Communication & Dense Thought

[cjnolet]

I remember my dad & stepmom telling me when I was a teenager "Nobody else is interested in that other than you". It used to really hurt when they said that to me. It was almost certainly related to my obsessive hyperfocus stages where I would consume my thoughts with things I was interested in and that's all I would want to talk about.

Right now, it's ADHD.... Well, I've got a few other things as well that I'm obsessed over, like things I'm doing @ school and things I'm doing at work. Neither of which are really an obsession over family, unfortunately.

When I had my first son, I was obsessed over him. That lasted a few years, actually. Probably longer than any other obsession I've ever had. It didn't take long, however, before he just became another responsibility of mine. That's not to say I don't spend time with my kids and I'm not physically present. The problem is that I'm often not mentally present.

So with that- my wife & I are really trying to work on us. My wife is very caring & loving person who often thinks of others before herself... too much. I'm similar in that I do think of others, but much different in that the distribution of my thoughts is more skewed as a result of the shear amount of thoughts I have in the course of a day.

For instance, let's get into statistics for a moment. Recall histograms from school, which can be looked at as a bar graph with frequency of occurrence (number of items) on the y-axis and the type of thought on the x-axis. In a day's time, I'm sure my wife has the amount of thoughs of a normal human being- which would likely be many thoughts about body movement, thoughts about things that need to get done, thoughts about reasoning for decision making (like picking up kids from school on time, making sure they are safe while in her care), etc...

I'm sure at some point, you could represent her thought process as being somewhat bell curved. So if we took that histogram and turned it into probabilities, we would see that the bell curve would probably represent her thinking about others (which means higher probability) vs the tails of the bell curve which would be random thoughts likely related to anxiety, or thinking about herself, or just other thoughts in general.

If we were to analyze the distribution/curve of my thoughts, I'm sure you would see many thoughts in there about my kids and wife and friends and other family and people I'm with at work, etc... And by thinking about others, I'm strictly including only thoughts about others in an empathetic way. Other thoughts about others, like out of fear, anxiety, etc.. .would be in a different place (a different category on the x-axis) in the histogram. It's likely I would say I even have the same amount amount of thoughts about others that she has in the course of a day.

The problem isn't so much about whether or not I'm thiking about others. The difference, I believe, is related more to the frequency of other thoughts that I have during the course of a day. Scientific, inquisitive, discriminative (in terms of science), objective, creative, problem solving, loving, empathetic, fearful, exciting, hopeful, thoughtful. It's not so much that these categories aren't in my wife's thought histogram. Not by a long shot. The problem is that my histogram contains a lot more noise and equiprobable thoughts distributed across all the categories I've mentioned, rather than having a nice bell curve.

So I'd say- it's likely that my hyperactive, hyperfocused, unquiet, mind is so consumed by such a dense mixture of thoughts that I tend to spend more time consumed by the mass of them rather than the simplicity of demonstrating my empathy (as a nonADHD brain would likely do). I truly believe people think of me as narcissistic because I tend to shift conversations towards thoughts that are currently consuming my attention rather than being able to shift and settle for their thoughts. I think this is ADHD... .the focus problem... in some ways, I think it's geneous but in others I think it creates loneliness.

My wife is getting to the point where she's telling me when it happens but often times that's too late. She'll be talking and I'll be nodding my head, hyperfocused on things going on in my head, and then I'll suddenly shift the conversation to things going on in my head and I can tell she feels let down. She knows I'm not necessarily doing it on purpose but @ the same time, we've been together for 11 years and it's only gotten worse. She used to think I was obsessing over things to escape from reality. In a way, I don't think that's untrue, but I don't think the intention is to escape, I think my mind pulls me into its own world and it's a lot easier for me to get lost there than others.

One side of me is scared to change it because it's how I've survived.

Another side of me knows I need to change it or I'm never going to be the father, husband, son, friend, or coworker I need to be.

Mindfulness training is helping somewhat, but my job forces me to get lost in my head, because that's how complex data science problems get solved.

[iBusyBrain]

I know just what you are describing. I lost my first wife, as she eventually grew tired, a could not cope in her desire for attention.

In short, I would say this...go somewhere...like a coffee shop, nearby park bench, and make it a point to talk with one another without the distraction. My second wife (most amazing partner) and I always spend about a half hour each evening together--so distractions--just talk and listening.

[Distractedmom]

I can really relate to what you are saying! As the stay at home parent in my family I am literally forced out of my own head to keep everyone alive and fed but so much of what you said in your post really resonates with me!

[HadEnuf]

I catch myself unintentionally diverting conversations, myself.

Had a devil of a time in one relationship where my partner took great umbrage and would carry the conversation further off track berating me for “not listening”, only to be shocked on finally hearing what I'd been repeating (by then, for as much as ten minutes) that made very clear that I was fully aware and got the original point long before it was even fully spoken.

Mind you, this is also the one with a severe, adverse response to echoing...there are always a few with whom what works for most others becomes an epic fail.

But the point is that it's tough to curb my tendency to drift, mentally, if someone continues long after I've understood their point.

Doesn't help that my late (also verbally gifted) wife and I tended toward conversations at an extremely high level of coding and abstraction: we'd go on, and on, over a huge range of topics, never missing a beat and always knowing we had understood each other—heck, the very ability to do that is what brought us together, in the first place.

The downside is it was bad habituation for dealing with most of the human race: I'm still learning what you are!