Differences Not Disorders
I received permission to post some success stories of adults with ADHD symptoms. Here is one that highlights how the symptoms are interesting differences not disorders.
here it is, with a helpful tip that follows
Lara,
I read your article about ADHD on MSN and I want to thank you. It's about time someone spoke up because I have never thought I "suffer" from ADHD. I always considered it a blessing and reveled in the fact my brain goes a million miles and hour in different directions all the time. Being able to harness that and control it to a degree has led to my success in a variety of interests. Also, I find everything in the entire world fascinating. I'm never bored because everything is just as interesting to me now as when I was 18, 10, or 7 years old. I have always thought "outside" the box and I have a staff of people, and some have Masters degrees in computer science, from all over the world working for me. I have no education whatsoever. But I do have ADHD. And because of this, I am able to solve problems that no amount of education can resolve. It's as though I can feel my subconscious churning and working things out, and when it arrives at the solution, my conscious mind is made aware of it and I see the answer as if it was on a movie screen, or held in my hand and completely tangible to me.
> For the past few years though, I have become frustrated because I can appear rude in conversation. I can't focus longer than 4 or 5 seconds on what anyone is saying. It has nothing to do with how important the conversation is either. A single word can create an image in my head and then my mind goes shooting off in some other direction. Or, a gust of wind suddenly has me thinking about wind pressure and the flexibility of tree branches, or if the branch scraping our window is slowly knocking molocules off the glass as it moves back and forth and how many years would it take to carve a hole through it. It's affected my friendships, my relationship with my wife, and sometimes hurt me in meetings with my boss. I have learned that I simply -cannot- focus longer than that. I may as well lift a mountain. Because I am the bread winner for my family, I considered some medications to help me focus, but after talking with other people who have manic depression, obsessive compulsion, and ADHD, they all say that it changes your ability to think. I never want to lose my creativity. My abilility to innovate new ideas based on all the fragmentmented, random knowledge I have is truly the one thing I enjoy most about being alive. It is who I am and I will never give it up. So, I still take no medication, and after reading your article, I never will. I really hope other parents out there, like mine did, nurture their childrens creativity and interests. It seems like these days they want to turn them into zombies just because they find contemplating the aerodynamics of the plane flying outside the window far more interesting that who won what war, when, and with what army.
In response to the difficulty with listening to others' in conversation I suggested the following:
here is a simple experiment, imagine your raring energy as a motor, and focus on the motor feeling rather than just being driven by it, then imagine a speedometer and mentally lower the speed your engine is revving at. these sorts of guided imagery can really work and if they don't you just entertained yourself for about 15 seconds and probably kept your mouth shut for the same amount of time. ;)
LHW
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