Driven to Distraction

The book Driven to Distraction is an excellent resource for both those with ADD and those who live with someone who has ADD. Below is one of my favorite excerpts from the book, describing ADD.

"...Usually in these people the core symptom is distractibility. It is a quiet phenomenon, their shifting of attention. It happens as silently, but as definately, as a cut in a film sequence. Imagine, one moment you are in one place, and in the next moment you are somewhere else. You don't really notice it. Rather you go along with it, as you go along with a cut in a movie. The narrative carries you, as you view your own internal story, your own internal screening of the day's events.

In some ways it is a charming symptom. The mind meanders like a brook, winding through the contours of the land, bending here, falling there, quietly making its way, in its own time, to some larger river of thought.

But in other ways it is anything but charming. It can be downright disabling not to be able to rely on your own mind to remember things, to prompt you to get places on time, to keep you involved in a conversation when you want to be, or focused on a page you really do want to read, or concentrating on a project you need to complete. The meadering brook, in its desultory way, seems to be forever carrying you away from where you want to be."