Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

by Edward M. Hallowell

If ADD is a problem with inhibiting, we can understand the phenomenon of time collapsing in on itself for people with ADD: instead of being able to carve out discrete activities that would create a sensation of separate moments, the person cannot stop the relentless flow of events. Everything runs together, unbraked, uninhibited. We hear the ADD adult so painfully describing the verbal rush, the inability to stop the words, and the verbal paralysis, or stuttering, derived from the inability to stop the thoughts long enough to find the words. The social intrusiveness that is so characteristic of those who have ADD is the inability to stop at the other’s boundaries. The failure to form intimate relationships is the inability to pause long enough even to listen to the other person, let alone to understand and respect the other’s needs. The impulsivity, the lack of planning, and the outbursts are the inability to restrain the flow of action and feeling.