I posted for prayer in the christian forum I belong too. I explained that I feel I am ADD and not depressed. One of the ladies responded by saying her family has also been dealing with ADD but they have learned to deal with it without medication and choose to look at it as "Creative Anxiety." She explained that most of them are either writers, inventors, entrepeneurs etc. They all read this book called "Fearless Creating"by Eric Maisel Ph.D. It has helped them change their thought processing. She also calls it the "Sensitive Personality"and she says there are lots of books for this too. I personally can't wait to read some of these. I just picked up a book by Joyce Meyers called "Straight Talk" this looks like a good one too.


Hope this helps.

Blessings,
Mary

Speaking from a person w/experience living a life of HELL with untreated ADD I can just say that I very much resent the fact that my mother did not continue to have me treated w/medication.

People seem to be able to spin ADD in whatever way they please, but the the central core symptom of ADD is the inablilty of the child to be in control of his own mind and body. And let me tell you from experience, no matter how you justify some of the positive aspects of ADD, a lack of control and security are not good things.

At it's heart ADD is a social dysfunction with two well established symptoms: isolation and loneliness. People with ADD feel lonely and isolated in a room full of people. Who cares if the child is a genius when he is unable to relate in a constructive way to his fellow man? In a heartbeat, I would trade my all my "genius" for the ability to feel whole and to connect in an emotional and spiritual way to my brothers and sisters.

Abre los Ojos, I am interested in your view that ADD is a "social dysfuction." I always think of it as merely nonadaptive behavior. Mostly I function as average socially when I can be bothered, but it is the problems with organization that devastate me. Let's just say that on the job it is politically, socially, and financially a problem when I consistently fail to meet deadlines.

In fact, I would not mind a leisurely life of casual social activity if only I did not have to perform organizational tasks.

The only real social problem I have is that I cannot always understand why people seem to have so many hidden agendas. Why are people not more open? Why are they not simply truthful? Is this an ADD problem?

ADD is a disorder of the prefrontal cortex, which is the seat of "self." A core symptom of ADD is a lack of self-awareness. We don't seem to have a clear picture of ourselves, and therefore have difficulty in discerning and maintaining a consistent social role. People with ADD have to "guess" at what is normal or appropriate. The prefrontal cortex is the area of the brain that gives "social intelligence." The ADD mind is aften an example of "the lights are on but nobody is home." This brings about strong feelings of being incomplete, with something missing in ourselves that seems to be intact in others. The thing that is missing is ourselves.

It's so easy for me to be in denial about my social deficit. I seem to do a good job of fooling others, as well as myself. But, then there are circumstances that make it clear to me that I am missing something that others have. I have become very adept with avoiding those situations. Most people have a foundation of behavioral attributes that distinctly define their character. People with ADD seem to lack this foundation. Having no foundation prevents a complex personality structure to be built.

To some extent this is favorable because our minds rarely closed. We are seldom get locked into the synthetic social consiousness that seems more like a prison than something to be desired. Poeple with ADD are able to look at the big picture without the blindness of synthetic social convention. We are able to "think outside the box." The downside of this is that we often feel a tremendous sense of loneliness and emotional detachment. Intimate relationships are difficult when we incapable comprehending the finer details of cultural reality. ADHD is not entirely a social dysfunction, but that is the area where most of it's problems become manifest.

Here's a good article relating to what I'm talking about:

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" align=center border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top align=middle><TD colSpan=3 height=32>http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/miniheader.gif



J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry,39:8,1064-1070 August 2000




</TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD align=left width=511 colSpan=3 height=63>http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/genetics/images/aug00title.gif



Russell A. Barkley, Ph.D.














</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="90%" align=center border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top align=left><TD width="100%" colSpan=3 height=250>http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a developmental disorder with the cardinal features of difficulties with sustained attention, distractibility, hyperactivity, and impulse control. It arises early in childhood, typically between 3 and 7 years of age. The disorder is relatively stable over time and persists through adolescence and into adulthood in more than half the cases. A significant proportion of children will experience school failure and will develop conduct disorders, delinquent activities, and antisocial personalities. As a result, the burden of ADHD to affected individuals, to their families, and to society is considerable.



http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif Over the next several months, this column will explore the underlying mechanisms that contribute to the disorder. The first columns will review the concept of executive functioning and the role the frontal cortex has in regulating mental skills that are required to sustain attention and inhibit impulsive behavior. Particular attention will be given to neurotransmitter systems that are thought to play a critical role in frontal cortical activity. The next 2 columns will be devoted to recent progress in the genetics of ADHD. Finally, we will review whether animal models of hyperactivity have been useful in furthering our understanding of the underlying etiology of the disorder. It is important to note at the outset that ADHD is not a unitary illness. It is likely that a number of different pathways that include both genetic and environmental factors contribute to the expression of its symptoms.
http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif The most prevalent clinical view of ADHD maintains that the central deficits of the disorder are the inability to sustain attention and symptoms of hyperactivity and impulsivity. However, this view of ADHD is only a description of the most commonly observed characteristics. It is not a theory that could serve as a useful scientific tool for researchers, nor does it point us to the underlying neural pathways that might be involved.
http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif Over the past 2 decades, tremendous progress has been made in understanding the functions of the prefrontal cortex (Fig. 1) (http://javascript<img%20src=&quot;images/smilies/redface.gif&quot;%20border=&quot;0&quot;%20alt=&quot;&quot;%20title=&quot;Embarr assment&quot;%20smilieid=&quot;3&quot;%20class=&quot;inlineimg&quot;%20/>penWin('0008figure1.html');). This progress has led to an appreciation of how this region of the brain regulates specific mental activities that allow for self-control. These mental activities are unified under the term executive functions. This initial column will review recent theories of executive functioning and will review how deficits in executive functions occur with deficits in the development, structure, and function of the frontal cortex and its networks with other brain regions, such as the basal ganglia.
http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif Karl Pribram may have been the first to describe the executive role of the prefrontal cortex when he concluded that it is "critically involved in implementing executive programs where these are necessary to maintain brain organization in the face of insufficient redundancy in input processing and in the outcomes of behavior" (Pribram, 1976, p. 509). Muriel Lezak defined executive function (EF) as "those capacities that enable a person to engage successfully in independent, purposive, self-serving behavior" (Lezak, 1995, p. 42). Actions are executive if they involve the "when" or "whether" aspects of behavior, whereas nonexecutive functions involve the "what" and "how." Left unclear in the vast neuropsychological literature on EF is any operational definition of what is encompassed by the term executive. The term executive functions seems to incorporate:

• Volition, planning, and purposive, goal-directed, or intentional action.
• Inhibition and resistance to distraction.
• Problem-solving and strategy development, selection, and monitoring.
• Flexible shifting of actions to meet task demands.
• Maintenance of persistence toward attaining a goal.
• Self-awareness across time.

http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif Many authors have recognized the substantial overlap or interchangeability between EF and self-regulation. Maureen Dennis saw EF as partly social in nature (discourse and reciprocity). Stuart Dimond defined EF as entirely involving social intelligence (management of day-to-day social conduct). Others have simply lamented the lack of definition and declared EF to be what the frontal lobes do.
http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif A leading candidate for one EF is working memory (WM). This is the capacity to hold a mental representation in mind to guide behavior. It is remembering in order to do. Often, the remembering must span a period of time so long that the remembered external events may no longer exist. The performance of the act must be linked to the arrival of some mentally conjectured future event. Time, timing, and timeliness in behavior are regulated in part by this EF, as Juaquim Fuster noted. Others, like Baddeley, suggested that WM had 3 components: (1) a visual-spatial sketchpad (nonverbal working memory), (2) verbal working memory and its associated phonological loop (private self-speech), and (3) a central executive. The central executive (3) enslaves (1) and (2) for its purposes (the overall goal to be achieved). Little is said about the nature of this central executive.
http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif Another candidate EF is response inhibition. It is critical to WM in providing the initial delay in the response to an event during which WM is often activated; the protection to WM from interference by unrelated yet competing external and internal events; and the interruption of ongoing response patterns being guided by WM should they prove ineffective in attaining the goal.

A Theoretical Model of Executive Function

http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif The history of the model below and its supporting research appear in my earlier textbook, ADHD and the Nature of Self-Control. It is drawn from the work of Jacob Bronowski, Juaquim Fuster, Patricia Goldman-Rakic, and Antonio Damasio. Its components appear in Table 1 along with those psychological and social abilities hypothesized to result from each EF.

http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif Each EF contributes to the following developmental shifts in the control over human behavior:

• From external events to mental representations related to those events.
• From control by others to control by the self.
• From immediate reinforcement to delayed gratification.
• From the now to the conjectured social future.

http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif Each EF probably arises by a common process:

• It originates in a general class of observable behavior toward others as a means of predicting and controlling the outside world.
• This class of behavior is then turned on the self as a means of controlling one’s own behavior, yet such behavior may remain publicly observable for a period of development before becoming covert.
• It then becomes progressively private or covert (internalized) in form; that is, its associated musculoskeletal movements are suppressed while its execution within the brain continues.

http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif Self-regulation (SR) can be defined as any self-directed action that serves to alter the probability of a subsequent response so as to alter the likelihood of a future consequence. Each EF is a type of self-directed action. Consequently, SR is an inherent part of EF, making EF inherently future-directed. The EFs are response inhibition and those 4 general classes of self-directed actions humans use to engage in SR toward conjectured social futures:

• Self-directed sensing (sensory-motor action) that creates nonverbal WM.
• Self-speech that creates verbal WM.
• Emotion/motivation to the self that creates intrinsic goal-directed motivation.
• Self-directed play that creates inventiveness, fluency, and flexibility in goal-directed behavior.

http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif The developmental progression common to each EF is typified in the internalization of language. As the child matures, speech toward others becomes speech to the self yet, for a time, vocalized. It then progresses to subvocal self-speech and finally to fully covert or private speech that comprises verbal thought. The EFs act in concert to achieve the overarching goal of a net maximization of long-term social (economic) rather than more immediate outcomes for the individual. Thus, as Dimond, Vygotsky, and Luria all argued, the adaptive problems that the EF/SR system evolved to solve must be social in nature, making the EF/SR system the seat of social intelligence.
http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif Response inhibition is the capacity to delay a response to an immediate environmental event. Delayed responding provides the foundation on which EF/SR develops. SR is impossible without a delay in that response directed toward immediate reinforcement. Response inhibition also permits the "internalization" or "privatization" of each EF. It does so by suppressing the observable musculoskeletal movements associated with the self-directed behavior that makes up each EF. Over the course of development, this makes that behavior become covert or "mental" in form. This is done so that the actions occurring during an EF cannot be directly observed by others. That privatization is likely necessitated by the selection pressures set up in a group-living species of self-interested imitators whose closest evolutionary competitors are their peers.
http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif I. Nonverbal Working Memory. The first EF is nonverbal WM. Among the various senses, the most important to humans are vision and, to a lesser degree, hearing. It is not surprising, then, that this mental module is largely composed of visual imagery and private audition. Undoubtedly the other senses also contribute to this symphony of internalized resensing. It consists of 2 interrelated processes: (1) the retrospective function, which is resensing the past information and holding it online (in mind), making it largely a sensory activity; and (2) the preparation of motor action initiated by the resensing of the past, known as the prospective function. Together they provide for the progressive development of a cognitive window on oneself across time, or autonoetic awareness, and the subjective sense of time more generally. The past and future tenses in human languages likely derive their reference points from this WM. This EF grants humans the capacities for generalized imitation and vicarious learning, self-awareness, social exchange (delayed reciprocal altruism), and the more general capacity for the cross-temporal organization of behavior. The evolution of this EF likely permitted humans the capacity to engage in not only self-interested cooperation and coalition formation but also the "theft" of each other’s behavior (vicarious learning) rather than acquiring it through the arduous process of trial-and-error learning. This would have set up a selection pressure that required that self-directed actions be made private so that one’s peers could not appropriate the behavior prior to its more timely, opportunistic display. Given that mental representations are icons, this EF may have created the initial step needed toward the evolution of symbolization, from mental icons to indices, and then on to symbols.
http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif II. Verbal Working Memory. This EF comprises the internalization of speech, as described above. It is covert (silent) receptive and expressive language. Individuals are afforded the same means of control over themselves that language serves in the control of others, such as self-description, reflection, instruction, and questioning. Rule discovery and rule-governed behavior more generally (the motor-controlling functions of language) arise here. And so, eventually, might hierarchically organized sets of rules about rules, or meta-rules (meta-cognition). In conjunction with nonverbal WM, this EF permits both reading comprehension and the moral guidance of behavior by internalized rules.
http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif III. Internalized Emotion/Motivation. This function may well arise, at least initially, as a consequence of the first 2 EFs. By re-presenting visual and verbal mental stimuli to oneself, emotional and motivation states ensue. These states are Damasio’s somatic markers. Initially, they may be observable to others, as when a child laughs publicly in response to a privately reexperienced humorous event. Eventually these affective states become covert. Emotions are motivational states composed of level of arousal imposed on a reward/punishment gradient. Thus, this EF creates the SR of private motivational states in the service of future goals. It is the source of intrinsic motivation essential to driving future-directed behavior.
http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif IV. Reconstitution. This EF likely arises from play. It consists of 2 interacting processes: analysis (taking apart) and synthesis (recombining). These are applied to the contents of the 2 WMs, thereby permitting the manipulation and dismemberment of old experiences to synthesize novel responses. It is a form of ideational darwinism in which the units of old experiences are recombined into novel behavior that is judged against the goal to be attained so as to select the most viable option. By so doing, as Karl Popper once noted, humans allow their erroneous ideas to die in their place. Here originates the flexibility, fluency, and inventiveness of human goal-directed actions.
http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif In combination, the EFs provide a powerful set of tools for SR toward the social future that is unparalleled in any other species. The fields of science, art, and music, among others, are likely examples of this set of skills.
http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif Research overwhelmingly demonstrates a deficit in response inhibition in persons with ADHD. Consequently, the EF model predicts that secondary deficits (e.g., greater errors and variability in performance) will arise in all other EFs. Deficits would then be detected in the psychosocial abilities of each (Table 1) (http://javascript<img%20src=&quot;images/smilies/redface.gif&quot;%20border=&quot;0&quot;%20alt=&quot;&quot;%20title=&quot;Embarr assment&quot;%20smilieid=&quot;3&quot;%20class=&quot;inlineimg&quot;%20/>penWin('0008table1.html');). These important predictions are an opportunity to test the model because those predictions are not drawn from the literature on ADHD but from the literature on EF. Consistent with these predictions, research on ADHD has found deficits in each EF. However, the support varies across the functions, largely due to the limited amount of research on some of them and the fact that much of that research did not set out to intentionally test this model.
http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif This theory shows that ADHD impairs social intelligence through the cascading of deficits it creates throughout the EF/SR system. Delays occur in the 4 developmental shifts in the control of behavior. The attention deficits ascribed to ADHD can now be seen as intention deficits (attention toward the future). This would cause deficiencies in reciprocal altruism and vicarious learning in ADHD, among other deficits in universal social activities requiring EF (e.g., coalition formation, self-innovation, and social self-defense).
http://info.med.yale.edu/chldstdy/plomdevelop/common%20images/space.gif Suffice to say that there is much here in need of future research to establish its veracity. But as the time-limited tool that is any credible theory, its scientific and heuristic value for understanding EF and its evolution as well as ADHD should be evident.





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"We don't seem to have a clear picture of ourselves, and therefore have difficulty in discerning and maintaining a consistent social role. People with ADD have to "guess" at what is normal or appropriate."
"I seem to do a good job of fooling others, as well as myself. But, then there are circumstances that make it clear to me that I am missing something that others have."

"People with ADD seem to lack this foundation. Having no foundation prevents a complex personality structure to be built."

"Who cares if the child [or adult] is a genius when he is unable to relate in a constructive way to his fellow man? In a heartbeat, I would trade my all my "genius" for the ability to feel whole and to connect in an emotional and spiritual way to my brothers and sisters."
Abre los ojos,

Wow. I don't think I have stumbled on a more concise, accurate and hit-the-nail-on-the-head description of what I suffer from as what you posted.

Just wanted to make that comment. I'm keeping a clip of your post, printing it out and keeping it filed away for future reference the next time I need help in explaining ADD to someone.

Thanks for the insight!

I wouldn't generalize this to all Christians. There's certainly nothing in the Bible regarding it, since ADHD would have been less of a problem in that environment (ie, the "hunter" theory).

Yes, there are benefits to ADHD that probably had an evolutionary role, but in today's society the disadvantages greatly outweigh them usually.

It's not an either/or thing... with medication you can take it when you need it, and not take it when you don't... it's up to you. I don't take much on the weekends usually, for example.

You do not "need" medication to survive, but it's certainly nice to have. If you want to boil that down to Christian morality, it doesn't violate God's law (ie: the 10 commandments + Jesus's elaborations thereof), and can help in fulfilling the three virtues of Christianity (faith, love, charity). The arguments in the Bible regarding things like alcoholism are based on gluttony and making it more important in your life than God, it's not an argument against the responsible use of pharmaceuticals in a manner that benefits your life.

If you don't want to take it because there's some notion people are perfect and never have genetic problems, that's a Scientologist position, not a Christian one. The Christian one is that we're all damaged goods. It's not like a nearsighted person buying glasses requires repentance.

Here (http://www.elca.org/christianeducation/lifetransitions/pdf/AttentionDeficitDisorder.pdf) is an official document by a larger denomination that may help.

Also, another site:
http://www.christianadhd.com/

How do you know that abre los ojos? That sure is interesting. I have to think on that for a while.
Lynne

I posted for prayer in the christian forum I belong too. I explained that I feel I am ADD and not depressed. One of the ladies responded by saying her family has also been dealing with ADD but they have learned to deal with it without medication and choose to look at it as "Creative Anxiety." She explained that most of them are either writers, inventors, entrepeneurs etc. They all read this book called "Fearless Creating"by Eric Maisel Ph.D. It has helped them change their thought processing. She also calls it the "Sensitive Personality"and she says there are lots of books for this too. I personally can't wait to read some of these. I just picked up a book by Joyce Meyers called "Straight Talk" this looks like a good one too.


Hope this helps.

Blessings,
Mary
Lynners- ojos was responding to this post based on his personal experience.

When I was a christian I was bombarded with having faith and leaning on nothing in this world. If this ADDer (Mary) is using faith to persue her dealings with ADD than I wish her much success. But for ojos, that is not the case. It is not "special" to him, and there's resentment that it isn't taken seriously. I know being untreated for so long, with no one having answers or help, I felt like this as well.

However, I'm very curious if those books, if anyone has read them, have helped? And how have they helped?

Hello beautiful people,

Personally, I am growing in the understanding that the issues of self-control and self-discipline are issues that the Bible challenges every single human being to work on.

Personally, I wish we would stop arguing and pressuring each other about this taking medication issue

We are wasting time, and setting a bad example when we argue and bicker with each other. Satan, loves it when we fight with each other. I get caught up in “discussions” too, but, with God’s help, I’m trying to show more of His grace and mercy to everyone (including myself).

It is easy to not be in control of our selves, medication or not. That’s why His word tells us to work on it, in so many different ways and in so many different passages.

Sometimes taking medication is an act of self-discipline and obedience to God in and of itself. I have days when my inner child is screamming “NO MORE PILLS, NO MORE PILLS, NO MORE PILLS, NO MORE PILLS…..” the top of her lungs and it is all I can do to take them.

Could I survive without them, Yes. But, for the blessing of God’s kingdom, I choose to take them. Maybe, someday, when I have developed more self-control, I might not need them as much as I do now to help me keep myself in check, but for today, my meds are a help.

Now, don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying that I am a person of lower character because I take meds. I am a fallen, sinful, broken person who has been saved by the blood of Jesus Christ and the grace and mercy of God the Father, and sustained by the Holy Spirit, equal in God’s eyes to any other person that ever was, is, or will be. No one is better that me, and no one is worse than me. We all fall short of the Glory of God, every single one of us.

And yet, He loves each and every single one of us as no other being can.

Thank you God Almighty for Your grace, Your love, Your mercy, Your forgiveness, Your redemption, Your patience, and Your encouragement.

Amen