Hyperfocus: A Comedic Approach to ADHD

Once my little sister sneezed and like two minutes later I said, “Oh sorry, what did you say?”

I have a listening problem, more accurately, I have a problem where I hyperfocus on things, and everything else in the world disappears. The problem is I don’t realize I’m doing it, hyper-focusing on something, until it smacks me in the face much like the smell of my laundry mountain would if I were to walk into my room right now.

Why? Because I have been so hyper-focused on other things, I forgot to do my laundry for the past month. I mean week. (I mean month)

I try to laugh it off but usually just look at myself in the mirror like: why are you the way that you are?

Like right now, I am writing a blog post and there’s nothing I can do to stop myself.

Once in college, I was assigned a group project for my Spanish class, and for once I liked the group which was pretty rare for me because most groups in my life have been a general disappointment to me and I have low expectations, to begin with.

But I liked these guys, and every week we had to put together a pamphlet that the class voted on, and we had never. won. not. once. And to be honest, we didn’t really try.

So this one week when I had loads of other work to do and an entire wedding to plan, I got really into my Spanish project and started designing the pamphlet. I was just planning on making it a little prettier, but then I found all these cool graphics and removed the white backgrounds so it looked a little more professional, and then I made columns so we could add in the necessary info and still have cool graphics, which of course lead to page breaks, and then headers which means also adding footers, and editing the photos to match the font, and it is a slippery slope of gateway edits until literally, it stole five hours of my life that try as I might, I will never get back.

It was worth ten points. We got nothing more than a piece of candy for winning. But it wasn’t about the candy, it was a statement. It was pride. It was pure 100 percent red-blooded American procrastination.

Oh, and by the way, it was some other kid's job to do this. I didn’t eat anything all day because in my free time, I was editing. I was late for things. I had a dream about it where someone messed up the formatting and my native American chief vector design got erased. I didn’t even know what a vector WAS before this project.

It was intense, but I was proud. We even changed the topic halfway through and I redesigned it. I worked hard. I made thirty font changes, I MADE artwork to insert because nothing I found online was good (free) enough. I learned how to mirror images for my corner designs, I read the rubric, I MIXED A TEXT COLOR. If this were 1950, I would have been institutionalized.

So I went to class that morning at 8 a.m. like the dedicated lifeless weirdo that I had become and described my ordeal to my group members who very respectfully laughed at me and added their contributions without messing up my careful formatting.

But here’s the kicker–when my team members started adding their written portions to the document, I heard myself excitedly say to a grown woman, “Oh let me help you, it’s a custom color, I made it!” That was the moment I realized I had gone too far.*Cue Laundry-Smell Face Smack*

I was wearing the same outfit/underwear I had on the night before because I fell asleep working on it, my hair was crazy, and I was excited about a font color. The only meal I ate the day before was ibuprofen and a chocolate bar, and I didn’t even drink water because I wanted to see if I could swallow the pills without water because my fiance could and I was a competitive pamphlet nazi who didn’t shower. And then just again with the staring at myself in the mirror.

The only real problem happened when I got interrupted while in the zone. Explanation: sometimes I watch t.v. shows and get a little sad that I don’t have a best girlfriend anymore that I tell everything to like the Cristina to my Meredith or the Lola to my Hannah or the Rachel to my Monica, but then my co-worker (who I really like) literally breathes when I’m in the zone, and I remember why I am the way I am.

You may be wondering: So did you win that Spanish competition?? I wish I could tell you. I really do. I can’t remember. The point is: ADHD sometimes results in hyperfocus rather than a complete lack of focus, and very often it’s ignored. So if you have ADHD and you get it, I’m right there with you sis.

My favorite part of these posts is how many comments I get on how people without ADHD love my writing and how much fun it is to read about my life and then how much my mom asks me if I’m okay after. Because most people know that I’m dramatic and use humor to communicate and they assume, “Well she’s laughing about it so all must be well” and my mom’s just like: all is not well in Waffleville.

It’s a struggle. But in all seriousness, my life is so great, even with ADHD. ISo it doesn’t really matter that I’m sick or that I’m stressed out or that I have my own personal laundry mountain, I have enough clothes to last me a month without doing laundry, and that alone is something to be thankful for.