Learning Breakthrough

Adults with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADD/ADHD) don’t dwell on why things go wrong in our lives. We are too busy moving on to the next shiny thing. ADD/ADHD medication helps us slow down our racing thoughts, so we can ask, “Is this the best thing for me to be doing?” or “Is this the right thing to say?” Writing about our ADD/ADHD lets us take things to a higher level. We can analyze our behaviors -- and misbehaviors -- and pinpoint how ADD/ADHD symptoms contribute to the problems in our lives.

I used to come home from work, in my dress clothes and high heels, and head straight to my rock garden to weed. After an hour, my dress was soiled, my stockings ripped, and my shoes trashed. Writing about this impulsive habit allowed me to see my behavior objectively. It made me realize I should change my clothes before working in the yard. Of course, making that discovery didn’t make clothes-changing a habit. I had to train my brain to get into my gardening garb.

The more I write about my ADD/ADHD challenges, the more I learn about why things -- at work, in relationships -- don’t go well. Writing makes me examine something I used to accept as another bad day, instead of just replaying the day in my mind and chastising myself for poor performance. Over time, writing has reduced the burdens of falling short of my own, or other people’s, expectations by giving me the perspective to make changes.

via Treat Attention Deficit Disorder Symptoms Through Writing | Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Help and Info -- ADDitude.

When the cognitive paradigm became dominant, inattention became the focus of ADHD, and disorder was renamed attention deficit disorder (ADD). Two subtypes would later appear in the literature, which correspond to ADD with or without hyperactivity. The diagnostic nomenclature reflects the notion that the primary problem was an attentional (and thus, cognitive) one and not primarily behavioral. The attentional problems had to do with the ability to shift attention from one stimulus to another (something that Jonah Lehrer has called an attention-allocation disorder, since it isn’t really a deficit of attention). The hyperactivity symptoms were also reformulated as cognitive: connected with an executive processing deficit termed “freedom from distractibility.”

So much of my reading lately and connections to new users have to do with the misdiagnosis of ADHD. There seems to be no other "disability" that generates more difficulty in accurate diagnosis and more ways to address the symptoms than ADHD. For a rather good look at the topic, a doctor friend sent me the link attached here. The language may be a little loose but the point is that there are many paths to a misdiagnosis and it is something for all of us, therapists, teachers and parents to be aware of that I thought it would be a good share.