Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder

by Gabor Maté

As we have seen, in ADD the ability to inhibit powerful emotions is impaired because the connections of the OFC with the lower brain centers did not develop optimally. Just as hypersensitivity magnifies the sense of being rejected, so deficient self-regulation due to impaired inhibition by the cortex exaggerates the response to rejection. With this in mind, we can understand what comes next. The response of the infant to the fathomless anxiety of physical or emotional separation from the parent is either rage or withdrawal, or a combination of both in sequence. This is how I have many times reacted in similar circumstances. Being activated, I am sure, was anxiety and rage from my first year of life when my mother was emotionally dissociated, and particularly from our three-week separation just around my first birthday.