Tales from a Bruised Mind

I have never been diagnosed with ADHD, but my unique mental condition has made me feel, at times, like I do have attention issues.

Why do I say that?

Well, I’ve never had a great attention span. When it came to school work and actual paid work, I was fine. But when it came to hobbies and outside-of-work activities, things were very different.

I remember when I came out of my very first hospital visit in late March 2019, I struggled to just sit still. My brain was still so wired up, and I would find myself jumping between tasks every 30 minutes or so. Sometimes less.

Even today, in late April 2024, I’m still battling with this.

In this day and age, experts are saying that society has a shorter attention span than ever, hence the creation of popular short style videos, like what we see on Tiktok and Instagram.

I guess our lives are getting busier and busier and there much higher expectations than before.

But since my mind did a complete backflip and scared the living daylights out of me, things haven’t quite been the same. Let me explain and break it down further.

I’m still functional, but with a low attention span

What exactly does that mean?

Well, I’ll explain it as follows:

• At work, I can stay on a task as long as it takes to finish. Sure, I have breaks, but I can work to my best abilities
• At home, I find myself with too many things to occupy my time, so I find it hard to decide what to do
• The things I can do then build up, like the amount of unread books on my shelf, or unplayed video games, or things I have bought that have just never been used. It’s annoying and a real shame.
• I then spend more time avoiding those things, because I can’t commit to doing them, or because I feel I don’t have the time.
• My stress and anxiety then builds up and the circle continues.

So how do you get out of a rut like this?

Well, I’d love to know!

Perhaps I need to force myself to do things differently, to force my mind into sticking with one task or activity without walking away immediately.

Let’s hope that things get better with time!

Love,

Zak