The Common Ground In ADHD Treatments

I'd like to point you all in the direction of this forum post over at addforums.com.

User bof00 has put together a brief sort of thesis about how, basically, a very specific brain process called BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) is at the heart of all ADHD treatments. He (she? sorry, bof00!) then cites sources indicating how everything from exercise to omega 3 to meditation to medications have been proven to up the BDNF.

So what is BDNF?

Basically (and this is my half-assed layperson's understanding, mind), BDNF is what makes neuroplasticity happen. Neuroplasticity, of course, being the brain's ability to develop itself into something different, to grow and improve through all stages of life.

Anyway...go read it!

The dangers of the "rewards system"

How many of you folks out there in ADD land have ever tried this trick: you know you have to get X done today, you don't want to do it/know you will procrastinate on it, so you decide that you will give yourself a reward of some kind when you do.

This is a common coping strategy for ADD, and one that I see a lot of people try to employ, including myself. However, I don't know of anyone with ADD who's ever had good luck with it. If you think about it for a minute, it's easy to see why: if our neurology makes us naturally bad at delaying gratification, why would we think that another form of delayed gratification is going to somehow make us be more effective?

I think those of us who try this tactic do so because we've had some well-meaning parent, relative or teacher try to push it on us at some point in our youth. File that under "things that work for normal people," because most neurology-typical people ARE motivated by delayed gratification, so adding to the gratification adds to to the motivation.

Alas, not so for those of us with ADD. However great the gratification in the future, the future is essentially nonexistent for all that our brains can emotionally conceive of it as a reality. We are like the children in the classic experiment who can't wait five minutes to eat the marshmallow, even knowing that we will get a second if we wait it out.

The Now is real for us. The Not Now is something we can only understand as a concept because the mechanism in our brain that should make it feel real is underactive.

So...stop trying to reward yourself later. A far better solution, when you can do it, is to find a way to reward yourself during. How about a piece of chocolate to eat while you work on that boring report? Creature comforts have become a major source of strength for me when it comes to coping with my ADD. Favorite movies on my laptop while I wash the dishes, favorite music playing while I do my writing, snacks while I attend to my neglected e-mail...even something as simple as wearing a favorite shirt or sitting in a favorite chair while performing an unwanted task can have a surprisingly positive effect on my ability to motivate myself to get things done. The same simple, childlike parts of my brain that can't be motivated by something big later can be motivated by something small now.

And always remember...if it doesn't help you, don't bother with it.

Decision Fatigue

This article was shared with me by a friend of mine a little while back, and I've been wanting to share it with all you folks in ADD-land ever since. It's from the New York Times and it details an interesting phenomenon that the author dubs "decision fatigue."

Basically, the idea is this: the more decisions you have to make in a day, the more your mental energy gets sapped and, as a result, the harder it gets to make those decisions well.

Not exactly rocket science, is it? Anyone with ADD understands the problems of limited mental energy, but this article makes a solid statistical, anecdotal and scientific case for decision fatigue being a lot more than some vague, quasi-imaginary concept. Mental energy is real energy, connected with one's metabolism, which is why you can restore it by snacking

Here's the kicker for folks like us: mental energy gets sapped at much higher rates whenever the decisions you're making require forcing yourself to do things that go against your impulses - and after all, what is any task, on a mental level, but a series of intricate decisions?  Now, let's just couple that with certain facts about ADD neurology...namely, the fact that we are naturally more impulsive and driven by impulse because the mechanisms in our brains meant to control impulses are underactive.

What it comes down to, in the end, is this: if you have ADD, mental energy is a precious resource. You have to ration it out carefully in the course of a day and learn ways to replenish it as you go.

I think I'd like to do a series of personal experiments along the lines of learning to minimize decision fatigue. I'll confess that at the moment, I'm still feeling pretty high-on-life from the new medication and that's caused me to neglect a lot of my usual regimen of natural coping methods, but now's as good a time as any to get back into the swing of things. I'll keep you all filled in as I go.

ADHD And Disability Accomodation

As some of my readers may know, I worked briefly as an employment specialist for a non-profit company working with people with mental illness. One of my responsibilities was to work with employers on negotiating "reasonable accommodation" (as per the Americans With Disabilities Act) when it came to mental health disabilities.

I was no expert and frankly, was pretty well out of my league at the job, so I can't claim to have perfect advice in this area. But I still think it's a useful discussion to have and one I don't see many people with ADHD having.

What, exactly, are "reasonable" accommodations for people with ADHD on the job site?

Vyvanse

I have an announcement to make: for the first time in five years, I am once again taking medication for my ADHD.

That's right: I'm now taking Vyvanse, a newer time-release stimulant. It's going very well, but more on that in a minute.

Gabor Mate's ADD Approach: My Experience So Far

So, I started this blog about nine months ago. I started writing because I wanted to cover a wide range of topics related to ADD/ADHD, but largely, also, because I was inspired by Gabor Mate's book, Scattered (or Scattered Minds, depending on whether you buy the US or Canadian version). You can read my initial post about it here.

So how's it working out for me?

First and foremost...I feel better about myself. I've been taking the time to dissect my life experiences, especially my formative, childhood impressions and see how it's affected my sense of myself, my most deep-seated anxieties. I'm beginning to feel my ADHD as those anxieties, not just as some random tweaky brain I can't figure out or control.

It's not a fast process. I mean, the emotional progress can come in leaps and bounds, but how it actually informs my ADHD is something that only changes gradually. Today, I'm feeling like something big has happened in that arena: some last shell of a major anxiety construction of my own fell away and I have this...I don't know, this strength from somewhere that allows me to push through. A confidence to self-actualize. I'm guessing this is what the executive function feels like.

I'm still trying to decide how much of my personal stuff I really want to post here...bear with me while I decide, and I apologize if this post is a bit vague. I want to do what's most helpful to my readers, not use this as a personal therapy blog.

Shiny Thing: ADD T-Shirt

My husband and I have matching versions of this shirt.

Sometimes, you just have to laugh at it. :-)

The Double ADD Relationship: Why It Can Work

I have ADD, and so does my husband.

What I have found this means for us is that none of the expert advice or standard conversations about ADD and relationships apply to us. All the books, articles, forum chats, stories, rants and related tales from couple's counseling I've ever seen deal mostly with the challenges of an ADD partner and a non-ADD partner figuring out how to reconcile their differences and come to terms with the challenges of the relationship. Most commonly, it seems, the challenges of a relationship for someone with ADD come from the basic caring=instant results misunderstanding we all know too well...you know, where someone close to you assumes that if you actually CARED about their feelings and circumstances, you'd be able to keep a job/get organized/remember birthdays/focus during a conversation, etc.

Pesticide Exposure and ADHD

This is a little over a year old, but it's still interesting: Study links pesticide exposure and higher rates of ADHD.

Naturally, this is going to be one of those cases where correlation doesn't necessarily indicate causation, but who knows? I don't think it's crazy to wonder if maybe a bunch of nasty poisons might just have an adverse effect on the ability of our systems to operate correctly.

Gotta love this bit:

"Environmental Protection Agency regulations have eliminated most residential uses for the pesticides (including lawn care and termite extermination), so the largest source of exposure for children is believed to be food, especially commercially grown produce."

In other words? You can't use it on your lawns, it's too toxic. Eating it, though? A-ok. *facepalms*

ADHD and Stress Repression

Lately, I find myself cursed with a variety of stress-related physical ailments. The worst of these is muscle tension, a problem that almost every person with ADHD can relate to.

I do a lot to keep it under control. Yoga, exercise, hot and cold compresses, massage, meditation...but I recently found myself spending about two weeks battling a bout of tension so severe, all my best coping skills, plus regular doses of ibuprofen, were only enough to take the edge off (and even then, only sometimes).

What's been really interesting to me about this event (albeit, also harrowing) is that it was quite clearly a physical outcropping of long-repressed emotional distress. I say this because I soon discovered how readily an honest, raw expression of emotion - of the type I've learned to avoid - would give me some relief from the pain. Sometimes it was crying, sometimes just talking through something with someone, and sometimes it required a good bout of yelling.

....and we're back!

I've been off the blog for a while - something I hoped I wouldn't do.

Such is often the case with those of us who have ADHD...we start some new project, filled with hope and inspiration and, above all, determination that THIS time, we'll follow through on it, we'll stick it out, we won't just drop it off or drift away from it partway through.

...and then, a matter of hours/days/weeks later, it falls away from us, just like everything else has before. We feel bad, and associate that guilt with the project itself. We never want to touch it again, lest we be reminded of our failure. Sure, we move on to the next project...but with each new venture, the memory of our past failed attempts hounds us, making it harder and harder to believe in ourselves enough to get started again.

Well, hell.

Alternative Treatments

So...have you heard about these alternative treatments for ADHD?

You know...exercise, high-protein diet, omega 3, magnesium, zinc, crawling therapy, music education therapy, neuroplasticity therapeutic approaches, cerebellum development exercises, meditation, medicinal marijuana, homoepathic treatments, chiropractic treatments, neurofeedback, gluten-free diet, or anything you may have heard of as being beneficial as a treatment for ADHD?

ALL LIES!! Scams! Snake oil!

Any positive effects you may have experienced with any of these treatments are purely a figment of your imagination.

/sarcasm

ADHD Medication: Things to Consider

Since I write a blog that's largely concerned with natural coping mechanisms for ADD you, might think I'm opposed to medication. I'm not, actually, but I do have some pretty strong feelings on the subject nonetheless. I thought I should write a post to clarify, and to use as a point of reference, later.

In truth, I believe that medication can be a very fine thing and an important part of many people's coping and recovery. I myself took two kinds of medication at different points in my teenage and young adult years; Ritalin for a couple years in high school and Strattera for a couple years in college. In addition to the extra boost of help these drugs gave me during critical times in my life, they taught me an important lesson about the differences between my brain and those of most people and what it could feel like to live with less disability. A lot of the positive effects of these drugs became permanent as I strove to achieve the same level of performance without them that I had with them.

Coping With Procrastrination

As a follow-up to my earlier post about the causes of procrastination, I'd like to talk a little bit about some effective coping mechanisms I've discovered. Lately, I've found it immeasurably useful to deal with procrastination by dissecting it. In order to do this, I ask the following questions:

1. What am I avoiding right now?

The first question is usually pretty easy to answer; when you're avoiding something, it's usually on your mind, poking constantly at the back of your thoughts and causing you stress. Sometimes, however, that stress can be great enough that you simply can't make yourself think about it enough to address the avoidance. For this reason, it's a good idea to attempt this exercise at a time when you're feeling relaxed or happy. Also, I find it very effective to sit down and make a list of the things I'm avoiding and worrying about; getting them out of my head and onto paper transforms them from a stress-inducing spectre into something manageable.

A Completely Pointless, Unnecessary and Peevish Post

Dear ADD community:

ENOUGH ALREADY WITH ALL THE ADD PUNS!

C'mon...pleeeaaaase?

Sincerely,

Laurel

Willpower and the ADHD Brain

If you're reading this blog and you don't have ADD, I'd like to ask you to do a little mental exercise with me.

Think back to when you were five years old and your parents told you to put your toys away after you finished playing with them. Remember the resistance you felt to this activity, how spirit-crushing it seemed to do this chore when you wanted to move on to some other fun activity, like playing outside. Remember the effort it took to accomplish this task, if you could even do it on your own (which you probably could not).

Now...think about that same task now, and how it would look to you as an adult. Why, it's only probably six or eight toys that just need to be placed in a bin or on a shelf. That's no trouble at all. You can do it in about 30 seconds without a second thought. You may even find it pleasurable as you're spurred on by thoughts of how nice the clean floor will look and how useful it is to have things organized. Think that's emotional maturity?

WRONG: your brain has changed! Where you were once a creature of impulse, you now have higher brain functions that numb out those childhood feelings of resistance AND give you rewards (dopamine, I think?) for carrying out the tasks that your executive functions set forth. What was once a great feat of willpower is now a very easy thing indeed.

For the ADD brain, however, this change does not take place, or it does not happen to the extent that it should. But because most people don't understand the neurology of childhood brain development, we don't experience an overabundance of sympathy and understanding in response to this limitation. Instead, we get lectured and shamed and blamed and goaded and most of all, told we need to "try harder." We deeply internalize these messages about our own inadequacy. For those of us who never get a diagnosis, we never examine them. Even for those of us that do, the guilt mechanisms are already well in place and are constantly reinforced throughout life.

If there's one thing I'd like to communicate to anyone who ever reads my blog, it's that ADD is a genuine disability. It's as real as any physical limitation, however much it may not be visible. Though it's important for all people with neurological disabilities and differences to advocate for themselves, I believe it's especially crucial for those whose disabilities are, themselves, exacerbated by the guilt and shame of being blamed for our troubles and/or not taken seriously.

So please, my friends...always remember that compared to what it's like for us? Your toys pick themselves up.

Fostering Healthy Romantic Relationships

This is an article I wrote a couple years ago about fostering healthy relationships with someone who's got ADD. I've had a few people tell me that they've found it helpful, so I've decided to re-post here. This is a list of tips and tricks for non-ADHD partners. I intend, at some point, to write a follow-up list of tips and tricks for the ADHD partners.

Know how their brain works. The first and most important thing you, as a non-ADD partner (NAP) need to understand about your ADD loved one (ALO), is that her brain works differently than yours, because it's lacking a lot of electrical signals necessary to behave as responsibly as she'd like to. Therefore, a lot of assumptions that you might make about the motivations behind her actions aren't necessarily going to be accurate.

For example, it's quite common for an ALO to forget that she's supposed to meet her NAP at a certain time for a date, only to get caught up doing something else and lose track of time. The NAP will often assume that this means the ALO didn't care enough to make the appointment, but in truth, this is almost never the case. In general, it's easy for NAPs to assume that ALOs just "aren't trying hard enough," but usually, we're trying as hard as we can.

Expect apologies, but accept them. If your feelings have been hurt, or if you've been inconvenienced in some other way by your ALO's ADD-related behavior, you should expect an apology from her - after all, she needs to learn to take responsibility for her symptoms, even if they aren't her "fault." But if she gives you a genuine apology, accept it.

Expect improvement, not perfection. Many NAPs will get frustrated with a certain behavior in their ALO, and expect that telling her once should be enough to solve the problem completely, and that if it isn't, she didn't get the message. This is not the case - changing our behaviors takes a great deal of time and effort, so if you see any steady improvement at all, even very small improvement, you can be certain that your ALO is doing her absolute best to do what's fair to you.

Positive reinforcement is nearly always better. Because we are driven so strongly be our emotions, people with ADD are often extremely sensitive to criticism. Moreover, the negative feelings we associate with that criticism will often cause us to avoid the problem in question and thus, to avoid solving it.

On the other hand, positive reinforcement has the opposite effect - if we're complimented on our improvement, we will want to continue facing down the problem and improving. Despite how it may seem at times, it's actually quite important to us to please our loved ones.

Know the right way to express your disappointment. Sometimes, you have a right to get upset, but always remember that any harsh words or raised voices are going to have twice the effect on your ALO that they would on anyone else. For this reason, choose your reaction and your words very carefully.

I recommend that you avoid speaking out of anger, ever. When you're feeling angry, the best place for you to be is far away from your ALO. Vent to a friend, punch a wall, engage in some primal scream therapy and say all the angry and hurtful things somewhere where she won't hear them. Then, once you are able, return to her and be honest about your feelings. There's a big, big difference between calmly saying, "This made me very angry today, enough that I was screaming insulting things about you," and actually screaming those insulting things at her, and the former will make her understand your feelings and the importance of taking them seriously without doing irreversible damage.

Remember that the good and bad are connected. For whatever reason, people with ADD often share many extremely positive qualities such as creativity, charm, and a kind, generous character. Chances are, these are some of the things that made you fall in love with your ALO in the first place. Whenever you feel frustrated with one of the difficult aspects of her ADD, remember that the good things about her are there are for the same reason that many of the bad ones are.

Never forget to take your turn. As the NAP, chances are that you will often feel that you're "taking care" of your partner, in much the same way that partners of people with physical disabilities do. Always be proud of yourself for this, and for the fact that you love your ALO enough to have patience and to help her get a handle on her issues for both of your sakes.

But also, don't forget that your ALO has a responsibility to you. Tell her how it's important that she take care of you sometimes, teach her how to do this, and don't be afraid to tell her when you need this kind of treatment. She will most likely respond with enthusiasm.

Indigo Children

I'd like to take a timeout from my normal discussions of living with ADD to talk to you all about Indigo Children.

For those of you who aren't familiar, Indigo Children is (to quote Wikipedia), "...a pseudoscientific label given to children who are claimed to possess special, unusual and/or supernatural traits or abilities."

In other words, it's a New Age fad. And as it happens, it's associated with ADD. The basic idea is, ADD is a label given to children who fail to conform to expected norms because really, they are Chosen Ones. They are spiritually designated to lead humanity into a more evolved spiritual reality, and THAT's the real reason they can't conform.

*facepalms*

Okay...where do I start?

First off, I want to make it known that I'm not some dyed-in-the-wool skeptic or anti-spiritual. Far from it; I'm a pretty highly spiritual person, and it wouldn't even be entirely inaccurate to call me New Age-y (though I prefer labels like "Pagan," "ecclectic" or "shamanistic"). However, whatever I might believe about the spiritual realities of the universe, I believe that it's important to keep yourself grounded in worldly realities. I'm not opposed to making mundane, real-life decisions based on spiritual consideration, but you have to take everything with a grain of salt and question it...especially your own conclusions.

This is all especially important when it comes to the ways in which you expose your children to spiritual realities. Kids rely on their parents to form a healthy understanding of the reality around them. Without proper guidance, they won't understand the difference between the statement, "There's a president who lives in the White House," and "There are angels who live in Heaven."

So what's a poor child to do when her mother tells her she's a savior of humanity? Believe it, of course.

This problem becomes all the more serious when you take into account the new connections being made between stressed or dysfunctional households and occurrences of ADD. ADD children are desperate for attention and approval, and they live in severe fear that their parents' love comes to them only upon conditional terms. Because of this, they alternately bend over backwards to please their parents, then rebel against them to test them.

So..."Indigo" parents? Here's something I can promise you: if your child seems to enjoy the idea that he is one of the most vitally important people in the universe, it is only because he hopes this will make him good enough to be vitally important to you.

I mean...talk about sending a message of conditional love.

What's perhaps the most sad about this phenomenon is how easy it is to see what makes it happen. You see, if you spend as much time as I do learning about New Age/Pagan/occult/shamanic traditions, you encounter a lot of people with spiritual delusions. You learn pretty quickly that the more more grandiose the fantasy, the more intense the insecurity the person is trying to cope with. Given the amount of unfair scrutiny, blame and ignorant assumptions that get launched at the parents of ADD kids, it's not hard to see why some of them would jump at the chance to see their child in this "improved" light.

This is certainly foolishness, but I think the real blame for this phenomenon falls on the shoulders of the spiritual charlatans who profit from this nonsense. They are, in essence, profiting from pain.

Shiny thing!

Here's a shiny thing to look at: the essay/cartoon, "This Is Why I'll Never Be An Adult" by Allie Brosh. You'll laugh yourself silly. Allie makes her living as a blogger/humorist and she has ADD. She's an inspiration to me and reading her stuff is a real treat. A lot of what she writes is a poignant and accurate (if completely freakin' hilarious) representation of what it's like to live inside an ADD mind. Enjoy!

Procrastination

Image courtesy of Daily Pictures.

The above is a somewhat famous product of that wonderful internet meme, the demotivational poster. As you can see (provided you're not reading this post months or years after the image link breaks), it reads, "Procrastination: Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now."

There is, of course, quite a lot of obvious truth in that cynical statement. Still, most of us learn at a young age that what is best for the present moment is not always what is best for the future moment, and that future moments have a nasty habit of turning into new present moments. We also learn that many of those new present moments can, with the help of hard work we've done in the past, yield some very excellent results that don't come of seeking quick rewards. So we figure out how to forego instant gratification for the sake of the sake of long-term security in our lives and the pursuit of complex ambitions with big and/or sustained payoffs.

For those of us with ADD, however, that learning process never quite seems to gel. Sure, everybody struggles with procrastination and discipline throughout their lives, but for us, these troubles are a constant, oppressive companion.

Study of neurology has, in recent years, finally started to confirm what so many of us have felt in our hearts but often never dared say; it really is harder for us. Certain areas in the prefrontal cortex of the brain never activate for us the way they do for others, areas devoted to impulse suppression that should be assisting us in overcoming our procrastination. When people say, "mind over matter," this may very well be the part of the mind they're talking about.

So we get through life as well as we can without it. Those of us that can motivate ourselves enough to be high-functioning usually do it through a complex system of guilt and self-recrimination mechanisms, fueled by the memory of childhood shaming by family and teachers. We don't have the power to overcome our impulses, so we manipulate them with negative emotion, just as adults learned to do with us in childhood. Those of us who have found some level of reprieve through medication know that something magical happens when a pill works for you; something switches on that was never there before, a part of the brain that we've always been aware should be there, but isn't.

All of this should seem to point pretty readily to the conclusion that the issue for us is a pure hiccup in neurological development, an immutable difference in our brain biology. And yet...I don't really feel like the fundamental reasons for my procrastination are all that different from those of most other people.

The language we use to talk about procrastination tends to be unquestioningly harsh and judgmental. We shame people for "laziness" and view a lack of ability to self-motivate, organize, and place the nose to the grindstone as a moral failure, a form of selfishness.

I think this is why, when ADD research comes along and seems to say, "Hey, it's not their fault, their brains don't work," it often triggers a jealous response in people. After all, why should we get a free pass when no one else does? You can often find a similar judgement response to other mental health diagnoses, or even to people with limiting physical ailments.

However, there is a potential paradigm shift occurring in our understanding of "laziness," one that takes a hard look at the simplistic, moralized view of these issues and looks at the psychological roots of procrastination.

One book I highly recommend along these lines is Jane Burka and Lenora Yuen's book, "Procrastination: Why You Do It, And What To Do About It NOW." The essential thesis of this book is that procrastination is caused by fear, sometimes deep-seated insecurities, connected to the action at hand. Fear of failure, essentially, prevents you from trying because hey, if you don't put your best effort into life (or some area of life), at least you can hang on to the idea that if you ever did really try, you'd succeed.

I honestly don't think the psychological roots of ADD procrastination are any different from that. Certainly, there is a biological component; for most people, these fears haven't catalyzed into the same severity of neurological limitations. Those prefrontal brain parts (as I've learned from Dr. Mate) actually filter and control emotional impulses, making them easier to overcome through willpower.

All this means is that if you have ADD, it's all the more important that you deal with the root emotional causes of your avoidance issues. And yet, all too often, ADHD treatment starts and ends with medication, shrugging its shoulders and pointing to the reality of altered brain chemistry as if it were an impassable obstacle.

I know from my own experience that with the right approach, you can greatly lessen the impulse to procrastinate. It's all a matter of convincing yourself that really, those short term gains aren't the best you can ever hope for.

Meditation for ADHD: A Brief Introduction

Of all the natural coping methods I commonly see recommended for those with ADD, one that, to me, doesn't get nearly enough props is meditation.

I don't know why this is. Perhaps it's because it's just too New Age-y for some folks. Maybe it's because those acquainted with the issues of ADD find the idea of prescribing intense concentration to treat focus problems as lofty, perhaps even laughably so.

Whatever difficulties can come in learning to meditate (I'll get to those in a moment), I still think it's a shame not to try. The benefits of meditation to the ADD mind are profound in both a practical and emotional sense. First and foremost, it helps with hyperactivity, teaching one the art of stillness and calm. It's also a highly comforting balm to the emotional distress we so often experience, while creating a mental state excellent for gaining insight and unraveling bad habits. And of course, it helps with focus.

I myself learned to meditate via a hypnotist (hypnotism and meditation are essentially the same things; the differences between them split hairs along the lines of how the trance states are used, but that's really up to the user either way). He was actually an entertainer, and with trademark ADHD "look at me!"-ism, I volunteered to be a "subject" for his stage show. I found the experience of hypnosis so profound, I bought some of his CDs and started to learn self-hypnosis. The CDs contained ambient electronic music as well as progressive relaxation hypnotic inductions and instructions, including guided visualizations and behavior-modification exercises. Pretty basic stuff.

Chances are, I wouldn't have been able to learn the discipline if I'd tried to start from scratch, no music, no direction, just me sitting down, closing my eyes, and trying it. I needed the voice on the CD to give me direction and keep me focused until I'd been doing it for quite some time on my own. But that's what worked for me. For many people, visual stimulus is required to get into a meditative state, or some kind of meditative physical activity, like yoga, or a repetitive action. Things like drawing, getting lost in music, light housework, gardening, working with your hands, can all be good ways to get into the mindset.

Some good resources:

Pandora Internet Radio. Design an ambient music station of your own to help you with meditation. (I use "Kitaro" as my foundation, personally.)

Frederick Winters. This is the guy I learned hypnosis from.

Self-Hypnotism. This is an instructional article I wrote for eHow.com.

Illuminescence on YouTube. This user creates videos with hypnotic visualization and binaural beat music to assist in achieving a trance state. Just sit somewhere comfortable and watch and listen, preferably in the dark.

The False ADHD Dichotomy: Blessing Or Curse?

"The more the core self - the deepest impulses - is suppressed, the more compulsive are the attempts to compensate by satisfying superficial, infantile, instant-gratification impulses and desires." - Gabor Mate

The above is a quote from Gabor Mate's book, Scattered Minds. As planned, I purchased the book and am now reading it. I highly recommend this book. I'm finding it revolutionary, in fact, and hugely resonant in terms of my life. As I stated in my previous post, Dr. Mate's approach to ADD is rather different from the standard dialogue on the topic; it is his contention that ADD is not purely genetic, but also triggered by childhood emotional pain and profound stresses (and thus, curable, at least to an extent).

Before this point, the books by Dr. John Ratey (Driven to Distraction and Delivered From Distraction) had been my bibles in terms of understanding and coping with my ADD. I think I might just have a new one, at least for this period in my life. This is the first time I've encountered someone who talks about the root emotional causes of ADD in a manner that makes sense - and is really cutting and critical - but is not judgmental and does not blame.

I've always encountered a sort of polarized set of opinions when it comes to the "value" of ADD, resulting in an ongoing argument about whether the condition is a blessing or a curse. This is often tied to opinions on where the condition comes from and whether it's actually real. On the one side, you have the people who might say that ADD is a massive pharmaceutical scam, or a cop-out for bad parenting, or just plain immaturity that people make excuses for. On the other hand, you have the people who point to the (superficially) positive qualities of ADD (creative, often ingenious thinking, predisposition to generosity and compassion, etc.) and therefore treat ADD as a purely or predominantly genetic condition, one to be regarded as a positive or even to be deified (as is done with the horribly misguided "Indigo child" fad).

The sheer grounded common sense of Gabor Mate's approach to the problem, however, is beyond refreshing. I've always found myself frustrated by both standard points of view. One way, I feel blamed, shamed and insulted, and with the other approach, I feel like I'm being told that my problems aren't really a problem at all.

I mean, who among us doesn't know the feeling? The constant barrage of contradictory messages that comes every time we enter the professional mental health world, or any discussion of the subject? It's tiring, stressful, and above all, unhelpful, to have to oscillate between being told that one's life is a blessing, a curse, a burden, a problem, a mystery, a myth, a miracle, something pathetic, something extraordinary, etc., etc., etc.

Behind it all though, the individual with ADD feels unsettled. We want to live in a world of neither praise and adoration nor shame and the label of "dysfunctional." We want to be normal, and no, normal isn't just some social construct. We know that something in our minds feels deeply unsettled and wrong, and we all yearn for the feeling of having that be right. We may never have felt what it would be like to to live with "right," but we all have a sense of it, like an empty space in our minds and hearts.

Perhaps we're finally at the stage of a paradigm shift in how our condition is viewed. Perhaps it's a bigger shift than just that, one that might affect the larger culture of mental health and healing in North America.

I, for one, certainly hope so.

Today, my ADHD caused me to completely flake out on the fact that my trombone teaching day was meant to start at 3:30, not 4:00. I missed my first lesson and felt a total ass. In addition to this, I'd forgotten to bring my trombone, which is kind of an essential accessory for trombone teaching.

I got the call telling me I was late while I was on the road with my husband, Ryan. I apologized, then hung up the phone and proceeded to unleash a tirade of verbal abuse upon myself along the lines of how I "f*ck absolutely everything up."

Wanna know the real irony? I had just been in the middle of a conversation with Ryan about how beating oneself up exacerbates ADHD symptoms.

You see, a couple weeks ago, I was introduced to the writings of Gabor Mate, a physician and counselor in Vancouver. He takes the rather radical position on ADHD (and a number of other neurological, behavioral and medical issues) that the real cause of the problem is not pure genetics, but an issue of brain development. One that, Mate posits, is reversible with the right care and personal insight.

I haven't read Dr. Mate's book on ADHD (I hope to have it soon), but I've been thinking about this idea a lot in the past weeks. Certainly, Mate's not the first expert (or "expert") to propose that ADHD is caused by upbringing, but I've always balked at most statements along these lines because they usually go something like, "Blah blah blah, lazy, blah blah blah, bad parenting, blah blah blah, too much TV and video games, blah blah blah vaccine conspiracy blah blah blah boys will be boys and girls and adults don't REALLY have ADD, blah blah blah not enough math/nature/nutrition/discipline." (I hope that's not getting too technical.)

According to Mate, however, it's not BAD parenting, but merely highly stressed parenting and the realities of a post-industrial capitalist society's effects on childhood (i.e., most children are neglected as parents fight for their lives to make ends meet). I'll spare you further paraphrase, and you can read the interview with Dr. Mate (taken by the formidable Amy Goodman herself) here.

The idea of stressed parenting is one that resonates with my experiences, certainly more than any of the other pot-shot explanations. My early childhood was certainly stressed for my parents, who were struggling to survive on a meager, unsteady income while living in the frozen woods of Northern Minnesota - in a house heated only by a wood stove, no less! My parents were both younger than I am (27) by the time they had two children to take care of, and my father's own ADHD made both his working life and his emotional life an intense struggle.

I expect I'll be doing a lot more unraveling of my early childhood experiences, and those of other adults with ADHD in future blogs (it all comes to bear), but for now, suffice it to say I have a strong emotional recollection of tension from that time. It seemed, to my sensitive child's mind, that someone was always upset or on the verge of collapse. I'll be interested in seeing what sorts of thoughts Dr. Mate has about how, precisely, situations like mine cause ADHD, and ever more interested in seeing how the effects of such an ubringing can be mitigated.

But one thing I've found to be quite true over the years is that a solid sense of self-worth is crucial to living with ADHD. Unfortunately, ADHD often comes with a lot of baggage, built from years worth of negative feedback. I've been amazed at how much easier my day becomes when I wake up on the right side of the bed, or when something's just happened that serves as a boost to my self-esteem.

Tip for the day: Don't sweat the small stuff. Remember that other people make mistakes, not just those of us with ADHD. Work on fixing the problem, rather than beating yourself up for it.