Driven to Distraction Quotes

“Keep those faces in mind, the little girls and boys in the early grades, all trusting the adults to show them the way, all eager and excited about life and what will come next, and then just follow those faces over time. Follow the face of a little girl who doesn't read very well and is told to try harder; who tends to daydream and is told she better pay attention; who talks out in class when she sees something fascinating, like a butterfly on the windowpane, and is told to leave the class and report to the principal; who forgets her homework and is told she will just never learn, will she; who writes a story rich in imagination and insight and is told her handwriting and spelling are atrocious; who asks for help and is told she should try harder herself before getting others to do her work for her; who begins to feel unhappy in school and is told that big girls try harder. This is the brutal process of the breaking of the spirit of a child. I can think of no more precious resource than the spirits of our children. Life necessarily breaks us all down somewhat, but to do it unnecessarily to our children in the name of educating them -- this is a tragedy. To take the joy of learning -- which one can see in any child experimenting with something new -- to take that joy and turn it into fear -- that is something we should never do.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood Through Adulthood

“While we all need external structure in our lives—some degree of predictability, routine, organization—those with ADD need it much more than most people. They need external structure so much because they so lack internal structure.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“That’s the problem with being an adult: people have already made up their minds about us; we’ve even made up our minds about ourselves.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“Russell Barkley similarly describes the primary problem in ADD as a deficit in the motivation system, which makes it impossible to stay on task for any length of time unless there is constant feedback, constant reward.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“Barely, but I did. Then in college I did really well. Can you imagine that? Which is why I went to graduate school. But that was probably a big mistake. I should have quit while I was ahead. You see, my problem is I don’t know whether I’m smart or if I’m stupid. I’ve done well, and I’ve done poorly, and I’ve been told that I’m gifted and I’ve been told that I’m slow. I don’t know what I am.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“The tension of constructing an explanation, from A to B to C to D, apparently so simple a task, irritates many people with ADD. While they can hold the information in mind, they do not have the patience to sequentially put it out. That is too tedious. They would like to dump the information in a heap on the floor all at once and have it be comprehended instantly. Otherwise,”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“Most adults with ADD are struggling to express a part of themselves that often seems unraveled as they strive to join the thought behind unto the thought before.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“While trying harder helps just about everything, telling someone with ADD to try harder is no more helpful than telling someone who is nearsighted to squint harder. It missed the biological point.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“the dysregulation of the body’s neurobiological system, that impairs one’s ability to pay selective attention to one’s surroundings. The world becomes a land without street signs, the individual a car in bad need of a tune-up. The vastness of the attentional system partially accounts for the variation of ADD “types.” Where one individual needs an oil change, the next needs spark plugs replaced. Where one individual is withdrawn and overwhelmed by stimuli, the next is hyperactive and can’t get enough stimuli. Where one is frequently anxious, the other is depressed. To compensate, each develops his or her own coping strategies that developmentally add to, or subtract from, the brain’s various subsystems. So Mr. A becomes a stand-up comedian, and manic. Ms. B becomes an architectural wizard with obsessive-compulsive traits. Their offspring become a sculptor and a stunt pilot. None of them can balance their checkbook. And all of them wish they had more time in the day. With such diversity in the disorder,”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“A streak of Puritanism runs deep within American society. Permissive and pioneering as we may be on the one hand, we are strict and conservative on the other. As much as we may be a country of mavericks and entrepreneurs, we are also a country of finger waggers and name-callers. As much as we may be a country of compassion for the underdog, we are also a country that believes in self-reliance.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood Through Adulthood

“Eldredge has just said gives a pretty good short description of ADD: You don’t mean to do the things you do do, and you don’t do the things you mean to do.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“life is a process not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“Instead of describing ADD as an inability to concentrate, this model presents it as the ability to concentrate on everything. The world always is alive and ripe with sources of interest.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“I also see how essential a comprehensive treatment plan is, a plan that incorporates education, understanding, empathy, structure, coaching, a plan for success and physical exercise as well as medication. I see how important the human connection is every step of the way: connection with parent or spouse; with teacher or supervisor; with friend or colleague; with doctor, with therapist, with coach, with the world “out there.” In fact, I see the human connection as the single most powerful therapeutic force in the treatment of ADHD.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“Families, by and large, like most groups, resist change. If one member of a family wants to move away, this is regarded as a betrayal, for example. If one member of a family is fat and tries to lose weight, often other members of the family will sabotage the effort. If one member of the family wants to get out of a role he or she has been playing for years, this is usually difficult ot do because the rest of the family tries not to let it happen. If your role is clown, you remain the clown. If your role is responsible oldest child, you probably keep that role within your family for your entire life. If you are the black sheep, you'll find it very diffcult to change colors in the eyes of your family no matter how many good deeds you do.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood Through Adulthood

“Often those objecting to the diagnosis will be using their objections to conceal an emotional agenda. They may be angry with the person being diagnosed. They may resent him for all his past sins, and they don’t want to see him get off with just a diagnosis. They want punishment. So they will grow angry at the notion of ADD, and try to discredit it. At these moments it is best to stay with the science, to stay with the facts we have about ADD.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“Don’t stay too long where you aren’t understood or appreciated. Just as people with ADD gain a great deal from supportive groups, they are particularly drained and demoralized by negative groups, and they have a tendency to stay with them too long, vainly trying to make things work out, even when all the evidence shows they can’t.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“The sense of growing panic, the feeling that gibberish is being passed off as coherent conversation, the fear that the world is engaged in meaningless discourse masquerading as meaningful exchange—these are the blurry states individuals with ADD negotiate each day.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“Tendency to worry needlessly, endlessly; tendency to scan the horizon looking for something to worry about, alternating with inattention to or disregard for actual dangers. Worry becomes what attention turns into when it isn’t focused on some task.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“In many ways the most dangerous aspect of undiagnosed and untreated ADD is the assault to self-esteem that usually occurs.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“Humor is a key to a happy life with ADD.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“Barkley’s comment that ADD is more impairing than any syndrome in all mental health that is treated on an outpatient basis. More impairing than anxiety, more impairing than depression, more impairing than substance abuse. The “morbidity” of untreated ADD is profound.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“They may have fast-track hyperkinetic personalities, be impatient, restless, impulsive, often intuitive and creative but unable to follow through, frequently unable to linger long enough to develop a stable intimate relationship. Usually, they have self-esteem problems that began in childhood. The”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“ADD is a neurological syndrome whose classic defining triad of symptoms include impulsivity, distractibility, and hyperactivity or excess energy.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“You were medicating yourself, as so many people with ADD do. Alcohol, marijuana, cocaine are all common. In different ways each of those drugs calms you down.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“Actually, it had begun already. Just finding out about the syndrome, finding at last that there is a name for it, constitutes a large part of the treatment for most people.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“I don’t do it on purpose,” he said. “I just put my foot in my mouth. I don’t think about who I’m talking to or where I am. Is it my unconscious wish to fail?”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“Often people with ADD self-medicate with alcohol or marijuana or cocaine. Cocaine, particularly, is similar to one of the medications used in the pharmacological treatment of ADD.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“Before beginning a course of medication, you of course want to be sure of the diagnosis. Then you must determine what the target symptoms are so that you will have an objective way of assessing the efficacy of the medication. Typical target symptoms in ADD would include: easy distractibility; inability to stay focused—for example, on a task at work or reading a book, homework, or classroom material; impulsive acts or words; difficulty maintaining attention during a conversation; poor frustration tolerance; angry outbursts; mood swings; difficulty getting organized; chronic procrastination; difficulty prioritizing; tendency to worry rather than act; a subjective inner feeling of noise or chaos; tendency to hop from topic to topic or project to project; and other symptoms associated with ADD. It is important to try to define these as concretely as possible. Once you have an accurate diagnosis and have defined what the target symptoms are, you may be ready to try medication to treat those target symptoms.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder

“Sixth, groups address the problem of disconnectedness. Many people with ADD have trouble finding a place where they feel connected, a part of something larger than self. Although people with ADD tend to be outgoing and gregarious, they can also harbor strong feelings of isolation, loneliness, and disconnectedness. Their stance in life is often one of reaching out but not quite making contact, as if running alongside a speeding train, trying to grasp the hand that is being held out to them to help them on board. Groups can bring people on board. Groups can provide a sense of belonging, a sense of connectedness. Once on board, the individual can feel more a part of things in other areas of his or her life.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder