A.D.D.: Not So Bad.
This is a post forwarded from the Adult A.D.D/A.D.H.D. is NOT a Gift post from Jeff’s A.D.D. Mind Blog, directed to a gifted arguer by the name of Scott. If you wish to follow the first part of the argument go here. It is in the comments section near the bottom of the fourth page. Read down through the comments and replies from my first “Paradigm Of Thought” Post. While there, check out Jeff’s Blog.
From Here on in, I will recite the intended post.
Scott,
Thank you very much for responding to my query. First I’d like to clear the air and say I apologize if I hinted toward you being below my intellectual level. I did not mean to make such an assumption, I simply meant that sometimes my answers can come out convoluted at times, as you saw in the above statement “It may have been a lack of communication on my part.”
You had mentioned the abnormalities of the ADHD brain. While I’m not arguing that brain damage can’t effect a person’s ability to succeed, one has to measure what the intensity of the damage is and where the damage is.
According to the American Medical Association, ADHD has the following neurological traits:
- Reduced Size In The Basal Ganglia (Effecting base motor functions, making the person clumsy.)
- Abnormalities in the Reticular Activating System (Giving the person heightened awareness, sensory information, and in many cases insomnia)
-Minor Frontal Lobe Dysfunction (Giving the earmark traits, hyperactivity, inattention)
-And most compellingly a 7-repeat variance on the B4 Dopamine Receptor. (Causing the majority of innattention in ADHD, the addiction prone behavior, as well as a particularly cool trait called “Hyper-Focus.”)
So we have identified the Dysfunctions, so let’s study them .
Reduced Size in the Basal Ganglia will make the person with ADHD more clumsy, but this can be compensated by using the acute attention to detail caused by the Reticular Activating System Abnormality to remain aware of your surroundings. Even in worse case this will hardly effect a persons ability to function properly or succeed professionally.
Abnormalities in the Reticular Activating System does cause the increased awareness of Sensory Information that plays no small part in the distractiblity in the person with ADHD. This also gives an acute awareness of one’s surroundings, and the ability to easily identify subtle cues in behavior, both are keynote traits in success. With out this awareness a person may not be able to detect danger, or close an important deal.
Minor Frontal Lobe Dysfunction is the most disconcerting of them all, it is a key component in the distractibility and the process commonly called a “Cognitive Storm” in which a person may be thinking a “million thoughts at once.” But as I have mentioned before, the distractibility of the individual is more than made up by the ability to switch tasks fluently as well as track several projects at once (which is also caused by this dysfunction). A technique that in the real world is one of the most important traits in order to succeed (There are many times in business in which the person is required to step away from one task and focus on another for the stability of a business). Cognitive Storms can seem stressful, however it is, from personal experience, an effective method to identifying abstract patterns, which allows for structured reasoning and goal setting.
The 7-repeat variance on the B4 Dopamine Receptor is the main causer for distactibility and increased addictive behavior for the person with ADHD. As I have mentioned before there are positive traits to distractibility, and addictive behavior can be managed in several ways, such as therapy, life style changes, and simple discipline. And even if not, the most successful stock brokers, celebrities, businessmen, etc. have addictions. And considering that anything that releases dopamine is addictive, such things like exercise, romance, and yes, success can be addictive as well. All of this points that even addictive behavior is not necessarily (Though in some cases is) advantageous or disadvantageous for success.
I also mentioned a cool ability called “Hyper-Focus.” This is a psychological phenomenon found almost exclusively in people with ADHD. In this state a person with ADHD will temporarily “tunnel” their thoughts into one project, allowing them to double their work output, and completely tune out all ancillary information that will distract them. With a task oriented goal setting system this can be utilized for any and all success.
Adding to all of this the fact that people with ADHD have an average IQ that is 5 points higher than the norm, score notoriously high in linguistics tests, and work well under pressure. I cannot imagine how ADHD can hinder a person’s ability to succeed. However you did make an interesting point: that success is contingent on a person’s goals. If a person with ADHD has the goal of not having ADHD anymore, he most likely will not succeed.
I have a problem with this argument for two reasons.
1) The original argument was that a person will not succeed if they have ADHD. With out the qualifier “in certain areas” I must assume the word “Succeed” refers to general professional or personal success. No specific successes.
2) Using the exact same logic, if person with ADHD has the goal to be easily distracted, then they most definitely are successes already and the argument is null and void.
The fact is that people with ADHD are by biology well equipped for success, and even their disadvantageous traits are quite manageable. The only thing that stops people with ADHD from succeeding is simply the “I can’t” syndrome, in which the person makes excuses to why they cannot perform a task, instead of finding reasons why they can. Success on any level is based solely on attitude. The most notably successful people in history and modern times have neurological disorders in every field, from Teaching and Philosophy (Socrates was believed to be an Advanced Schizophrenic, and illiterate), to Politics (Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson are believed to have had ADD) to Inventing and Mechanics (Thomas Edison is so strongly believed to have ADD that the term “The Edison Syndrome” was coined in the 1980s), To Business (Donald Trump is known to have OCD), and even to the Sciences (Albert Einstein was Autistic, and had what is called Aspergers Syndrome; Stephen Hawking has MS). It seems that all things can be overcome, except for the words “I Can’t.”
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Interesting piece you’ve written here. You certainly delved into the neurological dimensions of the problem. I do, however, have problems with a few things. I’ll only point to two of them.
1. You wrote: “I cannot imagine how ADHD can hinder a person’s ability to succeed.” Time and again, studies have shown how ADHD does, indeed, hinder a person’s ability to succeed. (It’s the entire basis of “Driven to Distraction” and numerous other books.) The problem with your assertion is that you are assuming that because YOU have overcome your ADHD then EVERYONE with ADHD should be able to do the same. That’s a wonderful sentiment but it is based on the false assumption that your particular makeup, your particular challenges are identical to others. That’s an assumption you just cannot make. You CAN, however, explain how you set your goals, how you channeled your ADHD for success. But you CANNOT assume that everyone who has ADHD is not successful is, somehow, deficient or, worse, using it as a crutch. Ironically, what you are doing is making this a moral argument…which brings me to item number 2.
2. You wrote: “Success on any level is based solely on attitude.” You are in good company here since the ADHD deniers also believe that success is a matter of attitude. Think hard enough and it will happen. This is, of course, pure ideology and, perhaps, purely American (I’ve never lived in any other country except the U.S. so I don’t know what mythologies that people in other countries may subscribe to). As natural Cartesians (De Tocqueville’s observation) we too often ignore the role of outside influences on our success and just assume that we were the sole determinant of our success. That’s the American Horatio Alger fairy tale but, it’s just that…a fairy tale. There are many many factors that go into our success with our “willpower” and “attitude” being only a part of a much larger set of forces.
Hello, again, Jeff. Thank you for reading my piece and for your response. Maybe I can help clear the air.
1. You’re correct, “hinder” may have been a poor choice of words. What I meant was more along the lines of “prevent,” and I can understand how confusion can be applied here, especially when I used the wrong word. There are numerous counter-studies that indicate the success for people with ADHD (This is the entire basis of the book “Attention Deficit Disorder: A Different Perspective” by Thom Hartmann). Now, I understand that just because I have overcome my ADHD that it does not imply that everybody knows what I do, and that they can as well. I also know that my situation was different on many levels. However, with the exception of the fact that I have an average intelligence that scores in the top 2% of the world, I have no more to work with than any other person with ADHD. The fact is if we map out our lives, with the exception of the very rich and the very poor, everybody has about the same amount of opportunity, and the same resources to draw from. It took me years of therapy and a lot of attitude adjustment to get myself to state I am today, and I’m not pretending it’s not work, it is a lot of work. But I licked this problem in less than three years, and I have been diagnosed with high end ADHD and ODD. I am an extreme case of ADHD, I used to make excuses, but I found that when STOPPED making excuses and only expected result, I got results. I challenge anyone with ADHD to try the same, and HONESTLY try. Don’t be discouraged by failure (because the first shot is most likely going to be off it’s mark, as any shooting range attendant can tell you), which brings me to my next point.
2. As Henry Ford Said “Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, either way you’re right.” The ear mark trait of all successful people is attitude, don’t believe me? Ask big hitter in the MBA what he thinks he’s going to do when he steps to the plate, he will tell you “I’m going to knock it out of the park.” Does this mean he’s going to knock it out of the park next time? No, not at all. However it is this attitude that allows him to knock it out of the park when he does. When we begin to change our attitudes and say “We Can” we begin to change our life styles and habits in order to fit with this new attitude. This is no fairy tail. Ask any successful businessman, salesman, or even lawyer what their attitude is. You’ll find the successful ones believe that they WILL succeed. This attitude plays no small role in success.
A side point, you mentioned that attitude is a small part of success. I beg to differ. Your attitude not just toward success, but toward failure has a lot to do with what opportunities you take, what you leave behind, what you are willing to sacrifice, what deals you can successfully make, and whether you can go into work in the morning. Attitude effects every bit of success, including environmental problems, and dealing with failure. The fact is all successful people fail. Edison said it best when he said “Success is 10% Inspiration and 90% Perspiration.” Everybody who starts a small business will most certainly fail in their first attempt, this is because they simply don’t have the experience to make a successful business. But as they try and try again they find it becomes easier (because the parts of business that railroaded them before they have figured out ways to overcome). Everybody fails at least once. If you’ve tried quitting smoking you know this already. But the people who quit smoking didn’t fail once and give up. They kept trying and trying. The difference between success and failure is tenacity.
Am I saying there aren’t roadblocks to success? No, there are. And this is as much of a factor with those who DON’T have ANY neurological and psychological disorders as it does with people who have ADHD. To take into account environmental factors is simply deviating from the original point. Even the EXACT OPPOSITE of ADHD (Called TSS or Task Switching Syndrome) are subject to these exact same environmental factors. This has nothing to do with ADHD.
Too often do I hear that people failed and they never tried again. I usually point out the case of Donald Trump who failed miserably and came back (See “The Art Of The Comeback”). If it’s not this it’s the same whining “I never got the opportunity.” But the same EXACT people while telling me they don’t get opportunity will tell me that they refuse to compromise (a trait that is most certainly hindering to success), basically forfeiting any chance of opportunity. All of this in the same breath! It’s either refusal to compromise, blaming others, not trying, blaming their disorder. All of these are problems of attitude, not anything else.
Well, I think I beat that horse silly. If you have any other problems please share, I’m more than willing to discuss them. You mentioned these were only two arguments, humor me and give me the other arguments. Maybe we can reach a consensus. But as it stands, I’m going to stand firm on my statement. That at least in the majority of cases Success is solely contingent upon the attitude of the individual.
- Paradigm Of Thought.
This is the crux of your argument: “with the exception of the very rich and the very poor, everybody has about the same amount of opportunity, and the same resources to draw from.” I’m not even sure how to respond to this since it is based on such broad, sweeping generalizations that no amount of data, no finely crafted argument, will ever dissuade you from this belief.
Further, you have corroborated EXACTLY the point that I made in my post. You said you are in the upper 2% of the intelligence scale. Sure sounds like you are well out of the norm (by at least two standard deviations). So…other than the fact that you are smarter than 98% of the other people out there…you have no more to work with than the other people? Really? You are no different than others except for the fact that you are considered by IQ standards to be a genius?
Perhaps the question you need to ask yourself is, why is it wrong to think that BECAUSE you are so smart that you were able to OVERCOME your ADHD issues? Why does ADHD have to be the sine qua non of your success when it would seem to have been a hindrance that you managed to wrestle with and succeed despite its effects?
Jeff,
Maybe my statement was more philosophy than cold hard fact (I am willing to concede that). But successful people often make their own opportunities, and don’t wait around for opportunity to just happen. But that’s deviating from the point. My statement was based on years of experience talking to people who seem to believe that the world was crushing them down. Ask a therapist. Too often is lack of success explainable through failure to recognize and utilize opportunity. The pattern is clear, though regrettably not quantified, that people fail to succeed because they fail to take opportunities, not because they are not given.
Your second point was that I may fail to recognize that my intelligence has something to do with the fact that I was successful in overcoming adversity. I will not lie, it played no small part, but I found that common sense (something that far too often does not automatically come to people, regardless of intellect), persistence, patience, and an unwillingness to allow people to tell me I will never succeed was what had helped me far more to overcome my trials than even my intellectual level.
You asked me to ask myself a question, so I will in turn ask you to ask yourself a question. Is it wrong for me to assume that if a I can overcome adversity that somebody else can? Is it wrong for me to assume humility and be pragmatic in the idea that others can follow where I lead? Or should I make a blog that says “I’m smarter than you, and you will never succeed.”? Forgive me but it doesn’t have quite a ring to it.
And finally, it seems you have misread me. From my first post I have been careful to point out that I am no more or less disenfranchised because of my “disability.” That ADHD is not the REASON have succeeded. Actually more than once I have pointed out my reason for success is attitude and tenacity, not ADHD.
Why I started this argument is because you contend that a person with ADHD will never succeed. You’ve defeated your argument by conceding that is possible for us to succeed, even if it is DESPITE the ADHD.
I’ve never contended there are not stepping stones, no hurdles the ADHDer has to success. But I refuse to listen to Kvetching and excuses, when I am not allowed them myself. I have taken no excuses for myself, and call me cold, I won’t take any excuses from anyone else either.
Thank you once again for responding to my post. I hope to continue this debate, I am having quite a bit of fun.
- Paradigm of Thought
I must admit that I’m very disappointed. I expected you to respond point-by-point to my lengthy blog post on my blog. You have not addressed any of the points that I raised. You have not shown me the flaws in my logic. Please prove me wrong.
Patience, young padiwon. I actually was in the middle of posting it today, however it turned out to be quite lengthy, and quite frankly I ran out of time. But I will be posting my argument here because of the length of the post. Just give me a little time to clean it up and give it to you. I look forward to your reply.
I can certainly post your reply as a regular post on my blog. Since the discussion started there…it should really continue there.
Alright, that is fair. I will give you my response Via email, but I will expect that you take no artistic liberties with my response and post it verbatim. (That goes with out saying). Thank you for your patience, and I hope to see your response soon.
paradigm, Now that I see you are willing to step up and reply with less self-obsession that appeared to me as there may be some hidden agenda that didn’t address or care or even understand one of the main subjects of the blog. Or that maybe you did,and wanted me to believe that you didn’t(I was wrong and I am sorry)Please understand that Jeff is only trying to help ADDers, and save them from the falling into the trap set by self-proclaiming experts that were trying to sell books that would make all ADDers who read the book RICH!..if they bought the book. And now Jeff is still trying to help people that may fall into that trap if he dosen’t show us that you are an exception, and he and I and others that know the truth, can help others again by debating you, and we all know that we will not change your mind, or even want too because you do appear to be managing your ADD very well. But by you stepping up and debating this is a Gift Jeff can use to bringing Attn. to this still on-going Fraud.
Paradigm, you are absolutely Right when it comes to you and your own life and personal success in managing ADD. That is not the debate. The debate is that you may be Wrong about other ADDers. I don’t need you to believe that you are not gifted. We need the people that are ADDers to see that you are the exception and That IF THEY ARE ADDers THEY WILL NOT BE RICH AND FAMOUS. Thats an eye-catcher to hopefully get them to resd the facts about ADD, and not believe and be dissapointed,depressed,if they are not cured,,everyone is different,Paradigm. I ask you with all humility to please consider and think about this.Debate your point’s and Jeff’s. It will only help people if we do. wrong or right people will see and make there own choices.Intense debate has played a big part of the success of society for centuries.
Scott,
Pay no matter to apologies, I completely understand how a person can assume alterior motives. But I am glad that you have realized that I am not here to sell any books, and if I was here to sell books, it wouldn’t be about success and ADD considering that my specialty is Theological Arguments and the Myths of Modern Culture.
I want to say I understand the point of Jeff’s Blog. It’s the same point of my blog. To dispel what he sees as a Myth of Modern Culture. And the idea that a person WILL succeed because they have ADD is asinine. That’s like saying you WILL succeed if you are white (ok, bad example). And that is by no means my argument. But I do understand that our argument will help people, on both sides. Considering that the path to success is as relative as the person taking it, my side may help just as many people as Jeff’s, and I hope it does (on both ends). The fact is there are people in the world that use ADD as if it is a magic ticket to succeed, so they don’t have to try. And there are a comparable amount of people in this world who think it is hopeless BECAUSE they have ADD, so they DON’T try. Hopefully each respective end of the debate will sway at least ONE person in changing their attitude (one way or the other), but I will settle for just having a great time.
Understand, I love debate. It is my greatest vice. The idea of arguing a point, using ONLY logic and reason makes me salivate. Both of you have been excellent adversaries, and as much as I hope we all can come to a common ground on at least one subject. I hope that we will all disagree a lot as well, because you two are just so much fun.
Hope to see you on the chopping block
- Paradigm of Thought
We do agree on some things no doubt. And debating is also one the things I do have fun with. I reply here with my hat in hand, but I put my hat on when I’m chopping my opponent….I advise you to sharpen your blade!
Scott
Paradigm, I do agree with where the location of brain damage is done, and intensity of. I can see you have also considered the importance of finding and learning what the results of what our devoted scientists have found..so far. It’s amazing(to put it mildly)the untapped resources we have in our brains. I think I will have no debates with you about ADD in this subject. My opinions are only based on theory. As we both know, scientist debate among themselves constantly on many theories in efforts to find cures of all,so far,incurable diseases/deficiency’s related to neurology. Thank your for your interest in that subject and any imformation is step foward.
Theories…just something where I can find a little humor in a serious subject. One of the meds I take via. of 3x’s a wk. self injection(reasons not relevant to my point)is called Rebif(interferon beta-1a)is produced by Chinese hamster ovary cells. I just picture in my mind, some scientists taking a coffee break, just talking about nothing in particular, and one says, “Yeah, My kids have this Chinese hamsters,and they are just multiplying like crazy, and gettin’ out of controle(chuckle)” …Then one of em starts scratching his head, his eyebrows raise, and he says:”Hey! I’ve got an Idea!”..You see where I’m going with this and the little bit of humor I can find,…?
“The the most exciting phrase in science to hear, the one that heralds the most results, isn’t “Eureka!” (I’ve Found It!), but rather, “That’s funny…” – Isaac Asimov.
I thought that your analogy was quite funny. But if you read in to how a lot of discoveries were made you find this all the time. For example, I would like to be a fly on the wall for the Rabbit Pregnancy Test Idea. “Okay, so let’s cut open a rabbit, and pour the chicks blood onto the uterus. See what happens!”
Oh yes, I have been interested in this “by chance discovery” for years. I think it was Paul Harvey that was telling “The Rest of The Story” one day about the invention of the Microwave Oven years ago, that sparked my interest. I would be willing to bet You probably know the “Melted Candy Bar” story, that led to this “Discovery”.
I know my comments are drifting away from the subject of your post. I’m not trying to do that. I just enjoy your thoughts and knowledge about these things. Thanks for taking the time to share it. Scott.