Difficulty concentrating feels like a pressure in my forehead that builds the more I fight it. Thats when it's strong, other times, I just find myself doing or thinking about something else.

Difficulty getting to work more often takes the second unconscious form. I don't dwell on it, I just find myself not doing the work. However, sometimes it feels like an empty, hollow chest area and the more I think about the work, the more hollow it feels. However, the more I don't do the work, the more weak/hollow my arms feel.

I find it interesting how my kinisthetic intuitions match up with your visual intuitions.

What does 'difficulty concentrating' feel like for you? I often find that value words, like 'good', 'bad', 'difficult', 'happy', 'sad', mean different things for me than for most people.

I spend much of my free time working on a game that I intend to sell at some point. The indie game community talks a lot about focusing, overcoming difficulties concentrating, etc. But I've never seen someone describe in detail what 'difficulty concentrating' or 'difficulty getting to work' feels like. I find myself wondering if they are talking about what I think they are talking about. It's possible that their tips don't often work because we are thinking about different things.

Akrasia gets talked about a lot here, as well as ways of improving productivity, and I'm really curious what akrasia or difficulty concentrating actually feels like for other people. Taboo the words 'akrasia', 'procrastination', 'distraction' and other similar words, and tell me what it feels like.

Here's what 'difficulty getting to work' typically feels like for me: I look at my list of tasks and I get a strong feeling of despair. Starting work on the list feels like I'm chaining myself to an assembly line in a grey factory in a grey world making grey featureless joyless objects, and I'm going to be there for the rest of eternity. It's strange because I actually feel like what I'm producing is colorful, beautiful and interesting. I'm not sure if it is related to the length of the list. I thought it was perhaps due to nebulous definition of the task leaving uncertainty as to what the finished task was supposed to look like, but I've had the same problems even with well defined tasks.

Here's what 'difficulty concentrating' feels like: Imagine that you've got a good sized dog, and you're trying to make it look at something. You grab its head and hold it down to look at whatever it is, and the dog fights you the whole time. Sometimes this will pass if I start with a simple task and get going. Other times it feels like every line of code I write is a continual struggle to hold the dog's head in place. Or imagine that you've really got to go to the bathroom, and you're trying to ignore it and just work. There's a pressure that demands release. It's almost like there's a voice in my head (not an actual voice, it's not schizophrenia) screaming for me to turn off my brain and play a video game or do something else that requires no brain power.

I would estimate that I have difficulty with these feelings at least 30% of the time I try to sit down and work. Sometimes these bother me at my day job, but they show up most frequently when I'm working in the evenings and weekends.

So what does it feel like for you?

I imagine someone will ask about this at some point: I have been diagnosed with Bipolar Type II, I currently take lamotrigine, quetiapine, and bupropion to manage it. I've had problems like this at least since my early teens.

Was there also excess saliva production/thick-feeling saliva?

I have a feeling which seems related to satiety, in that I get it after eating and it makes me disinclined to eat more, but I experience it in my upper throat/back of my mouth rather than in my stomach. It's not exclusive with hunger in my stomach.

Does anyone recognise the sensation I'm describing, and know anything about it?

Possibly relevant details, but I haven't been keeping good track so maybe don't take them too seriously: I first noticed it, I think more than a couple of months ago, but less than three years ago. I associate it with chips (fries, but moreso thick-cut ones), but I definitely don't always get it from them. Also to some extent with bananas. Those might be a red herring, because I think I'm mildly allergic to them - if they're not sufficiently ripe they can give me a burning sensation in my throat, but possibly also separately the sensation I'm describing now. I have it currently, the last thing I ate was cuppasoup, about three hours ago. I eat cuppasoup most days and don't think I usually get this sensation from it.

My housemate has this exact problem- right down to the issues with jewelry in particular. If she has to shake hands with somebody who's wearing a metal ring, she has to sort of ritualistically wipe off her hands afterwards. Metal in general seems to trigger the reaction much more strongly, so she'll have problems with loose coins but not stickers.

It's been persistent throughout her life, I understand, but exposure therapy has reduced its severity.

Maybe childhood training against choking hazards.

I was once hospitalized for months at 5 years old, and the had exhibitions on the wall of the small stuff kids stuffed into their noses or ears and had to be removed surgically. It was scary. I was afraid of them. The fact I still remember it means it may be traumatic, may have been something like that for you.

How do you handle eating or cooking lentils?

I'm not a doctor, but this sounds like Mikrophobia. I do recognize you're describing your feelings as a kind of revulsion, not fear proper, but still that'd the best pattern match I got.

I suggest you talk to a psychiatrist or psychotherapist about it, because if it is that, your issue is very solvable. Phobias are one of the easiest-to-treat psychological issues; desensitization and cognitive-behavioral therapy work quite well.

Interesting. Great that you shared it. Have never heard of something like this. To me it looks like one basic fear pattern matching gone wrong (wired differently than usual in the brain). I mean there must be some pre-wiring of object recognition in the brain that triggers on e.g. spider-like and snake-like forms. Why should such a wiring go wrong (mutation or whatever) and pattern-match against small-ringlike.

See also What universal experiences are you missing without realizing it. Where people mention a lot special things and maybe by now you can find something comparable to yours.

I think I recall seeing somewhere that the open thread is a good place for potentially silly questions. So I've got one to ask.

As long as I can remember small things give me the willies. Objects around the size of a penny or smaller trigger a kind of revulsion response if I have to handle them. Things like small coins, those paper circles created when using a hole punch, those stickers that they stick on fruit. I'm not typically bothered by handling a lot of the objects at the same time, a handful of pennies wouldn't bother me.

One thing that's odd, well aside from everything else about it, is that it seems to be especially triggered by jewelry. Rings, basically any piercings, even smallish necklaces. I'm alright as long as they don't get too close to me, but I start feeling weird if I have to interact with them.

Anyway, I've always thought this was pretty strange and it recently occurred to me that someone here probably has some idea of what's going on. Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

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