Head in the Clouds

ADD/ADHD Old Spice Guy Video, Take Two

Totally ADD's Old Spice Guy takeoff disappeared for a while but is back up again. Check out my original post to see the video.

ADD/ADHD Meets Old Spice Guy

Totally ADD guy Rick dons a bath towel and demonstrates, Old Spice Guy style, how the ADD brain works. Who out there relates? (I totally do.)

Totally ADD, providing humor and education about adult ADD, also has a hilarious introductory video on its website. And here's Totally ADD's Facebook page.

Discovery

Discovery consists of seeing what everyone has seen and thinking what no one has thought.

—Albert Szent-Gyorgi

I love this quote, because I think it refers to something people with ADD/ADHD are good at—seeing things in a new way. 

That's all I was going to write in this post. But now my brain is off and running, thinking that the quote could also apply to the discovery of ADD in yourself or a loved one.

You start by seeing what others see—a friend who's always late, a child who keeps popping out of his seat, a living room floor cluttered with everything from Nancy Drew mysteries to lemon eucalyptus bug goop. And at first, perhaps, you think the same thing other people think: She just doesn't care about others. Someone needs to teach that kid some manners. I am such a horrible slob.

But, luckily, some people saw those behaviors and thought what other people didn't think. They discovered that it's not all about bad parenting or a breakdown of morals. The behaviors are in large part based on biology.

And then other people—many with ADD themselves—thought even more outside the box. They discovered that this type of biology can confer strengths as well as challenges. Instead of trying to "fix" people with this type of biology, they started thinking about how to build on those people's strengths.

I found the discovery of my own ADD liberating. What a relief to see what I and others had always seen—my piles of papers, my tendency to be ten minutes late, my jumble of a work and relationship history—but to think about it in a new way, to realize that a lot of it is due to biology, not just my own personal untogetherness.

I'm particularly grateful to the people who've discovered the strengths that can go along with ADD. They've helped me remember that I'm creative, passionate, and determined. They've also reminded me that I possess, as they do, an ability to see what everyone else has seen and think what no one else has thought.

Szent-Gyorgi won a Nobel Prize in 1937 for discovering vitamin C. What have you discovered lately?