What is Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)? part 1

So really. What the heck is it? Well maybe I can tell you what it's not. It's not a disease (STD's are a disease). It's not a deformity (an extra ear on your knee pit - now THAT's a deformity). It's not lower intelligence. It might be a chemical imbalance depending on other symptoms like Hyper/hypothyroidism etc. But the kind you have from birth is not a chemical imbalance.  So what is it? Let's move through this together.

The church of Scientology has issued many controversial statements, documentaries, adds and so on about this and many other human maladies. I have nothing against this religion nor any other and think each person should be allowed to practice what they believe to the fullest of their ability so long as it does impede on the same for me. As they would want it, ADHD is a myth. Like I said to each their own. However, they're morons to try and mislead many into thinking it doesn't exist. Neither does cancer, mental retardation or Pink Eye exist according to that line of thinking. Let them have it that way. It helps thin out the gene pool and keeps  them in the fringe with public faces like Tom "Mr. Glib" Cruise. Wooo. Yeah he's grounded.

I would tell you that the condition is not really a "deficit", per se. It's more like the opposite of a "deficit" - excessive. A flood of sensory input and no ability what so ever to filter out even the smallest stimulus coming in through the 5 senses. Sometimes it's like overload. You try to focus on this thing, but because the radar antenna of your attention is whirring around in a circle picking up every little stimulus then only picking up a bit and piece of the thing you're trying to concentrate on you get a little of every thing and all of nothing. Some people would say, "well just pay attention, focus." I'd say shut-up you don't know what you are asking.

The Davidson Institute for Talent Development out of Reno, Nevada says:

"People with ADHD describe that they are drawn to all the stimuli around them equally and simultaneously. They are like jugglers who give fleeting attention to each ball in the air. Nothing gets sustained, undivided involvement.

TAKE HOME MESSAGE #1: For persons with ADHD, the ability to maintain attention and impulse control is determined by one factor-- if the task is interesting, desired, or challenging, the individual with ADHD has no problem with distractibility or impulsivity. If, on the other hand, the task is boring, it is a neurologic impossibility to stay on task. Interest and challenge only determine the ability to function, not importance. This "interest based performance" is coming to be the hallmark diagnostic symptom of the disorder and the key to successful management once medication treatment has been established.

The swings of attention can be profound from states of "zoned out" dissociation to a condition known as hyperfocus. As many as 40 percent of adolescents and adults with ADHD can enter what appears to be an altered state of consciousness while doing activities which they consider particularly intriguing. During a hyperfocus the person performs at almost 100 percent efficiency, does not notice the passage of time, does not become tired or hungry, and has virtually 100 percent comprehension and retention of what he reads."

I couldn't have said it BETTER. Because the neurology needs higher stimulation to stay in the realm of where a person without ADHD is KEY here. Trying to simply listen to my wife tell me a story about something that happened to her during the day is a prime opportunity for my attention to zone and become numb-ish to the details being related. I want to listen, I can even feel my self sinking or drifting. Now comes the character attachments we make to some one who "doesn't listen to their spouse when they are talking". I don't care about her, I don't listen to her, I am self centered, self absorbed, just tolerate her. True? FALSE!!! Got some news for you. It has nothing to do  what so ever with what I think of my spouse or how I feel for her. It has every thing to do with the neurology and the ability to keep my consciousness "afloat" and in the moment. Do I feel like crap that I can't remember that she told me that story by the next day when she asks me something about it? you bet. Then comes the guilt, the name calling, the argument entitled "You never listen to me, you must not care". Blah blah blah..Get a grip here. Take a breath. You were just privy to one of a couple of dozen moments like that happening daily. In a meeting at work, with your boss in his office, with your mom on the phone, with your daughter in the car on the way home from school. God help us we don't mean it like that. It is how we are built. You could argue "So you're built to be selfish and self absorbed"? No. That is how someone with out ADHD is taught to understand that pattern. The pattern does not make the intent nor outcome. It is a symptom of something else. In this case ADHD. In a person with out ADHD? Sure, you betchya it's very likely to be an inattentive ass-hole. 

Continued later in part 2.