My ADD: Boredom and Hyper-Focus

I was diagnosed with ADD about 9 months ago. I’ve since come quite a long way, thanks to finding a great psychiatrist who has me on a good combination of medication, as well as exercising every day.

There is one thing that I have noticed that apparently is quite typical of ADD, which is that it is extraordinarily difficult for me to focus on anything that bores me, while at the same time, when I become very interested in something, I hyper-focus on it and become totally engrossed in it.

So growing up, this manifested itself in my school experience. Topics like Chemistry were a nightmare, and it was as if I was listening to an alien language during class. On the other hand, topics I liked, such as Literature, were easy A’s with little effort.

And I still go absolutely insane when I’m bored. For instance, I write about this all the time – my job is boring. I read an article about ADHD where someone commented that for us, boredom is “the kiss of death”. It’s true. It’s extremely difficult for me, even with meds, to engage at all in anything I don’t care about.

But on the flip side, I get totally engrossed in things, usually one thing at a time. I didn’t grow up with any background in it, but in my 20’s (oh man I’m old now, ahhhhh), I learned in various Yeshivas, which are academies for studying Talmud, kind of like Rabbinical studies (though I am most certainly not a Rabbi). I was full time for about 5 years and half time for another 2.5, and I was totally into it. I remember it was my second year there when I was perhaps the most enthralled – the standard study was done in study partners, and the normal study periods were about 9:30am-1pm, then 3-6pm, then 8:30-9:45. At one point I was studying all those, and also early in the morning before breakfast, most of the lunch break, and from 10pm until about midnight. I still study, and enjoy it, but I now have to balance it with work, family, and so on.

I was totally obsessed with Fantasy Baseball the past couple years. I placed 2nd in half of my leagues the first year, and won 1 of out my 2 leagues this past year.

But just as quickly as a fire is lit within me, it can just burn out. For instance, now I’m not even sure if I’ll play fantasy baseball next year, as my fascination has shifted to the blockchain/crypto space. I’ve been in it only a few months but, as they say in Yeshiva, I’m “holding” (not like hodling, just meaning I know a lot about it). I don't even feel like I'm trying, I just devour anything I can about it without hardly realizing it. I enjoy the hyper focus, but I worry about it slipping away.

Most sources (doctors, therapists, books, etc) I’ve heard say that this “hyper-focus” ability is part and parcel of ADD. One expert in the field, Russell Berkeley, insists that there is no “upside” at all to the disorder and no evidence that anything like hyper-focus is the result of having it.

So is this just my personality? Is it my ADD? And is the hyper-focus a good thing, even? I’m not sure. But it's me, that's for sure.