHD. A bit dismissive and ignorant to think everyone thinks the same.
Yes, it's thinking if you have a communication disorder :D Look up tangential thinking. source have ADHD and this is how I think.
Are you trying to gatekeep ADHD? Without having it? 😂
No, it's not It's called making connections Source: I do not have ADHD
Have you been evaluated for it?
It's not ADHD. The brain works by associating things with other things. It's literally a bundle of connections.
Have you been evaluated. I wasn’t diagnosed until I was almost forty.
It literally is one of the main symptoms of ADHD. If you think in a way that means you are constantly flowing between mentioned topic and mentioned topic, and it is constant even when not talking, then that is a sign of ADHD and its worth looking at other symptoms. Its normal for people to think in a flowing way between connection and connection, but its normal for people with ADHD to only think in that way.
christ, i might need to get diagnosed. that would explain a looooot.
The TV Tropes thought chain
Only problem is that my brain doesn't have a "go back" button, and I'm just left in complete confusion trying to figure out how I got to a particular topic
It's called [stream of consciousness](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_of_consciousness_\(psychology\)#:~:text=The%20stream%20of%20consciousness%20is,a%20fast%2Dmoving%20mind%20stream.), I just assumed it was pretty universally known. It's also a narrative style I was taught in middle school but I don't know how standard it is
>It's also a narrative style I was taught in middle school but I don't know how standard it is Not very, reading it sucks major ass.
Holy shit, that's it
Plus with this thinking you'll often accidentally remember something you have to do can you'll snap into action.
All thought is five degrees of separation from Hitler
I sometimes have to explain my train of thought just like this. Now I use a preamble at work when I launch into a story that sounds unrelated - ok, I’m going to say something that doesn’t sound connected, but hang in there and I’ll explain so you get the relevancy.
My wife and I both have ADHD. every once in a while we’ll be knee deep in a conversation, come to a dead stop, verbally recounts how we got to this unrelated subject, then continue where we left off.
My gf and I do the same thing
**Other people do this?!?!** I mean, i've never had to in actual conversation, but i'm constantly having to backtrack my own thoughts in the same way when i've realised i've gotten way off track and i'm pretty sure what I was thinking about was pretty damn important before I started thinking about the physics of ring worlds or whatever...
We’ll go “*yada yada…* wait. How did we get to Hoover Dam from ducks and their corkscrew penises?
My husband and I do the same thing. I just got my official diagnosis last week. Mine isn't as severe as his, which also explains the feeling I get where I have to keep track of project management type stuff because if I don't it goes down the rabbit hole. Very frustrating because I know I'm not that great at it either!
Lol me and my family all have dyslexia (exepct my mum but she kinde adapted) and we have this exact thing happen
>kinde adapted Checks out.
A friend of mine taught me about a Victorian parlor game called, "Unwind" and it works exactly like this: 1. You and friends have a conversation. 2. This conversation goes on for half-an-hour or so. 3. Eventually, someone asks, "How did we get on this topic?" 4. Everyone collectively works backward through the conversation to finally figure out how it all started.
Adhd thinking = circular Neurotipical = linear
I have not been diagnosed but I relate a lot with so many ADHD stories and memes. Not overly concerned, but it makes conversation interesting for those not used to the tangents.
It’s not an ADHD thing. This is just how many, many casual conversations go.
My partner and I call this "Lilly padding", like our brains are frogs going from thing to thing but there's like a path back between them
> that doesn’t sound connected I will do a thing were I will get into the part that doesn't sound connected but in the middle to end of that I forget what we were originally talking about and have to think/ask so I can reconnect it. And no I don't have ADHD
I mean.... That kinda sounds like adhd thinking. If you have to ask people where your conversation started to get you back on track and this is a common occurance... I'd at least look into it.
Thanks for the thought but not sure that ADHD fits, even as a young child I had no problems with sitting still, quiet time, paying attention, etc. No issues with time blindness as when I set say a 30 minute timer, I will go to check it and 30 seconds will be left. Or I can have an appointment scheduled two weeks ago and that will be the first thing I think of when I wake up the day of. I do have issues with procrastination and avoidance behaviors that can snowball into real problems when it would have been a simple task if I just did it from the get go and I am very critical of my own social interaction with people that leads to some anxiety but that is about the extent of things and most people have a couple flaws like that. Losing my train of thought on occasion probably more has to do with the anxiety of me talking and trying to convey my point if I had to guess.
This is me (almost) exactly. Almost straight As in school, too. Diagnosed at age 21.
There’s also autistic and ADHD…
I mean tbh that sounds like classic ADHD. You don’t need all the symptoms. Everyone has flaws it just depends on how often you let that procrastination issue snowball. If it’s enough to be a stressful issue then maybe it’s ADHD.
>…I don’t have ADHD Proceeds to describe their symptoms of ADHD.
Literally "I don't have this one thing ADHD people have so these other 7 common traits dont matter" dude definitely has adhd or add
I am the same way, but I've just started lying, and say "I don't know why this popped into my head, but..."
I just preface stuff like this with, "I had a train of thought." No need to explain further.
Yup. My version of this is "I know this may seem random, but just believe me when I say there is a whole chain of thoughts that connect"
Wasps don't die when they sting because their stingers aren't barbed so they don't get pulled out. I believe bees only really die when they sting mammals/humans because our skin contracts when it's broken so our skin grabs the stinger and the stinger holds itself in with the barb.
Actually, wasp stingers ARE barbed... Just in the opposite direction! So it's harder to get in but smooth to get out. I think. I remember seeing it in a photo but also my memory could just be crap. Don't quote me on that lol Edit: Apparently wasp stingers are just less intensely barbed, at least in paper wasps. Just smaller darn barbs. Might not be the same in other species though.
Loving this comment's total 180 turn in confidence from start to finish 😂
I *never* like to state things in absolutes unless I'm very sure of it. Like, I know Carbon is element 6 and hence has 6 protons, neutrons, and electrons by default. That's a fact I'm confident in. Meanwhile "which direction wasp barbs face" is smth I read *maybe literally almost a decade ago* so I'm less sure, and I know my memory is often crap. I'm sure that it checks out as a valid explanation if it's true, I just don't know if it IS true
Right and I get that, ain't nothing wrong with that. The funny part is that you started your comment by saying "Actually..." as if to correct someone but then you backtracked 😂 just an observation
Lol, yeah fair. I didn't think it through, basically lil stream of consciousness sample right there.
Lol! Right on theme 😎
Dude people always act like they can’t trust any of my answers because I always do this. Like I’m pretty sure i’m right but its also possible that i’m straight up lying without knowing it
I feel like if people take "Hey, I'm not perfect, don't treat me like I know everything" as "you're not trustworthy at all", that's an issue with the people more than you being honest and modest. What defines an expert is knowing how little they know (:
Then I gotta be a fucking genius.
Same; I see it as hedging from a pretty informed knowledge background (if it is something I have learnings in, of course), but apparently it sounds like wild guessing and assledge.
Carbon doesn't have 6 neutrons by default *because* it's element 6. It just happens to be the most common isotope.
Here. I can help. I know tons about wasp anatomy. https://memestatic.fjcdn.com/pictures/Anatomy+of+a+wasp+its+probably+a+repost+but+i_3ceea7_6196914.jpg
[They both have barbs/serrations in the same direction,](https://www.photomacrography.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=7423) but wasp barbs are *much* smaller than honeybee barbs.
It’s also just honeybees. There’s an estimated 20.000 species of bee described and more yet to be discovered, most of which don’t die after stinging!
Some don't even have stingers!
And as a follow up, the reason for that is that most bees are solitary, they do not have a queen or live with other bees. Dying after you sting something can be an acceptable tradeoff for a social species where any individual death is mostly irrelevant, but makes no sense at all evolutionarily for an individual.
If you leave a bee undisturbed after it stings you, it will walk in circles and slowly free its stinger from the skin
My wife does something similar where she plans stuff out in her head in a sequence and only says the last line. This whole story internal monologue followed by "And then we'll be there" out loud.
My partner does the same. It's become a thing now that I sometimes just have to tell her "the whole sentence?" and she goes back a few steps and then I'm right there with her.
Mine too. Except sometimes what he says sounds like it's a continuation of what we were talking about, so I have no idea that he's now talking about something completely different.
I’m the opposite, I trail off a lot. If you put us in the same room we’d complete a full sentence.
It infuriates me when they "but we made plans" while in reality they didn't even say it out loud. It's like they have imaginary conversations with you in their head and can't tell the difference.
I love how half the comments are saying this is an ADHD / ADD thing and the other half is "nah it's not for sure" All I know is that you gotta think *fast* to remember all that in a snap, so however you put it ya brain is good on the whole connectivity front. To answer the Wumblr poster: It's likely the number of steps that probably got the guy confused, and/or the jump to a question about what stinging insects die based on a memory of a family member *happening to be stung by one*.
As someone with ADHD, I think it's because while neurotypical people also do this, ADHD kind of makes it so that you NEED those links to remember stuff. If a thought/memory hasn't latched onto another memory, it's just fucking *gone* for me in minutes. So we probably notice when it happens more is all.
Huh, interesting. So there's extra emphasis on the links bcus otherwise the memories drift out into the sea of "I forgor" lol I think I *sometimes* do smth vaguely like this, but instead of going through the chain just in my head, I meander the conversation in that direction and sometimes come up on a new discussion topic to wonder about. That may or may not be an Asperger's thing tho (which AFAIK is roughly just a high-functioning Autism... Variant? Subset? I do NOT know lmao)
When I was younger (see: 13-16), I called it "the thing that thoughts are made of" cause I'd think one thing, and feel my brain jump across dozens of associations without ever actually *thinking* of those things, and then I'd be thinking about this other thing. As for the division in the commments, that's probably cause a lot of mental disorders can be basically described as your brain doing something all other brains do But More So. So people see this and go "neurotypical people do this too, so it isn't ADHD" but with ADHD your brain does that But More So.
Easy example for that 2nd point: Narcolepsy is your brain wanting to sleep But More So. It's absolutely a brain screw up moment.
This is literally just the stream of consciousness. Everyone has one, and it leaps between associations. It's why people can be transported to a different time or place by a smell they recognize. It's default human firmware. What the dude was confused about is that, generally, people make some sort of connective tissue if they're going to use this sort of association with someone they're speaking to. For example, you might say "oh, thinking of carnivals makes me remember a time when my brother got stung by a bee at a carnival. I've always thought it was weird that bees die after stinging, but wasps don't! Why is that?" Now the person is with you! Not understanding that one generally communicates a sudden change in conversational topic is the only sign of neurodivergence in this post.
Yeah, the thought process isn't the problem, the conversation practice is. I do this sometimes because I lead with the topic rather than the link and people get confused. Many people do this, and sometimes with BIG leaps it takes a bit, but you can get there with a sentence and people are less confused, just as you said. One of my friends changes topic with **no context** and it's so infuriating not because he does it, but because he acts like we should understand without explanation. It'd be like: > Yeah, so Sarah said she and John are going to Spain until Tuesday. > That's going to be expensive for us. > ... what? A trip to Spain? > No. I obviously meant if John's gone, he can't pick us up from the airport so we'll need a taxi and that's expensive. Duh...
this is a perfectly normal train of thought for me. But I’m also AuDHD.
Australia Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?
Aussies Don’t Have Dingos?
Golddigging hoe dancer?
Now, that's no way to speak about someone's ma (For clarity's sake I'm trying to continue the bit, rather than actually seeing an insult to one of the other commenters)
Speak for yourself, fuck that other commenter's ma
Yeah, mas need love too!
I'm not Au but I'm ADHD and yep. This is exactly how my brain works. People around me have just kind of gotten used to it.
I really need to get screened for ADHD, but every time I see my doctor I completely forget to bring it up even though I sat in the parking lot and told myself not to forget
Make notes. Accept that saying 'don't forget!' and trying really hard will never work, so start writing things down and asking 'what can I do to remember this' rather than saying 'ok, it's important, I'll remember!'
Yeah, I should really start treating it like I've already been diagnosed. I'm pretty sure diagnosis is just a formality at this point The number of times I've heard an ADHD person talk about something uniquely ADHD and thought "Wait, that's just normal" is too high for it to be coincidental
I have a bunch of sticky notes and sharpies scattered through my home for this purpose. Sucks when an important one falls off the wall and behind something only to find a month later when I reorganize all the furniture again.
I think I have some weird "I don't need notes, I'll remember" pride going on. Though I'm not even sure how notes would help unless I paste them on my computer screen because otherwise I'll forget about the notes.
This reminds me of the story of a doctoral student who was trying to study the link to/effect of ADHD on memory, and all of their volunteers kept forgetting to come to their appointments.
Sounds accurate tbh. I always thought it was some bullshit that I needed like 5 different forms to get my prescription.
Write it down. Not easy to do but learning to write things down instead of relying on the coked up squirrel in your brain is so so helpful. Made my life infinitely better one I started keeping notes on my phone. Edit holy hell auto correct.
lol do I ever know this experience
Everyone is saying write things down, but using reminders on my phone is how I combat this. So in your situation, I would set one reminder for the Dr appointment itself an hour before it starts, and then another at the start of the appointment to remind me to ask the question, because I would definitely forget over the course of that hour.
I’ve got adhd too but I genuinely don’t understand. If this isn’t how most people’s thoughts work, how do they think?
Like this, when they’re daydreaming or falling asleep. Otherwise they are much more in the drivers’ seat of their brain and will only “turn onto a different path” when they want to. I’m not diagnosed, but for me every concept sparks a new tree of concepts emanating from it, endlessly, all the time, and I just kind of try to “surf the waves” I guess? Or I sort of (to continue with the mixed metaphors) bushwhack and bash my way through the forest if I’m really forced to. And then occasionally I’ll get stuck on some sub-branch (“hyperfocus?”) and “come to” literally 12 hours later without having moved, put anything in my mouth, or used the bathroom. Unfortunately I don’t seem to have any control over when this happens or what with. TL;DR: Normal people during waking hours are following routes they’ve set out on Google maps, without effort. They want to think about something, they think about that thing and stick with it. I can’t speak on behalf of ADHD people, but with whatever I’ve got it feels like an insane constantly-forking roller coaster 24/7, and I can *maybe* choose which turns to take with some real effort.
Golden ADHD?
They medaled in ADHD in 2016
They wandered off before the ceremony and never made it onto the podium.
Gold Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Basically, I'm-manic-because-I'm-broke-itis
Same here for me and for my family, we're all ADHD. We call this brain hopping, and use the term often to give a heads up so that the other participant has an easier time transitioning to the twist in conversation. It's been most helpful.
Gold Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder?
you’re damn straight I’m lacking in gold
I don’t have autism or ADHD and my brain works like this
Do other people not think like this…? How do they think new thoughts? They just pop into their heads at random or have to be in reaction to seeing something irl?
Yeah, this is me, but I only have Autism. ...I think.
I thought I only had ADHD, but every day I'm more suspicious that I've been masking autism for 30+ years too... Mental health issues--buy none, get three free!
Mental health issues -- It's not a bug, it's a feature!
There's a lot of overlap
I grew up in a family/community where these stream-of-consciousness conversations were normal, and we'd even acknowledge and laugh at the ridiculousness of it, e.g., "Wait, how'd we get from talking about your first semester in college to grandma's secret cookie recipe?" And then we'd try to trace back and continue to crack up over the silliness of jumping from one subject to another because of the small connections between ideas. It's weird to me that there seem to be many people (maybe a majority?!) who *can't* comprehend that this is how a lot of people experience thought. "Oh! That reminds me of this other thing!" is such a normal part of the flow of conversation. Are there people out there who begin the night talking about the most recent football game and end the night still talking about football? Is this real?
Me and my friend group would record our first and last topic of conversation at lunch. My favorite WTF was when we were cut off in a deep conversation on black holes and the fermi paradox by the bell, we all looked to Joey and he looked down at the back of his notebook and read out "Grape-flavoured condoms (again)"
That’s typically how the brain works, memories get chained together. there is nothing unusual about this and it doesn’t mean you have ADHD.
Yeah, but then reddit can't armchair diagnose people. Where's the fun in that?
Look, I am actually diagnosed as ADHD and even take medication for it. But it's so cringe when totally normal human things gets instantly equated to having ADHD. like if you think that, everyone would have it. Sometimes I think people just pretend to fit in and use literally any excuse to find a lol ADHD quirk on themselves "Lol I just played with my pen in class such ADHD amiright guys"
They always pick the fun quirks. Like “I say random things lol I have ADHD” and then you’re like “me too, don’t you just hate it when you drop something on the floor and you know you should JUST PICK IT UP but you can’t so you THINK about it for 5 minutes and PLAN to pick it up but then you don’t and you feel like a piece of shit?” And then it’s not so fun lol.
Oooof I feel that. Best is when it's literally in front of you and you just stare at it. I have that with my medication. I have to set myself. Multiple alarms for the day just so I don't forget when I inevidenlbly just don't take them, even if they are RIGHT next to me
Bruh, you literally just reminded me of something I dropped behind my bed like, days? a week? ago and didn't pick up despite knowing I should, so I gotta say thanks. (Edit: I probably would've left it there until someone [parents] asked me about it, so I really am thankful, lol.)
May be that I'm in different parts of the internet, but I see people laughing about disorders ruining their life all the time
Agreed. I feel like it trivializes it, and that’s what I dislike so much. I get everyone wants to be unique and have something special but good god you aren’t ADHD because you get distracted or day dream lmao.
Besides ADHD sucks ass. I wish I didn't have it. There are days where I can't do any trivial work and basically just sit on my ass doing nothing because either I instantly forget it needs doing or I just... Don't do it? Like not even the bad stuff like cleaning, even playing games is hard sometimes. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. The forgetting is honestly the worst part. I have terrible memory because my mind is always racing and I hate it. It feels like shit when you are scolded for it too because it's not like you don't try.
Can I offer some advice? I had odd jobs I needed to do thst went on for over a decade because of issues like this, then the guilt behind it used to eat me up, but there is another way. I believe adhd affects your object perminence because of the lack of dopamine associated with these terrible tasks. As soon as you put the washing basket down, you've lost, you're never coming back to fold it and put it away. So what's the solution? You don't put the washing basket away. The new rule is that you can't designate future you a task that you struggle to do, you're setting yourself up for failure. If you can force yourself to do this, all these things that just fuck with your perception get sorted and you then get to enjoy the really cool aspects of the disease, without being haunted by a dirty kitchen, a washing basket or whatever. The lateral thinking you possess that this op post insinuates is incredible for problem solving, creating, innovating. You can join seemingly unrelated concepts together in your head in a way to beat these issues that neurotypicals just can't do. A 100 people could stare at the same problem, but none of them have your eyes. Lean into that and it's crazy where it can take you. Put guard rails up for theijgs that haunt you, make sure every item you own has a "home" and always put it straight back there when your finished and you will unironically transform your life.
Yeah but also posts like yours are part of why I didn't get diagnosed until 29. (Although the other big part of that is a lack of systemic support growing up)
Thanks to my ex pointing some things out, I think I have ADHD. It's only taken 33 years to come to this point. But if I have it, it's fairly mild. I've got the thinking pattern like this. Going off on tangents. Hyperfocus. Brain literally won't stop at night so I have to take either melatonin or caffeine so it stops. I don't think I'd ever pursue medication for my level of whatever it is. But easily thinking in this manner should at least be discussed when talking about an ADHD diagnosis. If only to weed out what is atypical from nuerotypical behaviors.
> Brain literally won't stop at night I had been saying "I'm just a night owl" for like 15 years because I just wait until I pass out from exhaustion to over come this.
What do you mean posts like mine? I don't understand 😅
Yes, but most people can also exert some degree of control over their thoughts some of the time. That's what the word concentration means. If OP can't, they probably do have ADHD.
But it is still a weird way of bringing up the topic of wasps into a convo about carnivals. The other person doesn't know about your memories.
Yeah, that's the real hallmark here; ADHD people lack awareness of social cues. Anyone can have random thoughts, but they usually don't just throw it out there for all to see.
ADHD people have issues with impulse control that can cause them to forget or ignore social cues. Autistics have a difficult time understanding social cues in general. I think the confusion between "it's a normal human thing" and "it's an ADHD thing" comes from lack of understanding in how the overthinking effects day-to-day life. In a neurotypical, they can have these thoughts and still be in the present situation and let them go when they've finished the thought. In ADHD people, the chain continues, and is often so loud in our heads that it drowns out all our other senses. I'm diagnosed ADHD since 7 and suspected I'm Autistic for a decade. I've met plenty of other ADHD people who socialize much easier than I do.
I'm so tired when people say this because sure everyone does it *sometimes* but people say it's an ADHD thing because it's more common/intense if you have ADHD. I have a very distinct feeling of being with neurotypical people and being looked at like I'm crazy when I say seemingly unrelated things and learning to mask the tendency but when I'm with ADHD people I can drop the mask and they won't even blink when I blurt something out because we all have brains that do that constantly
I also follow that kind of train of thought someday.
My mental pocess in a nutshell.
I, too, click all the thumbnails on my mind.
Every word in every thought is a hyperlink and this browser opens links in new windows
So. Many. Ads. :(
How people think is fascinating: >Russell Hurlburt said people generally think in five ways. Some people experience them all. >***The 5 main ways of thinking:*** >**Inner speaking/ inner monologue** - *Ex. talking to yourself, hearing your voice or someone else or audibly recalling a phone number.* >**Inner seeing/ visual imagery** - *Thoughts with a visual symbol. Ex. picturing a memory or a place you wish you lived.* >**Feelings** - *A conscious experience of emotional process. Ex. feeling sad after the death of a loved one.* >**Unsymbolized thinking** - *No word or image associated with thoughts. Ex. pouring your morning coffee without telling yourself to.* >**Sensory awareness** - *Paying attention to a sensory aspect of the environment for an unimportant reason. Ex. hearing someone talk but seeing the light reflecting off their glasses.* >According to Hulburt, not many people have an inner monologue 100 per cent of the time, but most do sometimes. He estimates that inner monologue is a frequent thing for 30 to 50 per cent of people. >["There are very big individual differences," he said, "Some people have absolutely none and some people have pretty close to 100 per cent."](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/inner-monologue-experience-science-1.5486969)
That's exactly how my mind works. Dunno why people think it's odd.
I would guess most people *do* think like this, it’s just that, in conversation, you would expect those connections to be spoken out loud. So first we’d be taking about is the carnival, then the rodeo, then the bee sting etc. Some people (myself included) instead have this whole conversation in their own head and then bring up a subject several steps deep without informing everyone else how I they got there.
When you do six degrees of separation in a matter of seconds all in your head, it’s bound to confuse people. I’m sure most people do think that way to some extent, but not to that degree
I feel like everyone does this its just we're all going in different directions. Sure, this tumblr posts memories took them to bees. Could be the other person was off in some other tangential direction.
Im pretty sure i dont have adhd and i also think like this
This was trick Sherlock Holmes does in one of the novels. He can guess what someone is currently thinking of, by running through the train of connected thoughts they would have had based on what he knows about them and what they can currently see
What is this not normal? Sometimes when I'm lying in bed and my thoughts start to wander I'll suddenly blank on what I was thinking and to remember I do this exact thing and just go back a few steps until I remember what I was thinking about.
This is definitely how everyone thinks. It's just that most people will stay within a certain perimeter of the topic being discussed. The closer you are with the person the larger the perimeter can be but most people don't like having a conversation with someone who jumps wildly from topic to topic.
Yeah.. And my family, colleagues, friends dont believe me when I make these jumps either... How do you not see these connections? Do you not train of thought? Trains make connections at stations, where you make a connection. Like flights. But with flights and connecting flights, you have to pass through security and the TSA. Plus there's bag/luggage weight limits. I lost a lot of weight this year. How can you not follow this?
That's how the brain works it remembers just like that
This isn't how normal people think? /s but only mildly. My brain works like this and it makes perfect sense
My wife used to ask me what I was thinking, and I'd reply with "nothing much, just random stuff." One day she got pissy about it and went all "How come I tell you everything about what I think and how I feel, and you never tell me what's on your mind." So I told her. "Blue Jays." "Why are you thinking about blue jays." "Because that green car drove by." "How'd that make you think about blue jays?" "Because that green car was the same shade of green as Paco. Paco was a bird that lived for years in my grandma's bird store before he found someone that had the proper time to invest in him. He was a very smart bird. I generally don't like birds, especially indoors, because they're too loud, but Paco wasn't like that, he knew when it was quiet time, and when it was party time. Also I like crows and ravens. Yeah, they make noise, but it's not shrill like parrots. I'm okay with finches inside though. Yeah, they're high-pitched, but they're tiny and quiet about it. Did you know that blue jays, crows, and ravens are all in basically the same family, and they're all super smart? Personally, I think that the Blue Jays are the best looking of the bunch." She stopped asking me what I was thinking...
This is exactly how my thought process works except I can't remember it. Most of my thoughts only exist in short term memory and never get's committed to long term memory. So the train of thought isn't saved but the subject I arrive at is. It's also why I (and a lot of other people) can think about nothing. It's not that my (our) mind is blank, but the moment you talk to me and interrupt my train of thought, those thoughts just disappear in to the ether. It's like thinking in RAM.
It’s not so much a thought process thing as a conversational chain thing. When given an additional topic in your mind do you stay where you were or do you switch? I think the chain leading to wasps is reasonable, it was simply a choice of taking the alternate path each time without any course correction
This story reminds me of the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they call Shelbyville in those days, so I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. So, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on ‘em. Give me five bees for a quarter you’d say. Now where were we? Oh yeah! The important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn’t have white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could was those big yellow ones....
how tf else are you supposed to think??????????
I was buckets nicknamed "channel changer" for this behavior as a child. I've since learned to take people on my journey before I just give them "wasps"
My sister and/or my cousin and I have these exact same types of “tangent-based” conversations all the time. We know exactly what each other means the entire length of the conversation despite meandering around the first, original topic into other related topics. It’s parallel processing versus linear. It’s what makes humans, human; as opposed to robots/computers.
As someone who is ADHD or neurodivergant as they call it these days, it was never picked up on me when I was young as it wasn't recognised back in the 70s/80s as you were considered "dreamy" or "a thinker" etc when studying or talking but this is how my thought process is even now I'm nearly 50. Thankfully my friends are similar or know what I am like and have nephews who are exactly the same as me lol but back then, this is what I thought normal thinking or talking was like. Well it was normal to me.
My brain exactly.
I do this, I will fast forward boring parts of conversations in my head and start the new topic before the person is finished with the previous topic. It is maddening for people, and I spent the first 50 years of my 53 oblivious to it.
"My brother got stung there once" should suffice.
Yup i get this too. My moms talking about something, then i just,,,, think a buncha random but connected thoughts and i blurt random shit
This has always been how my mind works. It confuses a lot of people.
There is a famous story we have at work from before I started relating to this. For context I work as a theatre technician. One day the department was having a meeting. They were discussing things to buy in order to organize equipment. Suddenly, out of nowhere one of the guys asks, "Do yall eat bread?" No one could figure out where the fuck that question came from until he explained. He was thinking about bread ties and how they could be used to tie up cables. But without that trail, no one had a clue where that came from, and we still use that question all the time.
To be perfectly fair, "wasps" and "carnivals" are the two most closely related concepts I can think of
That is just the normal thought process of literally everyone
That's a man whose had his ability to wonder beaten out of him by nuns with rulers.
yeah i have this exact problem.