ADD and me
Jan. 18th, 2004 11:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drscottI have a mild case of ADD. This used to be very trendy until everyone claimed to have it, then it became a cliche. The underlying problem seems to be an underactive brain area that is supposed to sort through incoming stimuli and focus only on those of immediate importance. The symptoms are a tendency to be easily distracted, to lose track of thoughts in any kind of noisy environment, and to have difficulty keeping a thought long enough to use it -- which is why ADD children have trouble waiting their turn to speak, since they have to express the thought as they have it or it will disappear.
I've taken Ritalin in the past, and while it helps for a short while, the body becomes habituated and the effect wears off. It (and other "speed"-like drugs) seem to work by waking up the filtering center, so it appears paradoxically to calm children who are hyperactive. Oddly enough, alcohol does me some good, reducing the apparent noise level of the world -- it presumably suppresses the sensory input level while not depressing the filtering functions. Mostly I just avoid situations that make me feel overwhelmed, like crowds and noisy places. I've chosen jobs that were relatively calm, didn't involve any customer contact, and certainly no public speaking or sales.
ADD is also related to an oversensitive nervous system. I was shy as a child, avoiding unfamiliar people and situations. It's still true that if I am talking to more than one person, or with someone in a noisy environment, I'm doing it with only half my brain -- the rest is preoccupied trying to handle the external noise. So other than witticisms and stereotyped interaction, I don't make my best conversation unless I'm alone with the other party. I can appear to people who know me both via email and in person to have two different personalities.
None of this is too terribly surprising. My father was a paranoid schizophrenic, which is now known to be related to abnormalities of brain chemistry. Families with a history of madness and depression also have generated some of the more creative people in history. If "gay genes" survive because gay folk perform useful functions for the groups they inhabit, like becoming the guardians of religion and culture (and certainly fashion and design!), perhaps the genes for madness survive because they also produce creativity, which helps their groups progress in culture and technology.
Here's an intersting article about personality types and the possible genetic basis for them: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/94sep/gallagher.htm.
I've taken Ritalin in the past, and while it helps for a short while, the body becomes habituated and the effect wears off. It (and other "speed"-like drugs) seem to work by waking up the filtering center, so it appears paradoxically to calm children who are hyperactive. Oddly enough, alcohol does me some good, reducing the apparent noise level of the world -- it presumably suppresses the sensory input level while not depressing the filtering functions. Mostly I just avoid situations that make me feel overwhelmed, like crowds and noisy places. I've chosen jobs that were relatively calm, didn't involve any customer contact, and certainly no public speaking or sales.
ADD is also related to an oversensitive nervous system. I was shy as a child, avoiding unfamiliar people and situations. It's still true that if I am talking to more than one person, or with someone in a noisy environment, I'm doing it with only half my brain -- the rest is preoccupied trying to handle the external noise. So other than witticisms and stereotyped interaction, I don't make my best conversation unless I'm alone with the other party. I can appear to people who know me both via email and in person to have two different personalities.
None of this is too terribly surprising. My father was a paranoid schizophrenic, which is now known to be related to abnormalities of brain chemistry. Families with a history of madness and depression also have generated some of the more creative people in history. If "gay genes" survive because gay folk perform useful functions for the groups they inhabit, like becoming the guardians of religion and culture (and certainly fashion and design!), perhaps the genes for madness survive because they also produce creativity, which helps their groups progress in culture and technology.
Here's an intersting article about personality types and the possible genetic basis for them: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/94sep/gallagher.htm.
A party animal doesn't dash off a Paradise Lost. The same high-strung families much afflicted by moodiness and depression are more likely than others to include writers and dancers, painters and composers. Happily, this strain is hypersensitive not only to stress and danger but also to art and nuance: as Byron wrote, "Of its own beauty is the mind diseased." Hagop Akiskal, after investigating (in collaboration with his wife Kareen Akiskal) what he calls "the romantic idea that mental illness is related to creativity," discovered a link not with disease per se but with a variation on the reactive disposition which he calls the "cyclothymic temperament." People of this type alternate rapidly between high and low levels of mood and activity which are far less marked than those of manic depressives. The "down" spells foster contemplation and reflection; during the "up" spells surging energy, ambition, confidence, and mental puissance drive hard work.
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no subject
Date: 2004-01-21 06:39 am (UTC)Those adults who still can't control themselves in ordinary conversation tend to be unpopular, since it's just assumed they're insensitive clutzes. If you wonder what happens to the really hyperactive boys who don't get better, that's them. Another form of brain abnormality seems to be behind Asperger's Syndrome, which is about halfway to autism - relentless focus on patterns and order, very little attention to modeling internal mental states of other people. A lot of study in this area is picking up clues about brain function in normal people.