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.