Doing it my way, distractions help me concentrate.

[leirda]

People don't believe me when I say I need distractions to help me concentrate. I mostly just need background noise. Music is especially helpful. I just can't be in total silence, I need to fall back on something

Comments

[themachinestops]

When I was trying to drive, I was better at it when I could have a CD in the player. Ideally, it was a CD I'd listened to many times before and knew by heart, so that I wasn't using valuable brain power appreciating a new album. Of course I still sucked at it which is why I don't have a license, but still, if I try again I'm definitely keeping that in mind.

But if anyone talked to me or a phone rang, I'd come close to crashing. Yeah, maybe it's better that I don't have a license.

I listen to music when I'm out in public, pretty much all the time. When you say your ears are hurting, do you mean hurting from the earbuds or from the volume being up too high? If the former, there are over-the-ear headphones that may be more comfortable, if the latter, turn it down (I find that softer music is more conducive to concentration anyway... if I can't hear someone saying my name when they're standing right next to me, the music's too loud).

As for work, if you have a job which won't be affected by having a little music playing either through headphones or on a radio, ask about it. In the past I've always just asked if I can listen to music while I work and the answer was usually yes, but then, I've mostly had data-entry-type jobs. I never brought up ADHD specifically (because I wasn't diagnosed with it then), but did bring up "concentration." More people than you think will be understanding of the need for some kind of noise, after all, why else would there be music playing over the speaker system in stores? Maybe music/non-silence is not AS important to most people, but needing it is not something that will be considered insane.

[leirda]

It's more about the pain of having in earbuds, not the volume. The only problem with over the ear headphones is that they are more easily heard by other people, which could get annoying for them. And along those lines, I have a younger brother I'm around constantly (younger as in 9 years old) and I can't really listen to anything with bad words or a suggestive nature with those types of headphones (even with the volume being lower).

But you have really good suggestions, thank you.

[rainarana]

I have the same thing with ear buds. I have the type with soft rubber that mould to the shape of your ear. Like this: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Creative-EP-635-ear-earphones-rubber/dp/B000GB3ANW

[nebulosity]

Being ADHD, I never actually noticed your icon. Is that Schrodinger? I saw "borrow cat," and I was like, "What? ...... ROFLLLLL must be Schrodinger."

[themachinestops]

Yep!