Hyperfocus

I've been thinking about writing a post about focus for about a month now and finally decided today is the day (thanks Jeanne!). A common misconception about people with ADHD is that they are completely unable to maintain focus. That's simply not true. If you can capture our attention we can focus longer and more intently than a neuro-typical person. We can focus to the point where nothing else in the world exists. Not food, not sleep, not time, nothing but the thing that has our attention. It's often referred to as hyperfocus and it is glorious (unless you starve to death, then it kind of sucks).  When I'm in a state of hyperfocus, it's like all the doors in my mind have unlocked and I am free to learn and explore.  Hyperfocus is a very fragile state, however, and if I'm interrupted it is practically impossible to dive back in where I left off.

This excerpt from my journal explains it best:

My thoughts are a spun glass palace.  The connections fragile, but beautiful, each corridor flowing naturally into the next.  The towers rise in in harmony to the heavens, music emanates from each one as wind gently blows through open windows.  Each room within the palace has its purpose, one simple, the next magnificent.  All are interconnected with elegant crystal pathways.  I lose myself in its creation.

Suddenly a boulder crashes through.  My beautiful palace begins to shatter.  I desperately try to make repairs, but a second boulder crashes in.  The boulders continue to wreak destruction.  Shards of glass rain down around my head and shoulders and lie broken, unrecognizable, and irreparable beneath my feet. 

I sweep up the shards and return them to the furnace to begin again, desperately trying to recreate the beauty that once was, but the vision, once so clear, refuses to be resurrected. It has been supplanted by cold lifeless boulders.

That is what it's like and it's also why those of us with ADHD are often so easily irritated when we are interrupted.