Meddling, muddling ADD querent

FLizarraga

I have been laughing my head off at the responses I have received here. By the way, the money is a complete non-issue, I only mentioned it to show that she is a great friend of mine. So don't worry about it --I don't. :)

Yes, I already stop when the phone rings, ask her to turn it off, and have managed to get her settled enough that she won't bother me that much. She is not one of those compulsive "read for me everyday" types, either --she asks me to read for her once every couple of months or so, and sometimes I'm the one who offers when she gets in a quandary and needs clarity. And she is not disrespectful at all. Trust me on that.

When I wrote the post, I was basically venting because my last reading for her was a really bad reading --for me. I couldn't concentrate, and I couldn't go into any depth. It was a reading for her current situation and immediate future --she had just moved (same building, though) and made some important changes in her life. Being particularly anxious, she was particularly disruptive, so my concentration was like at level zero. So I just read intellectually, and it has proven to be very accurate so far, but my intuition was pretty much AWL.
 

danielnogo

Grizabella said:
I have ADD and ADHD family and two of them I raised from birth. So anything anyone wants to tell me about being ignorant and mean probably needs some rethinking. I've also worked with kids with the problem. And married someone with it. And a lot of them were untreated. I'm old. Calling the issue a long named problem and shoving a pill into them wasn't always the answer because it hadn't been invented yet.

What I said about stopping when she doesn't pay attention is a very benign way of helping her to focus. There's nothing wrong with that. It's really very simple. Reading cards, she answers phone, stop reading cards till she pays attention. Read cards again, she fiddles with phone, reading stops, And there's absolutely nothing wrong with finally just picking up the cards and saying "Okay, 'nuff for now" and doing something else. Doing things to help your friend makes more sense than enabling her to act this way, doesn't it? Obviously, if you didn't want suggestions you wouldn't have posted about it. It's absolutely true that people with ADD can---and definitely do---hyperfocus when they're interested in something.

And if you owe your friend money, why not pay her back some other way if she isn't into readings? It seems like she'd want something she really valued---like maybe a new phone case now and then or something. :)
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Hey sorry, I didn't mean that as a serious statement, did not mean to hurt your feelings.
 

3ill.yazi

I think you need to put your foot down about the phone. Have a nice like woo woo box you can lock it in during readings.

If she truly has ADHD, maybe you can do readings that give her more of something to do. The de Mellet spread for instance, where you each deal out cards. Or just give here a decoy deck that she has to keep shuffling the whole time. Like chewing gum: fidget to focus.

Another vote from an actual person here with ADD who urges you to be mindful that some of us truly have a problem staying focused ... If we don't have the proper motivation and conditions.
 

OaksWhispering

Only she can manage her behavior, and since not doing readings for her is not an option, I suggest you change your own perspective on the situation. You can only control your own actions, so do whatever you can to make this situation less frustrating for you. Someone mentioned tea - that's a good idea. Perhaps while she stops listening to use her phone, you could write down what you see in the cards. Maybe you could even ask her to leave the room while you do the reading and call her back in when you're ready, with notes.
Before you even start the reading, take her phone from her and put it on silent. I am sure being the good friend you say she is, she will do what she can to help you as well.
 

NightVision

I think the problem here is not the friend: it's the damn phone.

Does anybody remember a time when society was conscious of itself, people greeted each other, buses trips were only full of moderate conversation, people looked where they were going, and waited for convenient times to speak to each other?

Then these horrible little devices turned up and ruined EVERYTHING.
 

Chimera Dust

I've had to deal with people being generally distracting while I'm trying to focus on a reading for them. Usually, I just explain that I need them to stay still and let me finish before asking more questions, and say this politely so they won't be upset. It tends to work for me.

Maybe you could always talk to your friend before a reading, and explain that you don't mind reading for her but that you find it really hard to focus on the reading because of how much she talks during it, and lay down some basic behaviour guidelines. If you're doing this outside of a reading, it might help her pay attention to what you have to say, and will give you more time to explain why this is a problem.

Otherwise, you could say you think that you focus better without another person in the room, and do the readings from a distance by just reading and then calling or e-mailing her the results.
 

chimera68

butterfly in the sky....i can fly twice as high....take a look, it's in a book, a reading rainbow.

reading, yeahhhh.
 
inaccurate readings Putting something to protect flimsy cards?