Betsy, I know exactly how you feel. Finding out for sure that you have ADD and perhaps getting some help for it is quite a relief.
ADD is just as frustrating once you've been diagnosed, but at least we know what we're dealing with, and that it isn't that we aren't trying. In fact, it's actually been proven that in the ADD brain, "trying" actually inhibits the ability to focus even more.
There's one more book I'll recommend, while you're looking at them:
Attention Deficit Disorder, A Different Perception, by Thom Hartmann.
It's one of the classics, I should have mentioned it before. Hartmann is wonderful. He writes about how we are "hunters in a farmer's world." Farmers, he says, are the types of people who can till the earth, plant seeds, nurture them, and wait for the crop to come in once a year. Hunters prefer to go out each day and see what they find; if they are following rabbit tracks and come upon deer tracks, they will change their path to follow the deer. Hunters cannot be farmers, and farmers cannot be hunters -- neither would be happy.
But we have a world set up for farmers. Children are asked to sit quietly in rows; adults are asked to meet deadlines in cubicles. We are rewarded for stability and forward motion (not side-to-side motion), and for starting, finishing and following through (not changing paths). Our brains simply aren't wired the same way, and instead of being made to feel that our brains don't work RIGHT, it's good to realize that we just work DIFFERENTLY.
Good luck in finding more out about yourself, and please come back and let me know what you find out and how you're doing!
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Betsy, I know exactly how you feel. Finding out for sure that you have ADD and perhaps getting some help for it is quite a relief.
ADD is just as frustrating once you've been diagnosed, but at least we know what we're dealing with, and that it isn't that we aren't trying. In fact, it's actually been proven that in the ADD brain, "trying" actually inhibits the ability to focus even more.
There's one more book I'll recommend, while you're looking at them:
Attention Deficit Disorder, A Different Perception, by Thom Hartmann.
http://www.amazon.com/Attention-Deficit-Disorder-Different-Perception/dp/1887424148/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233683147&sr=8-1
It's one of the classics, I should have mentioned it before. Hartmann is wonderful. He writes about how we are "hunters in a farmer's world." Farmers, he says, are the types of people who can till the earth, plant seeds, nurture them, and wait for the crop to come in once a year. Hunters prefer to go out each day and see what they find; if they are following rabbit tracks and come upon deer tracks, they will change their path to follow the deer. Hunters cannot be farmers, and farmers cannot be hunters -- neither would be happy.
But we have a world set up for farmers. Children are asked to sit quietly in rows; adults are asked to meet deadlines in cubicles. We are rewarded for stability and forward motion (not side-to-side motion), and for starting, finishing and following through (not changing paths). Our brains simply aren't wired the same way, and instead of being made to feel that our brains don't work RIGHT, it's good to realize that we just work DIFFERENTLY.
Good luck in finding more out about yourself, and please come back and let me know what you find out and how you're doing!
February 3, 2009 - 10:53amThis Comment
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