"Filter"

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does anyone have trouble filtering what goes on in your mind? Like i think its ADHD part of me where i cant concentrate on one thing and i get all these other thoughts. This is especially the case when i am doing something i am not interested in, or if i am obsessed with something that thought comes in. I am trying to work in my mind to "Kill" or "filter" that thought when it comes in.

Yes, always. Making it almost impossible to learn or work. I think I might have ADHD myself.

I think all my filters are broken.

Filter?? If I'm thinking about something, I'm THINKING about something. Everything else gets filtered OUT.

Interestingly, I am often better able to concentrate on reading in a safe public place like an airport or a university bookstore. It's as if the white noise helps me.

^

well its hard to describe, people without adhd have this ability to focus on things without getting other thoughts involved like they are "filtered". I am not sure if can explain it right, but like when i am reading a book other thoughts randomly come in that has no relation to the book. Like yesterday i was reading mockingjay and a thought about my ps3 just kept coming in along with other thoughts. Its just weird

This majorly. I often forget to pay attention to people when I am thinking and generally get really angry when people interrupt my thoughts.

ABSOLUTELY. This is probably my main problem.

I kind of got the idea the writer Stephen King may do something like this. He has written about his own writing at various times, and at one point he was talking about writing a short story after a longer piece, and I kind of took from this that ideas about the short piece were dancing in his head as was finishing the last third of the longer piece.

I tend to be either hyperfocus or no focus. I can't focus at all if I'm not interested. I am almost as incapable of focusing if I have an obsession I'd rather think of. Dry text books, like those we had in school, make it impossible for me to get info out of them; I have forgotten the start of the sentence by the time I get to the end.
I can't focus at all if there is noise around me (unless I'm in hyperfocus mode when the noise starts, then I don't notice anything), and I am very easily distracted.

I also have a high tendency of my mind going elsewhere when I read or listen to or watch something. Sometimes my mind wanders because it gets stuck on something that was said. Sometimes I can't stop myself from reacting to something (like things that make me angry, and so i react and then I have to start again, and then I might react it to it again and so on. It can be animal abuse or indifference to it, or comments in books / movies about "quiet and weird". Stuff like that).
Often I have problems focusing, my mind just drifts. I remember once we taped a 20 something minutes sit com that I was gonna watch later. When I watched it, I was alone, and I had to rewind I don't know how many times to get to see the entire episode. No lack of interest, it was just my wandering mind. Let's say I started drifting off 4 minutes into the show. I realised that I was and rewound it to about the place where I got lost, let's say I restarted it at 03: 30. Then I had about 30 seconds before I got to the place where I had fallen off, but by the time I got there, I was lost in thoughts again. And had to rewind. Guess what happened next? Yep, new rewind.
And don't even get me starting about music, I get lost immediately when I listen to the music I like.

That happens all the time.

For the record, my dx is AS, but I suspect I have ADD or ADHD-PI as it's called now.

When it involves one of my interests, I experience an intense hyper-focus. I rarely hear or notice anything else other than things that relate to the task I am completing. My perception of time also becomes essentially non-existent. However, when it does not have to do with these interests or it is simply not important to me, my focus is lacking and I am susceptible to the slightest distractions (my own thoughts, sensory issues etc.).

According to my doctor: the NT mind works from the general to the particular. The AS mind works from the particular to the general.

Thus, we are dealing with a sea of details, fragments, too much information - we are on a heap of bits and pieces and we have to pick out what is relevant ... yikes! And put them together - double yikes! I liken it to being a born constructivist.

I can focus extremely well on my interests, but the moment any disinterest begins to creep in, my mind doesn't just wander — it goes completely off the rails. I get lost.