One of the little aphorisms I regularly offer to clients is the following: movement begets movement. Problems of movement and stuckness are problems that all client populations face, but it has been my experience that they are particularly common in the population of people with adhd.
Whenever a discussion about adhd comes up, there’s a strong likelihood that you’ll hear something about dopamine.
Laziness does not exist. It is simply a strategy of making you feel badly for not doing the thing the person accusing you of laziness wants you to do.
This is a meme about interpretation. It points out that when we misinterpret information that is coming from our own bodies, it can land us in real trouble.
The mood of the carnival is ominous. Clients tell me, as the tweet above speaks to, that the content of their thoughts and the emotional tenor of the carnival is existentially heavy.
The number of clients that have come into my office with long standing difficulties that they and their families and their health professionals call depression and anxiety and dysthymia and mood disorders etc. but turn out to flow from a lifetime of dealing with undiagnosed adhd is jaw dropping.
All of us with neurological and metabolic differences need to hear the title of this book ring in our ears, because to use the language of laziness against others or ourselves is to do a kind of judgmental violence that is neither accurate nor effective.
But there is a central issue that I have with the literature on adhd, and this is a problem with this book and with the field more generally. My issue is this: why distraction? Or perhaps the question could be asked in the following way: distraction from what?
Perfectionism causes personal and professional problems for perfectionists themselves and those around them. And, in a bitter twist of irony, it turns out to be an inefficient and ineffective way of producing good work with any consistency.
This is my hypothesis: confidence is not a thing. It is not a positive or affirmative state. Confidence is a state of absence or a lack. Confidence is the relative absence of doubt and indecisiveness.
It is my contention that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a corrupt phrase and name. It is a collection of prejudices. Its very existence has prevented scores of people from understanding the truth about themselves, namely that they have adhd.
