Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder

Desperate to be out of our mind and unaware, we surrender to the addiction, to be lulled into a walking sleep.

It’s the self-rejection others react against, much more than the differentness.

incomplete development of pathways in the cerebral cortex, and between the cortex and lower areas of the brain.

I have learned through my own process that a goal in life cannot be the avoidance of painful feelings.

we are not just the molecules that accidentally have come together to form our bodies, the thoughts that temporarily engage our minds, the feelings that agitate or soothe us from one moment to the next.

The brain, flooded with multiple bits of sensory data, thoughts, feelings and impulses, cannot focus, and the mind or body cannot be still. In short, the policeman is asleep.

One way to understand ADD neurologically is as a lack of inhibition, a chronic underactivity of the prefrontal cortex. The cerebral cortex in the frontal lobe is not able to perform its job of prioritizing, selection and inhibition.

But parents can help their children come to grips with these difficult feelings, learn to tolerate a sense of loss and disappointment, and move on.”

This feeling of duty toward the whole world is not limited to ADD but is typical of it. No one with ADD is without it.