What were we talking about?

My friends and I have this game where one starts a conversation with a sentence. And the another would butt in with another sentence coming from a totally irrelevant topic. And then another would react to something again totally far out from the previous sentence. The test is to see how far out our topics could get from the beginning sentence. And it goes on and on till we laugh at how funny and how totally unconnected our conversation would turn out. But you see, that happens to me a lot. LOL. I jump from one topic to another at a slight switch of a word. So I'm thinking, I might have undiagnosed ADD.

It has been a standing joke in the family that ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) runs in the bloodline. Our bloodline. My siblings, cousins and their offsprings tend to get bored real fast. It's a wonder that some of us had managed to stay in a relationship that would eventually lead to marriage and would last longer than our refrigirator. And it is no surprise that most of us stayed longer in college than everybody else, or took several courses before settling on a profession, or picking different courses and liking everything. The Jacks of all trade, masters of none ... or several, whichever strikes our fancy.

I'm beginning to think that there is some truth in that. I might be an undiagnosed ADD person. I was helping out a friend with his computer, reformatting it and all. He was making small talk the whole time and I just realized that I can't remember much of what we talked about. Most of the time, I was thinking of his computer and what to do with it. I would pay attention to our conversation but before long, my mind had wandered to some other place. It wasn't because I was bored. I just can't pay attention long enough to grasp everything. I'm a bad listener. Which would explain why I get easily bored with studying.

I wonder if you get lapses of ADD. You know, get it one moment and be extremely focused the next. It's strange because I can be focused on some things. Sometimes so focused to the point of obsessing about it. But when it comes to doing two things at the same time, I fade out from one to the other, like a fly would jump from one plate to another.

Here's what Aileen Bailey says about ADD:
Students with ADHD tend to tune out lessons that are “boring” or do not interest them. Adding in giftedness, concepts and lessons can be learned quickly and tuning out can occur much quicker. Students may fail to hear and learn important information later in the class. This can also cause students to have a full comprehension of the concepts, however, lack the skills for practical applications of the concepts. One mother had her son tested in math. He was in 11th grade and could not seem to pass a math class. The evaluation showed that his understanding of math concepts was above a 16th grade level, however, his computations were in the 8th grade level. Once he understood the concept, he tuned out the lesson and didn’t feel he needed to practice. The concepts made such sense and were so simple for him to understand, he never bothered to listen and practice. He made simple mistakes, failing tests and his ADHD caused him to lose homework on a regular basis. He felt inadequate, and didn’t understand why he could not do math even though he understood it. He felt stupid and ridiculed and yet his understanding of the subject was probably high above the rest of the class.


Yup, I definitely have ADD. Of course, it would be a convenient excuse when I can't remember conversations I had. But, come to think of it, it would explain lots of things.

I wonder if they have tests for ADD in adults.

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