Focus for us was a thing hard to come by. We would have to make due with whatever we had: these were pills and a pencil, blue earplugs to block out the voices inside of our heads, which would tell us time passed and these thoughts that would shine like soft lights on our brains would one day fade into invisible relief. We would write in our binders, pass classes, allow for a moment of grief. We were deeply aware we would have to make up for lost time, but when we took our pills, the world would seem fine, seem as if it had always been fine. Once we had adequate supplies we’d sell, but until then we decid- ed to re- fill. We had determined that we would not brood. Instead we charted out our moods and light- ened up our loads. Before the rest of time unfolds,… Read more →
EppsNet Archive: ADHD
ADHD in the Making
My family and I are enjoying a meal at a Japanese restaurant. In the booth behind me are a husband and wife and five kids, the oldest of whom looks to be about 12. One of the kids, a boy of about 5, is standing up and running a toy car back and forth along the divider between his booth and our booth. He gets bored with that after a while and starts drumming on the divider with a pair of chopsticks. The boy’s activities don’t bother me much . . . what bothers me is that it takes 15 minutes for one of the parents to tell him to stop it and sit down. He doesn’t do either and nothing else is said or done about the matter. In the near future, this boy’s inability to sit still and follow directions will get him “diagnosed” by a schoolteacher as… Read more →
Before ADHD Was Invented
The school thought Gillian [Lynne] had a learning disorder of some sort and that it might be more appropriate for her to be in a school for children with special needs. All of this took place in the 1930s. I think now they’d say she had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and they’d put her on Ritalin or something similar. But the ADHD epidemic hadn’t been invented at the time. It wasn’t an available condition. People didn’t know they could have that and had to get by without it. — Ken Robinson, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything Read more →