My ADHD Hyper-focus

It's exactly what happened to this blog. ADHD comes with the characteristic of hyper-focus. It can be a huge problem OR it can be brilliant! If you notice the dates on my blog posts, they start in 2010, picked up again in 2012, and are restarting now in 2014.
During the first round, I thought to myself, "hey, my kids are all diagnosed, people might be able to relate to our family, I should start a blog."  The second round came with a new business venture, It Works. If you were following my blog because of those posts, I've deleted them. Sorry, but they really didn't fit into my idea of what I meant for this blog to be about. However, at the time my hyper-focus kicked in and I had grandiose notions of making millions with those products. Intrest waned...bye bye It Works.
This is now my third attempt at blogging and, of course, I find my ADHD self obsessing over it. With the explosion of social media, I feel compelled to link everything to everything else. So my blog is tied to a twitter account (@jennsbusyhouse), I'm sharing on ADDitude Magazine's discussion boards, I Pin all my posts to my ADHD board on Pintrest, and I'm still trying to decide if I want to give myself a shout out on Facebook. The hyper-focus is driving my blog at this point, but I hope to push past it and follow it through, if anyone finds it interesting that is...
Other examples of hyper-focus in my life include:
- reading for pleasure: I have to plow through a book in about a week, otherwise I completely loose interest.
- going to university: I didn't decide to go to university until I was 25 (mostly because I always believed I couldn't be successful there). When I finally decided to go, I started in spring intersession because I could never have waited until September to start. I did my entire BA and my BEd in three years because I was hyper-focused on it and knew I could let up.
- It Works business venture: my hyper-focus for that only lasted about 4 months. I hadn't made any significant money during that time, so I couldn't be bothered anymore.

Do you find hyper-focus to be a positive or negative in your life? What kinds of things do you get hyper-focused on? How do you cope with it?

Why Would I Want to Get Rid of my ADHD???

So...my son is now 10. He's bright, beautiful, and bouncy. He has too many awesome qualities to list. But, one of my favourites is that we can now have deep, meaningful conversations, like this one about his ADHD:

Me: Casey, I was just reading an article about nutrition and food choices that could eliminate your ADHD.
Casey: No thanks.
Me: But, it's possible that you wouldn't have to take your pill anymore.
Casey: It's ok.
(as you can see he's a man of many words)
Me: But, don't you think we could try it for maybe two weeks and see how it goes?
Casey: (starting to get annoyed, with an accompanying are-you-out-of-your-mind look) MOM! Why would I want to get rid of my ADHD???

Touché

For this one, I give myself a pat on the back for always focusing on the benefits and positive qualities of ADHD. Ba-BAM, my son loves his ADHD!

What Box?

People with ADHD can "think outside the box".  Really, what box?  I think that those of us with ADHD never even knew there was a box! I recently came across a printable poster about reasons to love your ADHD.  I thought there were lots of good points on it!  It was from the website for ADDitute Magazine.  They had a couple of different printable posters that are very light-hearted.  They have asked that the posters not be reproduced, but here is the link if you would like to check them out:  http://www.additudemag.com/RCLP/sub/2734.html 
I think that many people need to realize that ADHD is not an inherently bad thing, there are many, many positives that go along with the diagnosis.  The trick is learning to use your strengths to your advantage and coping with your weaknesses...wait a minute doesn't that describe every one's life?