Over my short 27 years I’ve watched the ‘disorder’ ADD gain mindshare. I was diagnosed with ADD as a child and my mother, a psychiatric nurse, was as well. In the 80’s she spent a lot of time speaking at schools and other organizations to help people identify ADD in children and to educate them about it.

15 years later its something she somewhat regrets. ADD is one of the most over diagnosed ‘disorders’ in children and from what I’ve seen over the years, its used as an excuse. Children are dubbed ADD at the drop of a hat. Kids running around screaming? ADD. Kids not paying attention to their parents while given instructions? ADD. God forbid that they’re just kids. Thats what kids do, they don’t pay attention and run around crazy.

The problem with using something as an excuse is that it then gets the connotation that its a problem. While there are some downsides to having ADD, there’s also downsides to being human or mammalian. That whole constant body temperature thing has always bothered me. But ADD isn’t a problem. If anything I’ve learned over the years that this ‘disorder’ of mine has helped me achieve in my area of work, programming. While most people know ADD as the “he gets distracted” thing, what the ignorant don’t know is that ADD allows me to have extreme concentration. The key is, it better be something i’m interested in, or forget about it.

By placing myself in an area of work that I love. I’ve been able to excel. I pick things up fast, and when I get “into something” you can’t tear me away from it. Time is meaningless when I’m on a roll with a project. Ask my wife.

Over the last few years ADD has been totally over hyped, totally misrepresented, and totally over diagnosed. Kids are drugged up because they’re hyper. Guess what, kids are hyper, get over it parents. You’re gonna have to deal with them, they’re not retarded.

I’ve always rolled my eyes at the way ADD is portrayed in the media, in the news, on tv, etc. Its funny because its just like everything else they portray, completely off kilter. Thats why its awesome to finally read something from someone that really nails it. Pete Quily blogs about ADD at Adult ADD Strengths. I only caught notice of it because one of his posts made it to the main page of Digg.

His descriptions of ADD in Top 10 Advantages of ADD in a High Tech Career couldn’t have described me better. It was like looking in a mirror. It was really nice to read something online about ADD that I could finally relate to and agree with.

6. Rapid Mind Fire
Your brain processes information at hyperspeed. You can do things in 30 minutes on a computer that might take other people hours. Downside if you’re stuck with an old machine and not enough RAM you’ll be frustrated cause it can’t keep up with the speed of your brain.

2. Quick Learner
IF it’s something you’re interested in. ADD is mainly a condition of boredom; you have no trouble paying attention to something if it’s interesting.

Check out his post to learn a little about what ADD really is.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 10th, 2006 at 11:59 am and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.