Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates and What You Can Do About It

by Gabor Maté

The most heartrending cases are adults in their midlife or beyond who simply have not been able to make much sense of their world or their lives, despite obvious warm qualities, intelligence and creative potential. When you listen to their stories, you find that many of them have suffered abuse of one form or another and may not even be aware of it. Events may be recalled, but the emotions that would naturally arise from those events are suppressed. If the emotions are remembered, their effects on the present state of mind are not understood. Stefan is a thirty-year-old who at his first visit said, “I’m here because I’m not getting anywhere except older and grayer.” He spoke with a sardonic wit, which I felt was a way of distancing himself from some deeply distressing feelings. “There’s a bunch of things I want to do,” he stated, “but I can’t think of them right now. I don’t even start anything any more because I’ll never get finished with anything anyway.” Despite his evidently high intelligence, he had not even completed high school. He had done well in subjects that he could immediately and instinctively grasp, but he proved completely incapable of studying. He was now working in a warehouse. Asked about his childhood, Stefan said it had been “fine and dandy, I guess.” He did say, on being further questioned, that “my mother laid down a lot of the law, and occasionally got out the spoon.” Asked what that meant, he replied in the same offhand, sardonic fashion that “the ...