Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

by Edward M. Hallowell

ADD comes in many shapes and sizes. In many people, particularly adults, the symptoms of ADD are masked by more obvious problems, such as depression or gambling or drinking, and the underlying ADD is never detected. In other people the symptoms take on a particular cast, congruent with the person’s personality as it evolves over time, so that the symptoms are never really noticed the way symptoms of a cold or flu might be but rather are dismissed as being part of “just the way he is,” not warranting medical or psychiatric intervention. And within the domain of properly diagnosed ADD there is also much variability. Jim’s ADD, I was discovering, was the high-energy, hyperactive type. But there is another kind of ADD that shows no hyperactivity whatsoever. Indeed, these people can be underactive. This is the child, often a girl, who sits at the back of the classroom daydreaming, or the adult who moves serenely within a cloud, never quite present anywhere. “I don’t know if there is a right job for you,” I said, coming back to Jim’s question. “For now I’d just like to hear more of your story. Have you ever really told it before?”