The assistant put me on a room with a laptop, and instructed me to try to finish the computerized test in 30 minutes. There was a helpful timer on the other desk.
It was pretty easy. You just clicked when you saw certain shapes. As you progressed, the shapes became more various and appeared more quickly.
Then I noticed the music. I could hear that the assistant outside my testing room playing rock music. Pretty low, but increasingly loud, which I had no trouble hearing. As the puzzles got harder and the timer wound down, she played it louder. This test was a big deal for me.
I got up, opened the door, and said, “Would you mind turning it down?” I knew she heard me, but didn’t acknowledge me. Maybe there was a psychosocial aspect to the test.
I quickly sat down and tried to regain my concentration as the graphics appeared. They were faster. I thought I could match shapes pretty quickly, but the speed was faster than i could register. And her music was even louder!
I got up, opened the door, and protested again. Still no response. What was she doing on her computer?
With 2 minutes to go and the shapes quickly overlapping each other, I put my head in my hands and gave up.
When I talked to the doctor, I knew his results were probably bad. “But,” I protested, “this assistant outside the room kept playing music while I was trying to concentrate.”
“She wasn’t playing music,” he said. “It was the test you heard.”
Yep, 30+ years past my last schooling, I was diagnosed with ADHD. That explains a lot. And I had thought the whole time it was the depression making me unable to think.
Lo Scriviti 