So says a high achieving woman about her ADHD plus husband. She says these are processing issues. Simply put people process thoughts differently. Neither ADHD or ADD people process differently than “Normal” people. When it comes to activities of the brain there is a very broad range of “Normal”; the range is impossible to identify meaning the ends of the range are very indistinct and according to Mary Matalin who is in love with and has been married to ADHD “Poster Child for ADHD”, James Carville, “The Ragin’ Cajun” for over 20 years. She should know. James is the kind of person who abruptly leaves the party while it’s in full swing and simply goes home. His wife is welcome to stay. He’s not being rude. He’s not mad. He is just going home. So what?
People have different fingerprints; different from finger to finger and of course different from person to person. People have different brains. Brains are neither the same from minute to minute nor from person to person. There are no two alike. All are similar, None the same. So James Carville should not be expected to think and act exactly like anyone else or like someone else or like they did last year or before puberty.
James and Mary have been married for years. Mary was told many times often by perfect strangers, often by well-meaning doctors that James was ADHD. Finally, according to their highly recommended recent book “LOVE & WAR” James was officially tested and diagnosed to be ADHD. He was offered drugs to help him but he said he didn’t want to think different than he thinks. Mary not only understood, she encouraged James to remain James. And James is a very high achieving person.
FLASH. Hold the psycho-stimulant Adderall. Maybe children diagnosed with ADHD should be treated as, well, -just people who process information different than other people and left undrugged. Perhaps in some ways they are processing information better than their highly educated but mis-informed handler. Maybe throw away the Adderall and learn how these people who process different because they are different need someone who understands them to interact with them and stop them from being considered victims and start treating and educating and interacting with them the same as they act with other people who are admittedly different because we all are. Different.
Maybe means just that. This is not a medical recommendation, just an opinion based on reading “LOVE AND WAR”. For more information put on your best ADHD thinking mode and check it out yourself.
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