Welcome to my brain

It was hot outside, boiling inside, and the history books were calling my name. I definitely did not want to write my book report. Fourth grade was too short as it was. But it wasn't just that, I almost felt like I couldn't write that book report. Almost.

"Mom?" I asked, curiosity getting the better of me.
"Yes?"
"Do you think I have ADHD?"
"No," said my mom, annoyingly matter-of-factly. "I think you just don't want to write your report."

Burn.

In a way, she was sorta-kinda right. I didn't want to write that report. It was boring. And because it was boring, I couldn't focus and thought it was more boring. The cycle continued until it was late and I got a B for procrastination.

In grad school, I worked full time and went to school full time. My papers were always on time and done perfectly. This, however, was normal goody-two-shoes behavior. What made it a little on the excessive side was that my papers were usually done about three weeks before they were due, sometimes before the semester started, if I could get my hands on the syllabus early enough. I had laser focus, and I used it. After I was done at work and school for the day, I'd come home in the evening, throw my books on my three-foot-tall pile o' stuff on my bedroom floor or my five-foot-tall pile o' stuff on my bedroom couch and zone out on the CIA World Factbook or something equally nerdy.

Being the observant person that I am, I eventually asked myself the question that was so glaringly obvious it might as well have been spelled out in gigantic, flashing, Times Square neon letters.

What gives?

How come I could write a ten-page paper in two hours but couldn't bring myself to throw out that pile of Wal-Mart receipts on the floor next to the trashcan? Why did I feel sorry for myself if I had an A- average and then forget to wash my clothes for a week? Heck, why did I do so well in school in college when I totally forgot every deadline for every assignment in high school?

After performing some detective work, I self-diagnosed with raging ADHD, got myself on some meds, and chilled out a bit. Well, I tried to chill out a bit, but it was hard. Like, really, really hard. But I finally figured it out.

ADHD stands for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or eight-year-old male child, take your pick. And it's a total misnomer, in my opinion. Hey, look at me. Would you call my pathological overachieving an attention deficit? Not unless you wanted to get a major earful from yours truly. Or would you describe me as hyperactive? Pshh, no. Once again, here's Mom to illustrate.

"If I were an animal, vegetable, or mineral, but not me, what would I be, Mom?" said my sister, giggling.
"I think you'd be a watermelon!" Mom responded. "Very summery, sweet, and of course, very pink!"
"Pink!" squealed my sister.
"Well," I said, poking my nose out of Little Women. "What would I be, do you think?"
Mom thought for a second.
"I think," she said, with all seriousness. "I think that you'd be a log in the forest."
"A log?" I was a little bit sad. I didn't like pink, but logs were kinda... boring.
"Yeah," Mom went on. "You'd be a log. I mean, you don't really move around too much. You really love to read your books and that's what I always see you doing. So that's why I think you'd be a log."

Yeah, I'm totally not hyperactive.

So let's fix the ADHD misnomer as it occurs in Grace's brain, shall we?

Let's change attention deficit to stimulation sensitive. My brain needs to have the appropriate amount of stimulation at all times, or it will make its own. I can have too little stimulation, too much stimulation, or just the right amount!

When my brain is not stimulated enough (I'm looking at you, stupid book report), two things can happen. Either I'll wander off and look for something more interesting, or my thoughts will drift off to something that I find more interesting. This is where I tend to get told I'm just a lazy bum. Basically, if something doesn't catch my eye, I'm just not stimulated enough by it because I find it boring. And if it's not stimulating enough, it's very hard for me to focus. Thus, faced with a book report, I was not stimulated enough. I compensated for the lack of stimulation by doing things I found more stimulating, like reading more Little Women or thinking about reading more Little Women. In college, cleaning my room was not stimulating. I compensated by focusing on the more stimulating parts of my college experience, like writing papers and writing more papers (shut up, I hear you over there).

My brain can also have too much stimulation. Take shopping for clothes, for example. I learned long ago that after about an hour of clothes shopping I started snapping at everyone, getting anxious, walking around in circles (literally), and feeling like I wanted to just lie down and sleep then and there under the socks display. All the colors would seem to bright, the lights would be too bright or not bright enough, and the music would always be way too loud. There was so much going on my brain just couldn't filter it all at one time. A good dose of focusing on just one stimulating thing helped to cool me off - like playing with my phone or listening to music on headphones.

When I have just the right amount of stimulation, I'm engaged, can focus on things that I find understimulating for limited amounts of time, and am generally on the ball. Unfortunately, this state mainly occurs about thirty minutes after I take my meds. It's rare that this state can be found in the wild, but I'll take what I can get.

And finally, let's change hyperactivity to hyperfocus. If I find something that stimulates my brain, I tend to stay with it. Whatever it is, I get really, really into it. In college, I hyperfocused on my grades. When I was younger, I hyperfocused on reading. Now that I've embraced the nerd that I am, I hyperfocus on geography statistics. I can get really into interactive maps and I can spend hours doing it. So many hours, in fact, that I forget to go to the gym. Such is life.

Thus, our acronym becomes SSHD. Catchy.