Attention Deficit Ooooo Shiny, and other Quirks

Attention Deficit Ooooo Shiny

First off, I have to thank Peter Shankman for this wonderfully perfect phrase! I was “attending” a webinar that he was presenting at about PR and as he was speaking (non-stop for almost a full hour), he mentioned that he has what he calls Shiny Ball ADHD.

I totally connected with him! This fits me to a tee - sometimes! Of course when I say this to people I have to illustrate by turning my head to look at a non-existent passing shiny gizmo.

I tend to start talking about one thing (or someone else does & I interrupt them because I have to get this thought out of my head or it will just disappear or it seems like my head will explode) – and all of a sudden I’m going off in another direction on another topic…

Apparently, in my mind, we’ve already been in the midst of discussing whatever random subject pops into my head!

When I was seeing a therapist (Boy do I miss her), she actually asked me once if I thought I had Adult ADD. I told her no, but when I heard Mr. Shankman on that webinar about a year and a half ago – I thought, “Hell yes, that’s what I’ve got.”

Some people cope very well with having tons of stuff on their plate – I do. It’s just that I keep jumping from one thing to the next so it may it takes awhile for projects to get completed. They do, it just takes longer than it would be for someone who doesn’t flit from one thing to the next. Some people call it multi-tasking, some call it boredom, procrastination, lack of concentration, daydreaming – I like to think of it as a form of Creativity!

I get this from my Mom. No denying it – sorry Mom! She’ll start to tell a story (which she’s told you at least 3 times) and she’ll tell you to stop her if she’s already told you the story…when you say, “Yup, you’ve already told me about this,” she stops for a second, then keeps going. Apparently in her mind she has to finish the story no matter what the cost.

It’s a quirk, we’ve all got them. Some folks just have more prominent and dominant ones.

People who are very close to me can sometimes follow along and discover that 10 minutes prior to my bursting into the conversation about how I had only white or off-white cars until I bought my current car (dark, midnight blue Sebring Convertible…oh so fun!), that the speaker had mentioned the word “car” in passing in the middle of the conversation.

My cousin (actually one my first babysitters who I’ve known since I was 4 and our family’s have kind of meshed together – so we’re now family with no blood relation – a future blog post on this topic) has said a few times that she now truly believes, because of me, that there is such a thing as reincarnation and that she is convinced that I was shoeless, nude & hungry in a past life. All because of a few quirks and what seem like obsessions (nothing close to Imelda Marcos though) of mine.

Another gal, oh ya – my sister, says another one of my quirks is that I need every condiment on the table. It’s so not true! I’m very picky, but the condiments I like (salad dressing, ketchup, BBQ sauce, gravy, half and half, sauces) I use tons of! Apparently I am also prone to eating with my hands according to her….but only foods you should eat with your hands – Pizza, Tacos, Cookies, Burgers, French Fries, Subs, anything you can dip…ok, so that’s what I tend to basically eat.

If you look in my fridge, you’ll see a plastic baggie filled with taco sauce and ketchup. One of my shelves (of course there is a plastic, two-tiered shelf that takes up half a fridge shelf - not a whole fridge shelf, that would be silly!) is filled with all kinds of sauces -  BBQ, Sweet-n-Sour, Ranch, Chili, Tzatziki, Salad Dressing, etc. – so I guess she has a point.

And of course, my co-worker asked me when I was going to write another installment of “Living Life by the Seat of Your Pants”, so of course 10 minutes later, I had to stop what I was doing & start writing. Don’t worry Boss, it’s my lunch break J.

I have many other “quirks” and I’m sure I’ll be receiving a lists of the multitude of ones I missed from those near and dear to me.

As I’ve been writing this, I’ve started a paragraph on one thought, and as soon as part of that is down so I get it out of my head, I go back to another section and work on that again. Then I’ll reread the entire post, add in a few other thoughts and then go over the whole thing to make sure if makes sense and I’m being coherent, even though this one initial subject has gone off into 5 different directions…at the end, I want it to come back to the original subject.

How’d I do? Any quirks you’d like to share? It’ll make for interesting future subjects to write posts on.