Driven to Distraction (Revised): Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder
Edward M. Hallowellamazon.com
Driven to Distraction (Revised): Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder
It is easy to set up. You start by making a list of all the regular tasks, obligations, and appointments you have every week—your fixed-time expenditures, so to speak. You then make a grid of your week on a calendar or appointment book and plug each fixed obligation into a regular time slot.
Edward M. Hallowell • Driven to Distraction (Revised): Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder
Repetitious whirlwind romances
Edward M. Hallowell • Driven to Distraction (Revised): Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder
Living in distraction as they do, bombarded by stimuli from every direction and unable to screen out what is extraneous, people with ADD live with chaos all the time. They are used to it, they expect it. For all the problems this might pose, it can assist the creative process. In order to rearrange life, in order to create, one must get comfortable
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Think of a thermometer and the mercury it contains. If you have ever broken a thermometer, you know what happens to the mercury. The ADD mind is like spilled mercury, running and beading. Structure is the vessel needed to contain the mercury of the ADD mind, to keep it from being here and there and everywhere all at once. Structure allows the ADD m
... See moreEdward M. Hallowell • Driven to Distraction (Revised): Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder
The hidden anxiety is hard to believe, but we see it frequently in clinical practice. This is the anxiety or worry that the individual actively seeks out. The person with “anxious ADD” often starts the day, or any moment of repose, by rapidly scanning his or her mental horizon in search of something to worry about. Once a subject of worry has been
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It is important to keep true ADD separate from pseudo-ADD for the diagnosis to retain any serious meaning. If everybody who gets distracted or feels hurried or gets easily bored is diagnosed with ADD, then the diagnosis will signify nothing more than a passing fad.
Edward M. Hallowell • Driven to Distraction (Revised): Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder
Even when they look calm and sedate, they are usually churning inside, taking this piece of data and moving it there, pushing this thought through their emotional network, putting
Edward M. Hallowell • Driven to Distraction (Revised): Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder
then the bad feeling comes back. It isn’t despair. I’ve never attempted suicide or anything like that. It’s just that I’ve never felt good, about myself or about life or about the future. It’s all been an uphill battle. I guess I always thought that’s just what life was—one long series of disappointments interrupted by moments of hope.