I'm ADD (uh, what were we talking about again? 8-). To say the least, the discovery of this has changed my life. I've done a bit of studying of ADD, and considerable self-examination and watching of others, with and without this so-called "disorder".
I'll have a lot more to say on this subject, but first, a quick note about terminology. I don't like the term "Attention Deficit Disorder". For this reason, I'm going to break with my usual distaste for three and four letter pseudo-acronyms that are so rampant in my business (computers), and pretty much stick to calling this ADD. There are other historic titles for this characteristic, which at best were no more accurate, and at worst, make "Attention Deficit Disorder" sound absolutely positive (my "favorite": "Minimal Brain Disfunction". What the hell does that mean?). For this reason, in most of my writing on ADD, I'll call it ADD. Please understand that at least in this case, it is not due to lazyness nor a desire to either impress or baffle with stupid three-letter pseudo acronyms.
Much more will end up on this page, hopefully, but at first, I wish to start by putting a copy of the article that helped me "discover" my ADD, an article written by a friend of my mother.
A story here... My mother handed me this article, and stated rather clearly that I might find this article of personal interest. I most certainly did! I called her a day later, and told her I saw myself very, very clearly in this article. I asked her, however, if she noticed herself and her brothers and sister in the article as well.
There was a very long pause on the phone.
She hadn't. But she realized what I said was probably true. And she asked me to bring the article back so she could re-read it.
In fact, it turned out the person who showed this article to my mother origionally was trying to give her a hint. It appears we ADD people are really bad at taking hints.
It seems that ADD is much easier to recognize in other people than in yourself. So, if there is someone in your life who might benefit from this information, don't hint, don't hope they will figure it out, whack them over the head with it hard, but nicely and with caring and without judgement. And, think about yourself, too.
ADD Article -- An article published by Phillis Fries (pronouced "Freeze") in the Grosse Pointe News, the article which got me started on this little journey (with many side trips, I might add 8-) and truly changed my life. (Text form)
ADD Opinion Page (Added 1-7-98)-- Some of my (many) opinions and conjectures about ADD
Famous People with ADD (Added 1-7-98)