Adjustment brush disappears when using and regular cursor shows up instead

Hi all,

I have run into a problem where the adjustment brush disappears when I start applying brush presets like skin soften etc and the cursor shows up instead. on I release the mouse the brush pops back up, this makes masking a bit of an choir since i have to constantly go back and remove or add since the brush disappears. I have already reset the presets, and now im stumped. Any suggestions?