i used to read constantly as a kid...now i can't concentrate

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it's hard to believe.

i currently have issues with even reading given reading assignments--perhaps that's what got me to this subject because now here I am...a college age girl, with a big ten or eleven page long reading assignment i have to get out of the way and i just can't touch it.

yes everyone, i know it helps to read it out loud, or a bit at a time, so much a day, even keep a reading log, such and such a suggestion.

but i need something different. even if it's close to the ideas given above, does anyone have alternative suggestions to successfully get me interested in reading again? i mean, when i'm not reading stuff like this another thing my mom suggests and sometimes i think about is to start with the most leisurely reading and then work my way up. magazines and newpapers for me never really get me going. i look at the fashions in my subscribed issues of Elle and then leave the magazine stranded for a while before i ever take it somewhere to pass time at a reception room, but that's kinda leaving the subject.

anyway, any and all experiences-learned-from and/or better ideas are accepted here. really there's no right or wrong but keep in mind that I WANT TO LIKE READING AGAIN!! !! !

thanks.
chels

Do you like reading fiction? I find I'm much more energized about reading scientific papers after I've burned through a good sci-fi novel.

DISCLAIMER i do read kind of just because i need to, if i didn't get any reading done for classes i'd flunk out of HS and college, but beyond that i'll pick up a book for like just a few minutes, maybe more (i DID find luck in reading one really amazing novel nonstop until I ended interest abrubtly into the middle after some strange state of events but that was the most serious ), but mainly no reading outside of assigned schtuff. disappointing, it's part of my bipolar and my possible self-diagnosis of ADD that could be inhibiting my ablility to even finish a personal project, much less read normally. i'm weird like that but i still take this issue seriously.

sincerely, the faerie

i would say very little fiction if anything, but if anything i really do like poetry and it occasionally sparks my song-lyric writing but beyond that um...i was currently hoping to dive into Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, yes i know everyone and their grandma is reading it. if anyone can suggest the most light, intellectually funny (my most delectable genre ) kind of reading related to Safran Foer give me anything you'd start with if in my position. that goes for the person i quoted and anyone else

Wow, you remind me of myself - with bipolar, ADHD, and autism all rolled into one. (A fun combination, eh?) I used to like reading as a kid too, but it's gotten progressively worse over the course of my life. Now I force myself to read one page every day. (Unless I'm obsessed with the subject I'm reading, in which case I have zero problem whatsoever, and can read it all day long.)

Do you have a treadmill, or something else you could distract yourself with while reading? I've had pretty good luck with that in the past.

But it was really hard for me to get through college and do all the required reading, and since then I just haven't made it a priority in my life. I focus on things I actually enjoy, rather than ones that are torturous :/

What worked for me with college was adding skimming skills to my in-depth skills.

I also like something a cartoonist said about giving himself permission to take chances: Lower my damn standards.

So maybe, pick a high energy time and fly through the material. And if you bog, quit, and move onto something else.

I felt pressured to stop reading all the time. It was wrong to not be extroverted and do extroverted kinds of things. I eventually stopped reading books, I think this hurt my ability to concentrate on things for long periods of time. The only way I've found to help it is to go to the library and make myself read. However I have lots of time, and you probably don't.

If you need to get the reading done, but it seems like an unmanageable task I suggest breaking the reading into sections and digesting each section at a time. This may help you.