Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begin to loop on itself

Re:Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begi... by jnovek on Thursday September 04, 2025 @12:07PM (#45128818)

Another thing to consider is that, once you are medicated, you have a whole new set of skills to develop.

I remember when I started taking ADHD meds and I was like “wow I can focus now” and proceeded to focus with all my might on the wrong thing.

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Re:Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begi... by directmusic on Thursday September 04, 2025 @12:47PM (#45129266)

My rule of thumb is: Whatever I am doing when the meds start working is what I'm going to be doing.

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Re:Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begi... by thewebguyd on Thursday September 04, 2025 @01:00PM (#45129432)

Same. When I first started taking meds this was a hard lesson to learn. Yay I can actually focus on a task now. It just so happens that task needs to be whatever I'm doing when they start working.

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Re:Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begi... by sotix on Thursday September 04, 2025 @01:06PM (#45129513)

That interesting. I can hyperfocus without medication just fine. It's the choosing what to focus on that I take medication to solve.

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Re:Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begi... by gtirloni on Thursday September 04, 2025 @02:21PM (#45130470)

I think "just fine" would imply you can invoke hyperfocus whenever you want. In my experience, it happens with the most undesirable things at the most undesirable moments.

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Re:Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begi... by virtue3 on Thursday September 04, 2025 @06:19PM (#45132885)

But I know so much about randomly WW2 battle and military boats and airplanes that was critical to know at 3am when I had a full docket of stuff to do the next day...

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Re:Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begi... by myth2018 on Thursday September 04, 2025 @07:17PM (#45133322)

I can relate. Also, sometimes I can even invoke it on things I want to. However, I just can't turn it off when needed.

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Re:Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begi... by Aeolun on Thursday September 04, 2025 @07:19PM (#45133335)

I think that’s true. If I want to focus on the thing that is my current obsession I can invoke that focus whenever I want. Never mind if I’m at work, in the shower, or at a birthday party. It’s just not very useful to achieve the goals you probably have at those places.

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Re:Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begi... by sotix on Friday September 05, 2025 @08:32AM (#45137763)

That seems to contradict my third sentence. Hyperfocusing does not mean choosing what to focus on. My point was, ADHD to me is not an issue in focusing. It's an issue with choosing what to focus on.

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Re:Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begi... by gtirloni on Friday September 05, 2025 @11:51AM (#45139953)

Understood, thanks for clarifying. In my case, my hyperfocus sessions (sometimes on useful, sometimes on useless things) are in between absurd levels of distractions so I can't totally relate.

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Re:Almost anything you give sustained attention to will begi... by gtirloni on Thursday September 04, 2025 @02:19PM (#45130453)

> Another thing to consider is that, once you are medicated, you have a whole new set of skills to develop.

Exactly. Once I got diagnosed, the doctor wanted to remove the SSRI's that had been treating the side effects and not the root cause... but that happened too quickly in my case. I had constant episodes.

After a few months, I had to go back to them while I was still learning about everything, how I had to change habits, what would work now, etc.

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