Attention Alternative
by Jessica Messinger
"Yes, that is true," I respond to Him, "but there's more to it than that. When I was a child, my brain developed severe ADHD, and I couldn't maintain my concentration on any one topic for more than a few seconds. Yet, I still managed to recircuit my thought patterns, so that I could play back what somebody says when I wasn't paying attention. The key thing there, is how do you remember what somebody says if you're not paying attention in the first place. I was remembering and replaying background noises, such as people talking directly to me, which with ADHD, was in fact background noise. The downside, was that it made people think that I was paying attention, and must be stupid if he takes that long to answer a question." He releases a mild chuckle, indicating He finds my story interesting, and I am welcome to continue, so I do. "Meanwhile, my mind was working overtime to replay the previous few seconds. As I got older, I was able to replay further and further back, eventually to about three to four minutes, but then i needed to look like I was paying attention, which I never did anyway, while watching the live replay of the previous few moments. That took time. At first, I just stared off blankly while my brain raced to process the memory in my frontal cortex, which also controlled motor functions, so I couldn't figure out how to get both results at the same time from the same part of my brain, the front and back of the frontal lobe to process memories and control my facial expressions simulataneously. I was tapping into my long term memory to save the instant replays. So my long term memory is packed to this day with vivid childhood memories where I can still relive the whole experience. So, while all this is going on in my head, and sometimes it took a few seconds before I could even begin playing back, because as I returned from whatever distraction caught my mind for that minute or two I was daydreaming, I needed to record a few moments of the present, so I could have a few seconds to begin rewinding, and then my brain would connect the rewind of the few seconds of the present with the events that preceded them. Hence, I rewired my brain to be able to answer a question I wasn't paying attention to when I was asked. But it actually made things worse, because since I eventually was able to listen to their question, they figured I was just stupid because it took me so long to answer while I just stood there staring blankly like an idiot. So that required my mind to activate yet another part of my brain to check my facial gestures, but not the area that normally handles motor skills and facial gestures, because that part was needed to process the memories, and all that while my mind worked in hyperdrive with many different parts of the brain working simultaneously with the other parts replaying the previous moment, watching the memory, and hearing the question I was asked into my conscious mind where I kept a giant chalkboard at the very front of that imagination area to sometimes write the words down so I could see them together and possibly get my mind to register the complete sentence so I know what to answer. That's how severe my ADHD was. I couldn't read two words and still remember what the first word was. The more I would read sentences, the more frustrated I would get at having to continuously reread the sentence repeatedly, sometimes more than a dozen times only to have retained no understanding of what I just read. Finally, I needed to quickly formulate an answer cause i already wasted so much time just trying to figure out what question I was answering with the new brain hack and the ability to rewire my own brain while suffering from ADHD in such a severe form I couldn't connect two words together, let alone a whole sentence. I had to replay the words even sometimes while I was actually listening to someone, or more like while someone was talking to me, because let's face it, something in my mind did not allow me to process words either said or written to be able to understand the essence of the sentences those words formed; they were just words that I couldn't connect." I take a breath to step back and see if He remains interested in hearing more. He just stares at me with a look on His face that I can only describe by the message it was sending: 'what are you waiting for?' I continue. "Creating a chalk board to write down words as I hear them in the replay proved to be a valuable method to see the words together so my brain could register a visual understanding of the complete question or sentence that was just spoken to me rather than just a bunch of words I would hear together, which was how my mind first responded to ADHD. At the end of all that work, people were eventually convinced I was fucken retarded or something because of the long pause that followed any question I was asked. I had hacked my brain's standard design into a process that converted any ignored verbal statements into a written format for my brain to read and respond to. Well, I think we can agree that accessing parts of my brain to be used for purposes other than their original design would be impossible to do while suffering from a severe attention-deficit problem. So maybe divine intervention played a role in how I was able to use multiple parts of my brain at the same time in a manner inconsistent with their intended use or maybe I somehow managed to focus on building my brain to work differently using my brain as the tool to do it?" "Don't blaspheme in my presence," He orders. "Right," I acknowledge, "one of the downsides was when I snapped back from an ADD moment, I had to begin recording so I could save those few moments of the present immediately following my momentary space out into my long term memory and then seamlessly connect directly with the memory of the words spoken when I was daydreaming or just unable to focus; but, and this is huge, if someone tried to snap me out of my little daze during my rewind attempts, perhaps by shouting my name right in front of my face thinking I was rudely daydreaming, I would lose focus and not be able to complete the process, thereby looking even stupider when I ask them to repeat the question after staring off into space with what should have been the time used to formulate a response, not ask them to repeat themselves. I genuinely looked like I was retarded. So all that work did not account for the timing and the resulting perception people would have while I worked out the glitches to my new brain wiring in real life situations. I was literally staring off into space even more than the normal playback time to recalibrate my brain to work better the next time when I realized something got fucked up and I would not be able to complete the memory rewind process. I figured if I'm not answering their question anyway, why not at least try to fix the process to work for the next time. Well, eventually, and I mean way way down the road, it finally worked. I rewound a few seconds of the present then continued rewinding and viewing the moments when I wasn't paying attention. Again, keep in mind the time delay of up to a half a minute made me look completely fucken mentally handicapped. At one point, I think third grade, they wanted to send me to a special school on the short bus with the other hopeless kids." "I remember that," He adds, confusing me, but rather than get sidetracked by asking Him how he could remember my childhood, I continue. "An IQ test a few months later determined I was smarter than my teachers, who attributed my classroom success in the years to follow to what they referred to as learning through osmosis; didn't pay attention, didn't do homework, never did any assigned readings, so osmosis they guessed? Sure, I can't really argue that. I will say that I remember trying to access the classroom memories during tests when I had just no idea of even the context of a test question. That didn't work. The memory hack only worked when I just missed something within the last minute or so, and not once ever for recalling a teacher's lecture from weeks earlier that at the time I wasn't listening to anyway, so in the two or three minutes I had to dedicate to that one particular question of the exam, I somehow still managed to do better than my classmates, but some, not all. Let's all be grateful for that curve. I honestly do not understand how I passed my classes without ever listening to a single word the teacher spoke, in most cases. I guess I just went with whatever felt true, and somehow that put me in the advanced classes with the overachievers. I, of course, being the epotomy of underachievers, but so much smarter that my lack of effort to achieve my best and my effort to actually do the opposite of that placed me at par with my peers who were considered intelligent." "Say what?" He interjects, signaling He has detected a lie. "Okay, well, not exactly. I started rebelling a little early in life when I started realizing the circle of influencers in my childhood were treating me worse than the way other children were treated within their universes. So at a young age, I had already decided this world was not fit to benefit from my intelligence." "Agreed," He adds rather arrogantly. "So, I thought without thinking, I guess is how I would describe it if this was a Bruce Lee movie. But really, I placed my thoughts directly into my memory without giving it any thought, ha! Clever? No? Nothing?" "Crap," He offers, not even hesitating a moment to indicate that He gave the joke any thought, but He certainly did. "Alright," I reply.