Can't stand the silence...

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I was wondering if this is an exclusively ADHD trait...how many of you find that you need a certain amount of noise or activity around you (as long as it keeps a respectful distance) to really concentrate, get things done, or just not go batty? Studying in silence is downright impossible for me, and I'm not much better with my writing, unless I have some kind of noise going on.

Music or TV is good for this...coffee shops are also good for this, because there are people around, but for the most part, different groups mind their own business.

Other ADHD'ers identify with this? What about the Aspie-types?

omg I wish I were deaf some days. LOL I LOVE silence. ahhhhh sooooo nice!

(I don't have ADHD.. maybe ADD don't know for sure)

I don't really hear silence because I have awful tinnitus, but I don't really need external sound. I'm fine with it either way, as long as it isn't an annoying sound (such as the sound of distorted voices, e.g. a television in a different room). It's interesting to speculate on whether I would dislike silence without the tinnitus, but I suppose we'll never know.

Definitely have tinnitus here, too--I think all the ear infections as a child did it.

I think it's playing with fireworks and gunfire that did it to me.

I have ADD (now merged with ADHD as a diagnosis) and I love silence. It gives me time to focus on the jumbled mess that is my thought process.

Interesting...I find that in silence my mind is more likely to wander. Give me music and I have more focus.

One of the best examples is when I was in grad school. We were given a room for our use, as a class--teachers came to us instead of us going to them. Each of us was given a key to the room to use any time we wanted for study or whatever. I would try to do it for a few minutes, to study in there, but unless I had headphones for music, I just could NOT tolerate it and had to leave for the coffee shop or something. I'd get fidgety, distracted, and just generally not comfortable in there.

Me too!! ! I don't have a grad school example to point to, but I find total silence just as distracting as total audible dissonance.

I like letting my mind wander. I am fascinated with what I come up with. Plus, it's something I do to help with my ADD without having to medicate myself. A type of mental exercise, if you will.

I love silence, it helps my brain to rest and helps keep overload down. I spend most days in compete silence (other than a heater on and my boyfriend visiting twice a week).

I did used to thou play music I liked when I used to study as that seemed to help me stay on task better as I hated to study during my school years.. so music made the whole thing a little more enjoyable. (otherwise I'[d wander off and find myself doing something else more enjoyable with the study never getting done. I actually hardly ever got my homework done or finished).

I did that a lot while I was in school, too. My inability to read and understand text books didn't help much, either.

Same here! I refuse medication, so I have to be very disciplined at work and have developed a lot of workarounds for handling the distraction. Some people would probably think it's ridiculous what kinds of things I have to write down as a reminder! There are other things that I've done to speed my work up so that I'm able to complete my work at the same or better times that a non-ADHD person would be able to (ex.: First thing I did when I got into my new job was look at the reports and figure out just how much stuff I could "automate." Only after five months has my company begun to catch up to some of the things I did, although some of their "fixes" created a worse mess than before, as is to be expected with a bureaucracy.). But at home...boy it's relaxing to just let go of all of that.

Which does not help with cleaning house--I'm starting to think that just as I have my 8 hours a day of concentrating at work on the weekdays, I may need to just designate Saturdays as a day for applying that kind of focus to my chores. I know people keep telling me to "work along," but I really don't think I can do that other than some very small tasks, after work all day.

I'm a stay at home mom, and I still can't manage to 'clean as I go'.

How do you do it, then?

Seriously, I am getting fed up with my inability to clean house appropriately, and fed up with my mom's remarks and nagging when she comes over to my place. (Which she can--she's the landlord.) I hate the remarks, but I realize that I have my own part in it too.

I don't really do it very well. During my manic phases, I clean like a mad woman. However, any other time all bets are off. Having two toddlers makes the job a little easier, though. Mostly because if I don't do 'this' or 'that', they could make a mess or even hurt themselves.

That reminds me... I have dishes to do. :-\

I have diagnosed ADHD and find silence very helpful because all the other sounds can be very distracting. regarding cleaning house and other organizing, I recommend the book the ADD friendly way to organize your life. It's written with the ADD reader in mind and the topics covered are very helpful. I got a little tidier after getting it and my files became completely manageable.