Contextual Disorder = ADD? Does our environment make us ADD?

[meadd823]

I want to talk about it, any one else?

An opportunity to share our individual opinions. I want to hear about the subjective experience!

I have just left a thread where some interesting ideas were shared and would love to expound upon them. Apparently the kind of environment can have a direct effffect upon the severity of ADD symptoms.

This is a discussion for people experiencing ADD in themselves or loved ones.

The experts I am most interested in are the members here who experience ADD first hand!

NO extraordinary long articles from "experts" with out information about personal ADD experiences please!

I would prefer to hear about people and how they perceive their own condition (or that of a loved one) if I wanted "expert" ideas of the ADD expereince would go to their WEB site or buy thier books.

Some post borrowed from "Pure ADD" the thread that gave me this idea
Pure ADD thread

Borrwed post from that discussion

SB_UK's

***current*** society, that ADD (in itself) is not a disorder per se (no matter how much it might appear to be irreversibly and intimately intertwined with contextual disorder) and that although 'society' and its pressures are all-pervasive, and these hidden pressures lead to the contextual disorder which is felt by ADDers ... that these pressures will be 'felt' by the ADDer, thence the co-morbids co-segregate, is *not* (by any means) ... a foregone conclusion.
ADD can exist in a purer form without contextual disorder, and it is my honest opinion that stimulants work for the pure ...:-)... of ADD, pretty much as one would expect ... as one would expect.

timh

To see pure ADHD "thinking", we should look at the mind of a person diagnosed with ADHD.

Here are some characteristics:

- ability to process ideas in parrellel, instead of serially.
- the mind is constantly going. (i.e. waking up in the middle of the night with a solution to a problem)
- ability to answer a question correctly without working through and showing the steps involved
- quick witted
- understand the concept of "self-awareness" at a young age
- constantly seeking stimulation (knowledge, excitement)
- ability to hyperfocus on a something that is of interest

Maybe, if the young mind of a child is just given the opportunity to "be" these characteristics and not have to fit to another's expectations, then they might not develop these things called "co-morbids". Of course, then they wouldn't be "co-morbids".

Wow I wonder if we became more wiggle friendly if some of the children with milder forms of ADD would even need to take medications?

I also have wondered how much of the co-morbids have results from being expected to do the impossible for years as a young child. The impossibel for me sitting still!


kvrrd

OMG - computers, digital logic - ahhhhhhhhh.
Being able to see and CHANGE the big picture - especially with systems and finding holes in logic and interpreting specifications and all that gobbly-gook. I could recall conversations from years back and freak people out. Technical details - became a part of me. I was very good at what I did and I was rewarded.

In a favorable enviroment how bothersome were ADD traits I wonder


Crazy~Feet

Then again you might take the Hunter Brain theory into consideration. Suppose the child is born into a so-called "primitive" society and raised in a culture that values the Hunter, who must constantly scan the surroundings, who must be able to hyperfocus during the hunt and change courses according to split-second decisions. Suppose nobody in that culture expects anything of the one born to Hunt other than the abilities that will make this child a great Hunter, and the person is never expected to be still, to think in a linear fashion, to attend to boring tasks?

If the person is ADD in a society that values those traits, is it then a disorder? Or is it a valuable trait that brings to them great honor?

I like this one valuable trait!


I think the environment we are expected to perform in has a lot to more to do with how severe our ADD traits are,? Perhaps more so than that we were lead to believe!


Any comments?