You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!: The Classic Self-Help Book for Adults With Attention Deficit Disorder by Kate Kelly, Peggy Ramundo Read Free Book Online

dried-out, hardened objects permanently attached to the pan we cooked them in!
    We think the one-channel phenomenon has implicationsfor kitchen designers. They really should take a crash course in ADD. If they were aware of this phenomenon, they would never design kitchens with large, open spaces for preparing dinner and chatting with guests at the same time. It may be a great concept for non-ADDers. For one-channel folk, however, this kitchen design results in lousy food or lousy conversation. Handling both at the sametime is virtually Mission Impossible!
    This difference causes undesirable behaviors in a one-channel ADDer. Demands to switch channels are cruel intrusions. He snaps at the interrupting party, snarls at the person on the phone or loses track of what he’s doing. He may tune out the interruption, not even noting it or reacting v-e-r-y slowly to it as he undertakes the arduous task of switching gears.
    KK: “When I worked on a psychiatric unit, I shared the responsibility for answering the telephone. I had trouble switching gears fast enough to pick up the phone after a few rings. Often, I never heard it ring at all. Other staff members resented my failure to do my share of this job. They mistakenly assumed I thought I was ‘too good’ to do this mundane task.”
    An ADDer can be at a disadvantagein the workplace when he has to tune in to many channels. The phone, boss and coworker channels all compete for his attention. Many workers complainthat numerous interruptions force them to bring most of their work home. They can’t get anything done at the office.
    The Locking-In and Blocking-Out Phenomena
    An interesting correlate to the one-channel phenomenon is over-persistence. When an ADDerbecomes locked in to a task, he can’t stop. His overpersistence can make switching gears very difficult. It can also cause a friend, colleague or spouse to leap to erroneous conclusions: (1) “It’s obvious he can pay attention when he wants to.” (2) “He’s so rude! He completely ignores me.”
    Erratic focus and the general dysregulation that cause problems with concentration and stick-to-itivenessseem incompatible with overpersistence. Aren’t unfinished tasks and short attention spans characteristic of ADDers? Well, the paradoxical answer is yes … and no!
    Much of ADD behavior is paradoxical. Overpersistence could be just another difference that is at odds with a “short attention span.” But we submit that it’s more than that. An ADDer expends great energy and effort to shut out the distractionsof other channels. With an unfiltered sensory world rushing into his brain, he has to develop some rather powerful defenses to survive. Overpersistence may be one of them.
    An ADD adult may deliberately use this locking-in ability to shut out the rest of the world. It can insulate him from the wear and tear of handling the flood of incoming information. A one-channel ADDer may use his overpersistenceas a compensatory strategy in a society that values the ability to bounce many balls at one time.
    There may be another reason for overpersistence: Comorbid Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). It is not uncommon for the ADD adult to have symptoms of OCD as well. Even in the absence of the compulsive, ritualistic behavioral component of OCD, obsessive thought patterns may be at work, causingexcessiverumination. The inner experience is of having thoughts seemingly captured on a short loop of a tape recording—one that replays itself over and over on a recorder that has no Stop function.
    Overpersistence is definitely a double-edged sword. Spouses and friends marvel at the ability to sit at a computer and write for hours, oblivious of everything else. Envy of this self-absorption turns to annoyance,however, when rain pours unnoticed through open windows or the tornado siren evokes not even a blink!
    The good news is that this disability/ability difference can be used to good advantage. The bad news is that locking-in can