ADHD Cures

Posted By Vic on November 16, 2009

Sorry to anyone who checked back on the “tomorrow.” Unfortunately I was distracted. My wife and I are foster parents to two teenage girls who need a lot of attention. This does tend to be distracting. I could not find this post, which I had written, and got into hyperfocus mode on another site, Agape Aid, on disadvantaged children, dysfunctional families, social orphans and orphans. In all these cases there is frequently some form of ADD ADHD behavior.

Well now I am back on my post and posting the blog a few days late. This by the way was not an example of procrastination (I enjoy writing about this subject) it was distactability.

Before discussing ADHD further, it might be helpful to put the oversimplification of ADHD psychiatry in a scientific context. In a review article titled, “Toward a philosophical structure for psychiatry,” published in 2005 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, Psychiatrist Kenneth Kendler the co-editor-in-chief of Psychological Medicine wrote:

“We have hunted for big, simple neuropathological explanations for psychiatric disorders and have not found them. We have hunted for big, simple neurochemical explanations for psychiatric disorders and have not found them. We have hunted for big, simple genetic explanations for psychiatric disorders and have not found them.”

Kendler K.S. Am J Psychiatry 162:433–440.

The changing attitude from attention disorder to attention dysregulation is something I can accept. I cannot accept having attention “disorder” as I experienced attention hyperfocussing. This was one of my strengths, and together with my intuitive insight during hyperfocussing, these were two of my talents that I valued.

These are typical positive parts of the ADD/ADHD psyche. When ADHD is considered a “disorder” the positive aspects do not feature. This might not seem positive to a parent calling a teen to dinner, but the teen is not being disobedient, probably tuned out of this world and absorbed in something s/he finds fascinating.

The daydreaming, considered a “symptom” of the “disorder,” was also valuable to me, as this is where my intuitive insights came from. I am an ADD personality (sounds nicer than a neurologically disordered patient) as I am not physically hyperactive. I seem to inattentively daydream a lot. On the inside though, my mind is hyperactive, and is constantly ticking over in my waking hours.

Well at least the attention disorder is likely to be erased from the next DSM. The term dysregulation refers to the fact that we are not average, but are either easily distracted or able to hyperfocus. The average person is usually in the attention area between these two extremes.

Another difference not mentioned much among ADHD researchers hyperfocussing on some “disorder” is that the distractibility is much due to boredom intolerance. The average person can endure boredom and still focus. This gives the average person the ability to concentrate on any task at hand, while the ADDer is unable to concentrate on a task experienced as dull.

The ADDer being boredom intolerant has great difficulty getting down to a task perceived as boring. Others often see this as procrastination. It is not because of laziness the ADDer is procrastinating, it is due to boredom aversion. Boredom is so painful to the ADDer’s soul, that the mind desperately searches for some excuse to avoid it, thus the easy distractibility. This is also the reason for daydreaming. The daydream is far more stimulating than the boring task at hand.

The exception is in a time of crisis. This explains why the ADD/ADHD personality procrastinates till it is too late, and then suddenly is able to complete the task working through to the early hours in the morning of the deadline.

The attention dysregulation is an inability to decide that now I am going to concentrate on this boring task. It is not a lack of discipline, it is an inability. Also there is an inability to choose what to hyperfocus on. The hyperfocussed subject is what the ADDer is interested in, not something chosen for him/her. There tends to be a shift between these extremes and little activity in between where the average person lives.

So true ADD ADHD is not an attention disorder, but attention dysregulation and boredom intolerance.

Categories: ADHD Causes
Tags: Add Adhd, Adhd, Attention Disorder, Boredom, boredom intolerant, Disadvantaged Children, Dysregulation, Intuitive Insight, Orphans, Psychiatric Disorders