Is there such a thing as mild ADHD?

From what I have seen in the media, t seems like an all or nothing thing. Anything less than the full set of symptoms is something else. And I have never emheard/em of a mild case, or half a case, or whatever.

And I bet the ADHD community wouldn’t consider me one of them. But I have been pondering this subject in relation to myself, and I am starting to wonder if I might be somewhere on the lowest end of that spectrum.

What got me thinking about it is the fact that when I was in school, I always had to participate in class in order to keep my attention on it. Too long without asking or answering a question, and I would tune out.

That need for a higher, more interactive experience in order to maintain focus sounds sort of ADHD to me.

And I figured out a long time ago that I could never do any kind of job like being a security guard where you job is to wait for something to happen. I could never watch security monitors for hours, or repeatedly patrol the same areas over and over again with zero going on. I would totally zone out,nbsp; and then something would happen, and I would get fired.

Again, I need stimulation in order to stay focused.

Another thing that has come to mind lately : I have never actually fallen asleep in class, at least not for more than a couple of seconds, but this is not because I am an especially alert dude. Far from it.

It was because I would focus on the instructor’s voice, and if I heard it cut off, I knew that meant I was falling asleep and I would jerk myself awake with a vengeance. In the process of developing,nbsp; gave me a fear of missing out type reaction when stimulus levels drop too low, causing me to panic.

I am positive that has something to do with my sleep problems.

And speaking of sleep, there is that problem I have going from a stimulating task to actually falling asleep. No matter how gentle the activity, even something as gentle as reading can make me incredibly anxious when I go from it to full stop in order to actually sleep.

So essentially, every time I try to sleep, I have an anxiety attack.nbsp; That is so fucked up. There must be a way to learn to emgently /empower down my brain, so that the energy of my mentally stimulated brain doesn’t turn into anxiety.

I don’t know if all these pieces form a puzzle or not. I might be seeing patterns where there are none. I might be trying to make one model plane from random parts from five different kits.

But combined with the echo stuff from yesterday,nbsp; one thing is clear :

I have a very weird brain.

More on this when I get home.

(—)

Another potential hyperactivity clue : my insatiable need for variety in some things, especially music. That might be more of a bandwidth than a throughput issue, but the fact remains that it is not the norm at all. Most people could be happy with maybe 500 songs. Some people could be happy with 5. But I have over 4,000 and that’s still not enough.

Why is that? Why is it that my mind retains the impression of music for so long after listening it that I feel like I “just” heard something when I hear it five days later? What drives this need for variety?

Hell, why do I need so much mental stimulation in the first place? I swear, I was born that way. i was obsessed with books, television, and video games when I wasn’t even in school yet. The need for mental stimulation, and a related need for low physical stimulation, has been with me for as long as I remember.

Why do I need this much stimulation? Why has it always been this way? What is it in me that makes me seek out stimulation of a high enough level to keep my mind engaged while living a life that keeps physical stimulation to an absurd minimum?

Is this just the normal side effects of a high IQ inefficiently used? Do a lot of high IQ people have the same problems as me? Or do I have some fundamental flaw in my brain structures that causes all this madness?

Or is it a body type issue? Maybe what manifests as full on ADHD in small-bodied high metabolic rate types manifests as something totally different in us big bodied slow metabolism types.

It manifests as hyperactivity of the mind. Which is what I have.

Again, maybe I am way off base on this whole thing and this whole thing is nothing but the diseased ravings of a deranged mind.

But I can’t shake the feeling that I am on to something that might yield a lot of fruitful insight if only I could wrap this oversized mind of mine around it.

I suppose it would be nice to find out that there is something physical wrong with my brain. Even if it can’t be fixed, it would, in that perverse way of thinking that depression engenders, make me feel less guilty about being crazy.

See? It’s right here on this MRI. See that blotch there? That’s a very important part of my brain, and it’s broken. Been that way since birth. Nothing I could have done about it.

Even thinking that way suggests I need to get my head examined. And I would love to get a thorough brain MRI to rule out the possibility of brain abnormalities.

Although, full disclosure, I am at least partially motivated in that by being such a huge brain science nerd and really wanting to see a 3D representation of my own brain.

I mean, how meta would that be? I would be looking at the thing that is seeing it!

Well, I guess that’s all I have to say about my weird brain. Tomorrow, I may do a video roundup.

Until then, be well.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.