ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

by Edward M. Hallowell

Having a metaphorical lightning rod and weather vane. For whatever reason, people with ADHD often are lightning rods for whatever can go wrong: being the one kid caught with weed when twenty others had it; the adult or kid who gets scapegoated, blamed, and disciplined more than anyone else; the one who disrupts the family event, or business meeting, or class discussion without meaning to. But at the same time, the lightning rod quality can lead the person with ADHD to receive ideas, energies, premonitions, and images from who knows where that lead to amazing success. Similarly, the internal, inborn weather vane leads the person with ADHD to be the first to sense a shift in mood or energy in the group, the class, the family, the organization, the town, the country. Before others catch on, the person with ADHD is telling others to watch out, there’s an ill wind brewing; or to get ready, a big opportunity is just around the corner. Like the lightning rod, the weather vane effect can’t be explained on any scientific basis we know of, but we see it in our patients, of all ages, all the time.