…was I ADHD all along??
Jest aside, I guess we all do this to an extent, but ADHD ppl have it much harder.
I do it quite often here and I think of them as footnotes to my writing, because they are tangential thoughts, but still important to what I’m trying to express that it shouldn’t be considered a bonus: the asides are more like a public “note to self”.
It also makes the writing feel more raw and stream of conscience-y. (I don’t have a better word to describe it.)
stream of conscience-y
I think that’s why I relate to the OP tweet so much. When I’m writing a text or comment, it’s usually in a inner-voice type of thing where I’m imagining myself speaking directly to the person. And I definitely speak with lots of parenthetical “bonus thoughts”
When I’m writing out something important, an official letter or work email, etc. I take my time to form the full thoughts and put that all down in writing as properly as I’m able to.
For work email, I suggest writing it as simply and direct as possible while still being polite. People really don’t like reading essays for work emails.
Yes! I have learnt to not be ashamed of those, at least in anonymous communities
Is this one a common trait? I love writing, but I have to constantly rewrite because every sentence uses parenthetical tangents.
Don’t forget braces {} if you have an especially rambling sub thought.
Anytime I get to a point where I even need to consider using braces or brackets, I know that’s when I need to rewrite the whole thought lol
My luck I’d delete what I wrote to rewrite it and forget something.
Definitely been there and done that
This is just called bad grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
The ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) urge to use parentheses in every sentence as every thought comes with additional bonus content.
Ftfy.
They said, whilst using and Oxford comma in a list without sublists🤪.
To piggyback on this—if it’s an important bit of information, include it sans parentheses. If it isn’t important, get rid of it.
…and no, not every thing that comes to mind is important or relevant.
To you
Neither might it be important to your audience. Communication isn’t usually about communicating what’s important to the speaker but what’s important to the listener.
And I say this as someone who constantly has to do summaries at the end of even my shorter sentences because I end up overexplaining things.
Cool, than stop gossiping about Linda in accounting. Because that really isn’t important or relevant either, but one of them is frowned upon and the other isn’t……
Heresy!
…and no, not every thing that comes to mind is important or relevant.
This statement let out 1000 tiny screams in my brain the moment my eyes stopped reading it.
Blasphemy of blasphemies! 😭
That comma after spelling is even worse when talking about grammar
oh god I do this all the time, excessively, and have to rewrite emails and posts multiple times to get rid of them as much as possible. sometimes I’ll be writing a parenthetical and need to nest others within it…
It’s hard.
As long as you escape the inner parentheticals there is no problem (escape as in adding "" to it \(just as in programming \\\(because we do this as much as you do \\\\\\(in many languages\\\\\\).\\\)\)).
“Nested Parentheticals” can totally be the title of my 15,000 word autobiography. lol
I fight this urge frequently.
{Nested [Parentheticals] - (An Autobiography), By Admiral Patrick}
I do this so much at work and have to constantly remind myself not to overdo it (otherwise people will think I’m crazy).
Usually by my third edit I’m ready to send. Of course, by then I’ve begun to question if anyone is interested in my option anyway and why am I sending this email? They probably know all this already and I’m too stupid to have realized it.
Occasionally replace the parenthesis with a semicolon – or dashes – and you can get away with it more often.
I am guilty of overusing em dashes — I just think they’re aesthetically pleasing, even if they’re often unnecessary.
The thing is - and I say that from experience (being somewhat on the ADHD spectrum myself) - that there are no limits to how many of these you can use; or at least that’s how it feels to me (sorry!).
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Beautiful sentence using all of them!
Semicolon ftw
i do this; i just have so much to say, and there are only so many conjugations and commas you can get away with – without it becoming a run-on sentence (i may have a run-on mind).
That’s called ADHD, but I like the name, so we can use both I guess.
I’ve learned to back off and realize that commas, instead of parentheses, often work just fine.
Yea I try to do that too. And then make sure it doesn’t end up a ridiculous run on sentence. 😭
Just introduce yourself to people as a 19th century German philosopher, they’ll understand.
Commas are a pathway to infinitely run-on sentences.
But I’ve already used commas to add more information to the sentence, how can I fit in more information without parentheses?
Stand over the person reading it and interject.
Forget what everyone else said. Brackets.
You can, although probably should not, use semicolons; they can be used to join related statements that could, very frequently, also stand on their own.
Consider the humble “em dash” — some people use it to interject a completely different sentence in the middle of another — the next time you’re trying to avoid parentheses.
im like small sentence (heres some back story though (and some deeper context thats needed (also something vaguely related to thing))).
I do this in almost everything I write out (almost, somethings don’t need clarification).
I see what you did here (by highlighting the point you were making by doing it on the comment taking about it).
So bonus thoughts aren’t “normal”?
Everyone goes pee, but if you’re doing it 60 times a day you may have an issue.
nah this isn’t an ADHD thing
is it? I mean everyone has bonus thoughts right? or explanation of apparent non sequitur? my coworkers don’t really do it and I never really think about it.
I mean yeah, I have ADHD, but this is a new “symptom” to me (and is there an actual downside?)
I like to use ellipses cause I never fully finish a thought…
The other day I wrote a sentence with parenthesis and inside the parenthesis there was a comma phrase, a dash, a colon, and a semicolon on here. Only realized how much of a monstrosity the comment was after writing it, but posted it anyways.
Stahhhp… I do that a lot more that parentheses, and now you’ve made me self-conscious about it lol
I do both… a LOT. and now I guess I’m figuring out why.
I just want a brain that works correctly. 😔
Yyyyyup
And then the bonus content comes with its own bonus content (which also comes with its own bonus content [and so on]).
It gets fun when the side thought is longer than the original and starts getting side thoughts of its own. The context needs more context or nobody will get it.
I’m getting flashes of David Foster Wallace.
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there have been times where the secondary thought overrides the primary thought, and i often end the message with just finishing the parenthesis. worst case scenario, I’ll even add a tertiary thought
I use paragraphs in those cases and then I don’t usually remember but if I did I would add reference numbers, kinda like this¹
¹ it’s very useful when you have multiple parentheses at different points, I still haven’t solved the problem of nesting them unfortunately, so I welcome any suggestions
