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May 15 - May 22, 2022
A person with ADHD has the power of a Ferrari engine but with bicycle-strength brakes. It’s the mismatch of engine power to braking capability that causes the problems. Strengthening one’s brakes is the name of the game.
“ADHD” is a term that describes a way of being in the world. It is neither entirely a disorder nor entirely an asset. It is an array of traits specific to a unique kind of mind. It can become a distinct advantage or an abiding curse, depending on how a person manages it.
People with ADHD are lovers in the sense that they tend to have unbridled optimism. We never met a deal we didn’t like, an opportunity we didn’t want to pursue, a chance we didn’t want to take. We get carried away. We see limitless possibilities where others see just the limits. The lover has trouble holding back, and not holding back is a major part of what it means to have ADHD.
Indeed, people with ADHD feel an abiding need—an omnipresent itch—to create something.
We’ve got an overabundance of attention, more attention than we can cope with; our constant challenge is to control it.
The second that we experience boredom—which you might think of as a lack of stimulation—we reflexively, instantaneously, automatically and without conscious thought seek stimulation.
it helps to think of ADHD as a complex set of contradictory or paradoxical tendencies: a lack of focus combined with an ability to superfocus; a lack of direction combined with highly directed entrepreneurialism; a tendency to procrastinate combined with a knack for getting a week’s worth of work done in two hours; impulsive, wrongheaded decision making combined with inventive, out-of-the-blue problem solving; interpersonal cluelessness combined with uncanny intuition and empathy; the list goes on.
Our truncated sense of time leads to all manner of fights, failures, job losses, disappointed friends, and failed romances, but at the same time to an uncanny ability to work brilliantly under extreme pressure, as well as to be wonderfully, infuriatingly oblivious to the time pressures that stress most people to the max.
William Dodson, one of the smartest clinicians ever to write about ADHD, made famous the term “rejection-sensitive dysphoria,” or RSD, which describes a tendency on the part of people who have ADHD to overreact precipitously and disastrously to even the slightest perceived put-down, dis, or vaguely negative remark.
Creativity is impulsivity gone right.
The person who is incapable of “kissing up,” intolerant of hypocrisy, often tactless, politically incorrect, and heedless of repercussions and consequences…is often dealing with ADHD.
On the other hand, especially in children, this translates into a tendency to lie impulsively when put on the spot. This is not a character defect or a lack of conscience, which we see in a sociopath, but rather a reflexive attempt to change reality, as in wishing it were so.
From drugs and alcohol, to gambling, shopping, spending, sex, food, exercise, and screens, we who have ADHD are five to ten times more likely than the person who does not have ADHD to develop a problem in this domain.
Due to the inability to observe oneself accurately, coupled with the heightened sensitivity to perceived criticism and a record of underachievement, people with ADHD usually have a self-image that is far more negative than is warranted.
If one parent has ADHD, the risk is one in three that a given child will have ADHD. If both parents have ADHD, the risk is two in three for a given child.
Beyond the sources of biologically based ADHD, there are a lot of people who act as if they have ADHD but on close inspection turn out not to have the diagnosable condition. These are the people who have ADHD-like symptoms caused by the conditions of modern life. Their “ADHD” is a response to the massive increase in stimuli that now bombard our brains and our world.
Given a moment to reflect on what’s likely to happen next, life has taught people with ADHD to imagine and expect the worst.
Shame is the most disabling learning disability.
No one is independent. No one is self-sufficient. We all depend on one another. The realistic goal in life is not to be independent, but to be effectively interdependent. In other words, you have to be able to give as well as get. That’s how successful people operate.
In our experience, the refusal to accept help is the single biggest reason for a person not to progress once an ADHD diagnosis has been made.
Rewards work much better for the ADHD mind than do consequences.
Avoid sugar. Sugar promotes the production and release of dopamine, and the ADHD brain loves a squirt of dopamine. Unfortunately, as good as that initial influx of dopamine might feel—you’re energized, cheery, satisfied—you have to keep ingesting sugar to keep up that feeling.
One of the ongoing findings in ADHD research is that some of the gene differences associated with ADHD are related to faulty dopamine and norepinephrine machinery, so a blast of exercise is like taking a stimulant that corrects this deficit for the moment.
there is hard science behind strengthening the balance and coordination of those with attention issues.
Failing to master the adaptive pursuit of dopamine leads to addictions of all kinds, but mastering it leads to success and joy.
