Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder

THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE ADD ADULTS 1. Do what you’re good at. Don’t spend too much time trying to get good at what you’re bad at. (You did enough of that in school.) 2. Delegate what you’re bad at to others, as often as possible. 3. Connect your energy to a creative outlet. 4. Get well enough organized to achieve your goals. The key here is “well enough.” That doesn’t mean you have to be very well organized at all—just well enough organized to achieve your goals. 5. Ask for and heed advice from people you trust—and ignore, as best you can, the dream-breakers and finger-waggers. 6. Make sure you keep up regular contact with a few close friends. 7. Go with your positive side. Even though you have a negative side, make decisions and run your life with your positive side.

To tell a person who has ADD to try harder is about as helpful as telling someone who is nearsighted to squint harder.

My thoughts are like butterflies. They are beautiful, but they fly away.

Having ADD makes life paradoxical. You can superfocus sometimes, but also space out when you least mean to. You can radiate confidence and also feel as insecure as a cat in a kennel. You can perform at the highest level, feeling incompetent as you do so. You can be loved by many, but feel as if no one really likes you. You can absolutely, totally, intend to do something, then forget to do it. You can have the greatest ideas in the world, but feel as if you can’t accomplish a thing.

People with ADD often have a special “feel” for life, a way of seeing right into the heart of matters, while others have to reason their way along methodically.

For all the hoopla you read and hear about the overdiagnosis of ADD and the overuse of medication-indeed, serious problems in certain places—the more costly problem is the opposite: millions of people, especially adults, have ADD but don't know about it and there fore get no help at all.

For someone who has ADD, being bored is like being asphyxiated. It cannot be endured for more than a minute or so. When bored, the person with ADD feels compelled to do something immediately to bring the world back up to speed. Adrenaline

1.  Position one blank sheet of paper to your right and another to your left; then take a pencil in each hand. Simultaneously, draw a vertical line on the right sheet and a circle on the left sheet. Repeat three times, alternating figures on the right and left sheets.  2.  Draw a triangle on one sheet while drawing a square on the other. Then switch: draw the square on the first sheet and the triangle on the other.  3.  Draw a circle on one sheet while drawing a triangle on the other. Switch figures and do it again.  4.  Draw two circles on one sheet while drawing one square on the other. Then switch.  5.  Draw two squares on one sheet while drawing one triangle on the other. Then switch.  6.  Draw a triangle on one sheet while drawing a square on the other and also tracing a circle on the floor with one leg. Then switch hands (and switch to the other leg).  7.  Draw a circle with one hand and a triangle with the other while tracing a square on the floor with one leg. Then switch all.  8.  Draw a triangle with one hand and two squares with the other while tracing a circle on the floor with one leg. Then switch all.  9.  Draw a triangle with one hand and a square with the other while tracing a circle on the floor with one leg and nodding your head twice forward and twice backward. 10.  Draw a triangle with one hand and a square with the other while tracing a vertical line with the leg on the same side as the hand that is drawing the triangle, and a horizontal line with leg on the same side as the hand that is drawing the square. Then switch all.

What they don’t understand—and the wide world certainly does not understand—is that these reckless acts do stem from a biological need to alter their inner state. In pain, they feel compelled to seek relief immediately.

In the world of ADD, there are only two times: there is now, and then there is not now.

All people have their own special skills. Instead of just identifying deficiencies, schools should try to identify and promote those special skills as early on as possible. For

The term attention deficit disorder completely misses this point. It is not a deficit of attention that we ADD-ers have, it is that our attention likes to go where it wants to and we can’t always control it.

My wife has learned not to take my tuning out personally, and she does say that when I’m there, I’m really there.

A model that explains the “itch” at the core of ADD,

For most of human history, problems with learning, emotion, or behavior have been viewed through the lens of morality, often colored by theology.

You can superfocus sometimes, but also space out when you least mean to. You can radiate confidence and also feel as insecure as a cat in a kennel. You can perform at the highest level, feeling incompetent as you do so. You can be loved by many, but feel as if no one really likes you. You can absolutely, totally, intend to do something, then forget to do it. You can have the greatest ideas in the world, but feel as if you can’t accomplish a thing.

Sometimes, if I am not in a situation where the truth matters, I take the liberty of becoming playful and making up a profession. I’ve said I’m a chef. I’ve said I train astronauts. I’ve said I’m a fisherman. One time I said I was a spy. The person I was talking to became instantly animated and started peppering me with so many questions it would have been easier if I had simply told the truth. As it was, I had to fabricate a wild set of statements based on my uninformed speculation about what a spy does! But such is the mind of a person who has ADHD—in this case, me—that making up stories comes quite naturally. Some people call this lying, but when there is no harm done, I call it playing.

Creativity, after all, does not happen on schedule or on demand. It

As far as I can see, many people who don’t have ADD are charter members of the Society of the Congenitally Boring. And

The ingredients of the mélange may include: •  high mental and physical energy (coupled with extreme lassitude at times) •  a fast-moving, easily distracted mind (coupled with an amazingly superfocused mind at times) •  trouble with remembering, planning, and anticipating •  unpredictability and impulsivity •  creativity •  lack of inhibition as compared to others •  disorganization (coupled with remarkable organizational skills in certain domains) •  a tendency toward procrastination (coupled with an I-must-do-it-or-have-it-now attitude at times) •  a high-intensity attitude alternating with a foggy one •  forgetfulness (coupled with an extraordinary recall of certain often irrelevant remote information) •  passionate interests (coupled with an inability to arouse interest at other times) •  an original, often zany way of looking at the world •  irritability (coupled with tenderheartedness) •  a tendency to drink too much alcohol, smoke cigarettes, use other drugs, or get involved with addictive activities such as gambling, shopping, spending, sex, food, and the Internet (coupled with a tendency to abstain altogether at times) •  a tendency to worry unnecessarily (coupled with a tendency not to worry enough when worry is warranted) •  a tendency to be a nonconformist or a maverick •  a tendency to reject help from others (coupled with a tendency to want to give help to others) •  generosity that can go too far •  a tendency to repeat the same mistake many times without learning from it •  a tendency to underestimate the time it takes to complete a task or get to a destination •  various other ingredients, none of which dominates all the time, and any one of which may be absent in a single individual

If you tell a person that she has a mental disorder, you create a mental disorder—not only in the patient but in those who love her as well. The disorder is fear. Chronic fear holds more people back in life than any other mental infirmity. How ironic—and wrong—that the