Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder

by Gabor Maté

there

are three things human beings are afraid of: death, other people and their own minds.

“It would be nice to get a break from myself at least for a little while,” she said, a sentiment I fully understood.

Even if in many cases medications do help,

the healing ADD calls for is not a process of recovery from some illness. It is a process of becoming whole—which, it so happens, is the original sense of the word healing.

“being able to motivate oneself and persist in the face of frustrations; to control impulse and to delay gratification; to regulate one’s moods and keep distress from swamping the ability to think…”

Of all environments, the one that most profoundly shapes the human personality is the invisible one: the emotional atmosphere in which the child lives during the critical early years of brain development.

The existence of sensitive people is an advantage for humankind because it is this group that best expresses humanity’s creative urges and needs.

We would not survive without pain. Physical pain warns us of physical danger, such as the heat of a fire or the cutting edge of a blade. Emotional pain warns us that a situation threatens our psychic well-being.

attachment promotes attention, anxiety undermines it.

“and when our attentional resources are consumed by internal thoughts and feelings, there are few left over for dealing with the world outside.”7

According to Carl

Rogers, the healing process relies on the basic trustworthiness of human nature.

In human brains, the circuitry of reason and emotion are closely connected, which is why troubled relationships lead directly to difficulties in brain processing.

The very sensitivity that makes them vulnerable is also an asset that gives them tremendous potential for development.

Being wanted and enjoyed is the greatest gift the child can receive.

In the biochemical soup of stress and shame, no learning can take place.

At no time in life do behaviors reflect a relationship with significant others more closely than in childhood, because at no time in life are people as emotionally and physically dependent on others.

The passing on of psychological burdens from one generation to the next occurs around those issues that the parents are least aware of in themselves, and it occurs precisely when the child pushes the parent’s unconscious emotional buttons.

Although sensitive, children are not made of glass and do not break that easily.

They are, in fact, highly resilient. As normal human beings, we are bound to have our emotional ups and downs, our moments of greater or lesser emotional balance.

Figuring out what we want has to begin with having the freedom to not want.

The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous.

Many a good little boy or good little girl grows up to be a depressed and troubled adult.

The

truth is that there are no techniques that will motivate people or make

them auto...

Motivation must come from within, not from techniques. It comes from their deciding they are ready to take respon...

A person becomes open to respecting the boundaries of others when her own rights and boundaries are respected.

A person whose failures are the result of decisions she makes freely is far more capable of learning from consequences than someone whose actions and reactions come from succumbing to the demands of others, or from resisting them.

“To some degree everyone is a prisoner of the past.”

“It’s sick that you want someone so bad when they are cold to you, then when they warm up you start finding things that are wrong with them.”

The self is as we experience ourselves: happy one moment, anxious the next; confident in the morning, guilty and ashamed in the afternoon; giving now, needy then.

self-acceptance does not mean self-admiration or even self-liking at every moment of our lives, but tolerance for all our emotions, including those that make us feel uncomfortable.

If you want to go further in the direction of healing, you do not chastise yourself for wherever you happen to be along the road. You don’t berate yourself for not having got there faster.

pain cannot be killed; it needs to be listened to.

It has a story to tell and lessons to teach. In the project of self-parenting, this is one essential service the adult cannot, without the greatest difficulty, provide for herself.

Some development of the capacity to be alone is necessary if the brain is to function at its best, and if the individual is to fulfil his highest potential.

A person cannot become sane in the midst of the chaos she perpetuates around herself.

When it comes to changing unhealthy habits or instituting healthy ones, writes Weil, “whether you succeed or fail is less important than making the attempt.”