What Is ADD?

So what the heck does that mean, ADD?

What does ADD mean? The acronym stands for Attention Deficit Disorder. Basically, it’s considered some sort of defect in the brain, creating a hyper-active boy who is incapable of learning in a typical classroom setting, and is pretty much a powder keg, waiting to go off. The ADD boy is disruptive and socially incompetent, therefore he makes few friends. With medication, forced on hyperactive children because their parents, teachers and doctors don’t want to take the time to really help them, these children are flat-out dangerous to themselves and others. Since it’s an amphetamine, Ritalin is highly-addictive, and by providing these drugs, we are creating a new prison class, groups of people who were raised on this addictive substance and will, naturally, go on to have problems with alcohol and drugs, eventually leading them to a life of crime to support their habit. They’ll reproduce and their children will wind up in the “system” and continue the cycle, hence giving us our increase in overall mayhem.

All those who believe this, or some variant thereof, to be true, please stay. Those who believe this to be nothing but lies, efforts by some other major concerns to discredit ADD, the doctors, the patients, the pharmaceutical companies, et cetera, well, you can stay, too, but I have nothing really to teach you.

All those in the first group, I hate to say this, but that is WRONG! Obviously, if you’re interested in information, stick around. If you’re more interested in maintaining your extremely narrow views of the world (defined as an unwillingness to learn new information), well, fine, leave. I won’t stop you. Not here, anyway. Don’t forget, though, we can win this one, and we will.

So what about this drug thing? A child accurately diagnosed will actually likely forget to take their meds, not be addicted. ADD continues into adulthood in a majority of the cases, and many folks don’t find out until they’re adults. The hardest part of diagnosis in adults is history. We have one. I was 28 when I was officially diagnosed. I don’t have teacher testimony handy, but I have a history of detentions, particularly in junior high school. I don’t have report cards showing comments such as “Not working up to potential” but I have memories of teachers being extremely frustrated with me, having to give me A’s and B’s on my tests, and nearly failing me in the class because I didn’t do homework. I don’t have a diagnosis from childhood, a history of hyperactivity, but I do have a history of disruptiveness in class, and not even beginning major assignments until at least 48 hours before they’re due.
I am what’s termed ADD mixed, basically meaning I have both hyperactive and inattentive qualities. I can bounce off the walls and leave the room at the same time, is what that means. I wasn’t the quiet little girl in the back of the room, not paying attention to the teacher, not knowing what just happened in class. I was the one challenging the teachers, creating situations they’d rather not have, talking to the other students, and still able to figure out what they were talking about. They pretty much hated me for that. I could talk above them, too. It was pretty cool at times, pretty frustrating at others.

Was life hard? Sure. Find me a kid who didn’t have trouble with their lives. It’s all relative, after all. Would I change my life? Well, no, actually, I wouldn’t. First off, I don’t believe I’m disordered. I have a brain chemistry that more readily allows me to think outside of “the box.” I have trouble reading sometimes, the words just don’t stick, but that doesn’t happen all that often, not often enough to make life miserable. Second, I would be a different person if I had a different childhood, and I happen to like who I’ve become, and who I could one day be.
I’m perfectly fine with being an ADDult. I consider myself to be ADD, rather than have ADD. It’s a simple matter of syntax, but for me, it makes a difference. ADD is not a disorder, as far as I’m concerned. It’s a differene. There’s no deficit in attention, you’d be amazed how well we can hyper-focus on things. Attention is merely diverted. I can see what’s going on two cars ahead, two behind, read the billboard I just passed and judge how far from the lines I am, all while driving at about, oh, 80 mph.

What is ADD, really? It’s not something I can explain. You either get it, or you don’t. Just know this: It’s real. It’s very real, and for some, it’s very devastating. Medication helps a lot of people, folks who otherwise wouldn’t be able to get through the day, who wouldn’t be able to pay their bills or clean their homes or make dinner without the smoke alarms. These are severe instances, there are actually plenty of people out there who can function well enough, if not perfectly, without medication. It’s not required, and even in the most severe instances, I still don’t see disorder. The “absent-minded professor,” the genius who doesn’t remember to wear socks, is an archetype for severe ADD. We don’t have a place for these people anymore, everyone has to be productive (over-productive, actually), and it’s just all that much harder to get along in this world. Medication, coaching, therapy, these are tools, nothing more.