I’m curious, how many people are aware of these sounds. I have designed, etched, and built my own switching power supplies along with winding my own transformers. I am aware of the source of the noise. So, does anyone else hear these high frequency sounds regularly?
It’s especially common among people with Autism/ASD and ADHD to hear noises other people often don’t hear. Like those LED light bars, or coffee pot crackling, or electricity from appliances. For ADHD I’ve seen a few people claim that those sounds are just as audible for everyone else, but everybody just subconsciously filters it out and doesn’t notice it, while people with ADHD are easily caught by it. I assume for ASD it would be somewhat similar – plus Autistic people are a lot more susceptible to sensory issues, although people with ADHD also often have fucked up senses, which can make noises like that a LOT more noticeable (and even problematic/headache-inducing/stressful/painful).
ADHD really seems like a superpower
This is an extremely common line that neurotypical people use to minimize the struggles that people with ADHD face on a daily basis. Pretty much every person with ADHD has heard the “well it sounds like you’re great at multitasking so it’s like a superpower” line. In reality, people with ADHD aren’t any better at multitasking; They’re just constantly forced into it because of their inability to focus on a single boring task at a time.
ADHD attention is directed by four main things: Interest, Novelty, Challenge, and Urgency.
If you find a task interesting, it’s all you’ll focus on. The person will struggle to focus on homework, but can focus on video games for hours. Even putting off basic needs like eating, sleeping, or using the restroom. A person with ADHD can literally focus on an interesting task so hard that they forget to feel hungry. This phenomenon is colloquially known as hyperfocus, and leads to a lot of common ADHD complaints (like how they’re always late, because they get hyperfocused on a task and completely lose track of the time.)
But if it’s not interesting, it needs to be novel. It needs to be something new. Pretty much every person with ADHD has a mountain of discarded hobbies, because the new hobby caught their attention while it was novel. But as soon as the novelty wore off, their interest waned. Because they weren’t really interested in the hobby; They were simply enjoying the novelty.
If it’s not interesting or novel, it needs to be challenging. People with ADHD will excel at big difficult projects at work, but struggle to complete the mundane day-to-day tasks. Because with neurotypical people, the brain will release a small amount of dopamine as a reward when they complete small tasks. It’s the brain’s way of saying “hey we did a good thing, so I’ll reward myself and be able to focus on it again next time!” But people with ADHD don’t get those small dopamine rewards. People with ADHD only get dopamine rewards for completing big difficult tasks. So they’re able to focus on those big difficult tasks, because they know it’ll lead to a big dopamine payoff in the end.
Lastly, there’s urgency. If a task isn’t interesting, novel, or challenging, it needs to be urgent. This is basically the “fight or flight” response being focused into a task. People with ADHD are expert procrastinators. Not because they enjoy procrastination or rushing at the end, but because the task isn’t interesting, novel, or challenging. So they need it to be urgent in order to be able to focus on it. This is basically just replacing dopamine with adrenaline.
But if it doesn’t fit any of the above four criteria, it’s basically impossible for a person with ADHD to focus on it. Even when they know they need to, or want to be able to. Instead, they’ll end up getting distracted by the fucking power supply whistling.
I did not have the brain power to reply so thank you for doing it for me and all of those of us who find it too “normal” to try to answer this for the like 20th time.
“Seems” being the key word. Oh sure, we have our moments. I once finished a 20 page paper overnight. I also procrastinated on it for a month. Nah, for the 5% this “superpower” works, we get to deal with the 95% struggle trying to get our brain to listen to our brain.
And don’t get me started on self-help articles and videos. You’ll find very few of those that talk about “Get better sleep!” and also mention adhd. All neurotypical. …which might be a good Youtube channel come to think of it. Taking all the advice and adjusting it to maybe help people with adhd.