Explain the feeling you get when your throughts or interests

Post Reply New Topic

get interrupted. Since I do not have the functionality as of now to go to college for neurosciences it would be nice to dig a bit deeper into my current research and patterns I've noticed. I would like you to try as hard as you can to explain that feeling most of us get when we are interrupted. I'll tell you more once I get some responses as I do not want to be an influence.

I guess I can go first. I feel very disoriented. If I am focused enough, it can even be a physical sensation, like vertigo. Often, I will have to make the interrupter start over because I simply can not make a sentence out of the words until I willingly change focus. When this happens, it can become impossible for me to switch back afterward.

Oftentimes, I feel ADD-style symptoms afterward and become listless. If the interruption is breaking into something that was very important or something that has a very solid deadline, I can also have panic attack symptoms, such as feeling like my clothes are constricting, needing personal space, heart pounding, feeling like the room is "stuffy", etc. I think that I actually do panic a bit when I feel derailed, though, so I'm not sure if that counts.

I feel annoyed & ticked-off

It loses its spark.

Most times, if I am truly focused on something, I don't even hear the attempts to interrupt me. By the time they do get my attention, they are already frustrated - and usually exasperated (How can you be sensitive to loud sounds but not hear me when I'm yelling your name?!). I have worked long and hard to not be snippy and short tempered in these situations.

The feeling is like trying to drag myself out of a trance. I often drift back to what I was doing as people are trying to talk to me because my attention was not fully disengaged. If I can manage to disengage myself and pay attention, I get very agitated, flustered, impatient and, depending on how important the task I was interrupted from was, I can actually go into meltdown because I am painfully aware of how long it will take me to get back into it,if I can at all. If I am interrupted from a task I had to force myself to do - I usually cannot find the focus to return to it, sometimes for weeks. I cannot, for example, sit down and pay my bills and have someone stop and interrupt me with a simple question like 'what do you want for dinner?' Even though it is essentially a sequential task I've practiced for decades, it can take me up to 20 minutes to refocus enough to continue.

My feelings are all internal and emotionally reactionary in these situations. I get no physical sensations when trying to disengage my focus.

To quote Frank Darabont (YouTube link) from an entirely different context, "It's like having sex and someone dumps cold water on you."

Nukular Meltdown!

Extreme irritation

Rage. I can't comprehend the words because the topic is not the same from what I was focusing. It's also hard to speak because i get really confused as well. Afterwards my attention to anything is notably less and I will rush to get stuff done.

I get frustrated and feel like I am going to cry if I can't get back to what I wanted to do.

I feel angry and annoyed.

Agreed with everybody else.

I have also physically an indescribably bad feeling of wanting to explode of anger, and after when I have controlled myself (sometimes having smiled and responded politely), the feeling doesnt disappear because I never exploded.

Slightly annoyed, but apart from that ok.
If I'm seriously hyper-focused on something I'm working on, I fail to even hear people. I have to be tapped on the shoulder or something like that, because I go seriously out of it focusing on my special interests.

its like someone throwing bowling balls at the front door when you've just managed to get to sleep after 3 days of insomnia....

At first there's confusion - trying to locate or identify what disturbed you
Then there's an agony of decision - do I answer the interruption or try and pretend its not there and hope it'll go awaya dn why won't you go away and let me get back to my happy place...
A moment trying to recover the peace and happiness you got startled from...
More agony of decision... can I get back to my happy spot at all anymore - is it gone, and how long is it gone for and...
Then the understanding the interruption won't go away and realizing happy IS gone and...
Facing the interruption full on, knowing that you are being forced to abandon the happy thing and deal with someone else's problem and...

...and you answer the door to find out they're selling duct cleaning services in an apartment complex fitted with electric baseboard heaters.

------------------------------------
------------------------------------

It feels like an elephant fell out of a clear blue sunday sky and landed on your favourite glass xmas tree ornament, and there's no logical explination for how the elephant got up there!