I found the following posted on the bulletin board on the Mining Co. The writer gave me permission to post it here. His name is Jake and you can write to him at: lilbudha1@usa.net if you have any comments. If you would like to copy this HTML copy to your site, it's fine with me. I would appreciate it if you include a link back to my ADD home page. Jake has also given his permission for you to copy this for use elsewhere so long as you include his name and e-mail address.
When I speak to someone about my ADD I sometimes get this reaction.
"Oh God, someone else trying to blame behavior on some kinda disease. "
Of course my first inclination is to get upset.
"Excuse me ?" I'll say. " What exactly do you know about ADD ? ""Well..." he/she will say, " Its just an excuse for either bad parenting or for laziness. Why don't you just do something when you're supposed to do it ? "
(Right, like its that easy. )
I used to argue the point with them, but I found that this never worked. so I decided to try something new. Ahhhh....creativity, one of the BENEFITS of ADD.
"Okay. " I said, " Lets do it this way...I want you to think of any two objects. Anything. Something that in no way should be related in anyway to the other. "He scratched his head for a min and said, " A Twinkie, and my shoes. "
Really creative, I thought, especially since there was a Twinkie wrapper next to his foot.
" That easy.. " I said, " Polymers. "" What ??? " he asked.
" Polymers. " I said again, " Plastic. Both the rubber souls of your shoes and the wrapper of the Twinkie are made of polymers. Now give me two more things."
He scratched his head again. " Okay...my shirt and that dog across the street."
He smiled quietly to himself.
"Do you want me to just do the two or would you like me to connect all 4 things? " I asked."Its your hole, " he remarked, " go ahead and dig it."
"Its easy, " I began, " That dog across the street is a rottwieler, originally bred to pull small weapon carts during the Roman era. A type of bread was made at that time using meal to give it more flavor and nourishment during the long marches. Today that bread is made by a company called Roman Meal, which is wrapped in a plastic bag. A polymer. "
He smiled, " Ha !! What about my shirt though ? "
I smiled back at him.. " May I see the tag ? "
I reached to the back of his neck to look.
"50% cotton, 50% polyester. POLYester " I said (accentuating the syllables "poly")."What does all of this prove?? " he said, " Fine, you see links between things, it still doesn't explain why you forget to do things. "
Now this is where I make the kill.
"Actually it does, " I explained. " Imagine for a moment that everything you see, everything you touch, your mind races to correlate it with every other thing you have seen or touched that day. Imagine that everything is a distraction, because your mind won't stop trying to link everything together.""Now imagine your wife tells you to take out the trash, you say OK but as the words come out of her mouth, you're thinking not just about trash, but about land fills and how bad it is for the environment, and you see a Styrofoam cup and wonder if they can really recycle it so that its safe again for the environment. Then you remember an article you read about cups and how many are thrown away. You recall that while reading that article your friend had come by to say 'Hi!' You think to yourself that you haven't seen or heard from that friend in a long while. You should give him/her a call and see how they are. So you reach over to the phone, call the friend and talk for an hour. After you're done, the trash truck has already come by. Your wife asks why you didn't take out the trash in time."
"THAT'S ADD!"
© 1998 Jake,
© 1998 Charles K. Kenyon