I raised a boy with ADD and few other acronyms and my wonderful wife also has ADD. What I have found to be true in both of the above people, and others who I have come in contact with in my life, is that ADD is not a disorder, but rather an incredibly busy mind. I have sat and watched my son for years and now my wife. What they both have in common is an ability to take in everything that is happening around them even when they appear to be focused on something else.
My sons mother and I divorced in part over this issue. All she wanted to do was keep the kid on drugs with the help and encouragement of the school system. All I wanted to do was get him off drugs and help him understand what was going on and to teach him how to deal with his “condition”. And as an aside, I always found it interesting that the drugs of choice were “stimulants”. Why would you want to stimulate disorder?
Slowly I gained control and when he finally moved in with me and I was able to wean him of his drugs he started to realize what was going on. “I have a hundred thoughts going through my head at once!” he said to me one day. That is at the heart of ADD. Multiple thoughts. The can’t calm their thoughts. But they can pay attention to anything they want and in most cases multiple things at once. We call it that a “deficit”.
In my research I discovered many talented and brilliant people through out history who “experts” now claim had ADD...
I digress, I do get the “meds” comment...
Reared two kids with diagnosed, documented ADD and ADHD. What you say is true.
Both have IQs at the very top of the chart. Much of their problem, particularly in the classroom, was learning to focus on one idea at a time.
I had a teacher tell me once, while pulling her hair, that my kid, while bouncing off the walls, could retain all she said, while other kids staring her in the eye could not. I never medicated the kids, but always took the teacher’s side and demanded accountability and appropriate behavior. There’s a time and place for everything, including excess energy.
It was darned hard teaching those children self-discipline and how to channel that excess into appropriate settings.
They’re grown now, doing well, still full of ideas, but voting right.
ADD is today considered a disorder. It once was considered a mark of genius. How things have changed in this world where it’s now a badge of honor to be “victim” of something or other. Introversion is sometimes classified as a disorder, too. ADD is a normal adaptive response, which in evolutionary terms, had a selective advantage. Hyperfocus is not a disorder. Nor is the ability to multi-task or “brainstorm”. What’s “normal” does not mean that what’s rare is a disease. But there’s money to be made in drugs to fix a non-problem and it seems to work for teachers who don’t want to deal with rambunctious students. In other words, they don’t or can’t teach discipline. Drugging is so much easier. Teachers are the main “pushers” of these drugs. Thank the NEA and the APA and the AMA for this one. And the drug companies.