ADHD 2.0 Quotes

“People with attention issues tend to have acute bullshit detectors.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“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. They can spiral down to the depths in the blink of an eye and become inconsolable.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“Creativity,” as we use the term in connection with ADHD, designates an innate ability, desire, and irrepressible urge to plunge one’s imagination regularly and deeply into life—into a project, an idea, a piece of music, a sandcastle.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“We also know that ADHD can crop up for the first time in adulthood. This often happens when the demands of life exceed the person’s ability to deal with them. Classic examples are when a woman has her first baby or when a student starts medical school.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“daily structure, nutrition, sleep, populate your world with positivity, and accept and find the right help.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“But such is the ignorance that still surrounds ADHD that people continue to cite lack of effort as the cause of the disorganization and poor attention. The biological fact is that, in the absence of stimulation, they can’t. Not won’t. Can’t.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“ADHD is the most treatable disorder in psychiatry, bar none. We have more medications with… larger effect sizes, greater response rates, and more delivery systems that change people’s lives more than any other disorder. They’re some of the safest medications in psychiatry.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“The overarching mistake too many people make about ADHD is to think of this mountain of a condition as a molehill of a problem for a rare few. Big mistake.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“Try to fall for a stable person who is also stimulating. They really do exist.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“Connection, positive connection, which at its most distilled is called love, has incredible healing power.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“All children do better when they know who is in charge. Knowing that they are not gives them a sense of security and order. The same goes for adults, to a certain extent—having a clear chain of command at work, for instance, is both orienting and especially helpful to the employee with ADHD.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“Kindness makes kids grow, and adults as well.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“The single most important factor in predicting health, longevity, occupational success, income, leadership ability, and general happiness comes down to one four-letter word. “It’s love,” Vaillant famously stated. “Full stop.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“loneliness—the number one medical problem”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“Uncannily accurate intuition, coupled with a tendency to overlook the obvious and ignore major data.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“The paper is due in five days” becomes “It’s not due now,” and the five days might as well be five months.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“Defying the laws of physics, we change the nature of time in our minds.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“Even awake we’re dreaming, always creating, always searching for some mud pie to turn into pumpkin apple chiffon.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“people with ADHD feel an abiding need—an omnipresent itch—to create something.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“People with ADHD are lovers in the sense that they tend to have unbridled optimism.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“Some people call this being a nonconformist, but that term misses the point. We don’t choose not to conform. We don’t even notice what the standard we’re not conforming to is!”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“we are often unable to stop the idea generation at night;”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“Ideas coming in spontaneous, erratic bursts.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“You’d find ideas firing around like kernels in a popcorn machine:”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“The mind of someone with ADHD is in fact constantly at work. Our productivity may not always show it, but this is not because of a lack of intent or energy!”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“Having ADHD costs a person nearly thirteen years of life, on average.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“A person with ADHD has the power of a Ferrari engine but with bicycle-strength brakes.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“In fact, we do not suffer from a deficit of attention. Just the opposite. We’ve got an overabundance of attention, more attention than we can cope with; our constant challenge is to control it.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“Still others—even less charitably—think ADHD is a fancy term for laziness and that people who “have it” need some good old-fashioned discipline! In fact, “laziness” is a word about as far from accurate as it could be. The mind of someone with ADHD is in fact constantly at work. Our productivity may not always show it, but this is not because of a lack of intent or energy!”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood

“Compared to other killers from a public health standpoint, ADHD is bad. Smoking, for example, reduces life expectancy by 2.4 years, and if you smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day you’re down about 6.5 years. For diabetes and obesity it’s a couple of years. For elevated blood cholesterol, it’s 9 months. ADHD is worse than the top 5 killers in the U.S. combined. Having ADHD costs a person nearly thirteen years of life, on average. Barkley adds, And that’s on top of all the findings of a greater risk for accidental injury and suicide….About two-thirds of people with ADHD have a life expectancy reduced by up to 21 years.”
― Edward M. Hallowell, ADHD 2.0 : New Science and Essential Strategies for Thriving with Distraction—From Childhood Through Adulthood