I have Attention Deficit Disorder (which I find is more of a surplus really). I coach adults with ADHD, have an ADHD resource website with over 130 pages of information, and an adult ADHD blog. So, I’m fairly familiar with ADHD. I’ve been using Mac computers for 20 years, sold them for 7, and have spent thousands of hours on the net. So, I’m fairly familiar with the high tech world.
I’ve noticed there are many similarities between the two worlds.
I believe there are many people who work in the high tech industry who have ADD, much more than the average of the population. Approximately five per cent of the population has ADD and 85 per cent of adults with ADD don’t know they have it. It seems to me ADD and the technology industry is a natural fit. The constant change of the high tech world can be stressful and troubling for some people but it’s often stimulating and energizing for the ADDer. A great source of Dopamine hits. Although, there are no specific statistics a number of other ADD experts I’ve talked to agree with my observation.
Many people only see the many problems associated with ADD, and many people, especially men avoid getting diagnosed for ADD. The delay in getting diagnosed is that some people portray it as an almost totally pathological condition, and they view it as just a weakness.
To put it into perspective, I thought I’d write a list of some advantages of having ADD in the wired world to help people in the industry recognize and develop their ADD related strengths as well as managing their ADD challenges.
I also hope this might help those who may be afraid of getting diagnosed and treated (medication, Adult ADD coaching, therapy etc.) for ADD because of the negative stigma promoted by the people that condemn ADD as a moral failure. (i.e., “there’s no such thing as ADD, turn off the TV, stop eating sugar, beat your kid more often, and twirl around 3 times and tap your heels and it will go away). ADD is an inherited neurobiological condition. Every medical and psychological association has stated this. As more people realize the advantages of having ADD, they will be more inclined to seek diagnosis and treatment. Some people believe ADD is related to IQ, the idea that all ADD’ers are slow learners or below average IQ, wrong. I have it and I made the Dean’s Honours list and many PhD’s have it. MENSA has an ADD special interest group with 573 300+ members. It comes down to a difference in brain wiring, and in some fields (high tech, marketing, artists, the media, entrepreneurs) the unique wiring of the ADD brain is a competitive advantage.
Top Ten ADD Advantages in a Hi Tech Career.
1. The Ability to Hyperfocus.
Hours of full engagement and concentration in a task, IF you find it interesting. You can get into the zone and be totally immersed in what you’re doing while the outside world disappears. When I went on the net for the first time in 1993 at an Internet cafe I got on the machine at 8 pm and around 4 am decided it was time to go home.
2. Rapid Fire Mind.
Your brain processes information at hyperspeed. You can do things in 30 minutes on a computer that might take other people hours. Downside if you’re stuck with an old machine and not enough RAM you’ll be frustrated cause it can’t keep up with the speed of your brain.
3. Multitasking at Will.
Able to run 14 apps at a time and effortlessly switch between each without breaking a sweat. Able to do several projects at a time with ease.
4. High Energy Level.
You’re able to keep going on a project (if it’s interesting, ADDers are more into creative and entrepreneurial activities than clerical and repetitive ones). 14-hour days? No problem. Adrenaline is my fuel source:)
5. Highly Creative.
Able to think beyond the idea of a box. This comes naturally for ADDers, while others pay thousands of dollars to try and learn this. Since you take in more information than the average person, and you’re easily distractible, you’re more likely to view a problem from many different angles than vanilla people (non ADDers), and therefore come up with more possible solutions to a problem. Need an idea generator? Find an ADDer.
6. Quick Learner.
IF it’s something you’re interested in. ADD is mainly a condition of boredom; you have no trouble paying attention to something if it’s interesting. Most people find it difficult to do boring or repetitive things but these can often totally shut an ADDer down. Your rapid fire brain + highly creative mind + the ability to hyperfocus equals fast absorption of new information quickly. Dr Ed Hallowell, who has ADD and has written several Delivered from Distraction : Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder, said he stopped teaching Psychiatry at Harvard University because the non-ADDer’s brains were just too slow and they took so long to get it. He got tired of being continually frustrated waiting for them to catch up to the ADD students.
7. Stimulus Seeking Brain.
A perfect match for the wired world, an under stimulated brain and an over stimulated virtual environment. Being an info junkie can be a good thing. Well, not always:)
8. Constantly Scanning your Environment.
Allows you to notice more and find information and resource that others miss. Also allows you to see possible problems before they arise, and opportunities that others may not see because they have tunnel vision vs. multiplex vision. An ADDer invented the electronic ticket.
9. Great in a Crisis.
High energy intense situation? Lots of chaos and change? Sign me up; I thrive on stimulation, change and chaos. We can create order from chaos effortlessly. We can also create such an environment as well if needed.
10. Risk Taker.
Impulsivity means you’re more willing to take risks and have a bias for action, act now while the opportunity is hot instead of getting into analysis paralysis. Many entrepreneurs have ADD i.e. Paul Orfalea who founded Kinko’s, JetBlue Founder and CEO David Neeleman who attributes his creativity to ADD. Both are Billionaires. Imagine how successful a high tech CEO would be if they didn’t take many risks.
These are just a start of the advantages of ADD, for more go to the list of 151 positive characteristics of people with ADD at my ADD Resource website.
This is not to say there are no disadvantages or real problems associated with ADDers in a high tech career, there most certainly are, and if you don’t learn to manage them (see Top ten ways to manage Adult ADHD), they can a great deal of trouble and grief to various aspects of your business, social and personal life (and those around you).
That’s when you might consider working with an adult ADHD coach. You don’t want to wait until your on your 10th job or 3rd wife before you start thinking, “hey, maybe they’re right, I do have some problems I need to deal with”.
If you have or think you have ADHD and work in a high tech career, what are your ADHD competitive advantages?
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Found this great article from digg.com. The whole thing describes me to a “T”! Do I really have ADD? Is there an online test I can take somewhere to find out? I am going to start looking in to this issue now – thanks!
Pete, I have to admit that I have ADD and I fully support what you say in this article because it’s just the truth. I’m in the IT industry and can do so much with ADD, while I find my friends slowing down with information overload. I try to show them pointers and give helpful advice on how an ADD thinks and stimulate their minds. Being a person with ADD does have its advantage and I’m glad article highlights ten definite benefits.
Thanks for this! I can attach this to my resume and no longer have to hide from it!
I would think ADD would be more detrimental than it is helpful.
Sure you get those days where everything just clicks…but I believe you get MUCH MORE days where you are bored out of your mind and can’t focus on anything!
Wow. I have ADD and I work in a high-tech job, and this pretty much perfectly describes me…
Very fascinating article. Great read.
Plus we can get the wonderful orange sunshine, Adderall, which turns us into the UberMensch as long as it’s running… but oh what a terrible crash.
Glad you liked it Anthony. You might want to take the Harvard Adult ADHD Screener test, takes only 5 minutes, I have it on my ADD Resource website here
http://www.addcoach4u.com/adultaddtest.html
Josue thanks for the backup. It is important to recognize the benefits of having ADD not just the disadvantages
But to really know you need a medical diagnosis from a doctor psychologist or psychiatrist.
Everyone tells me I have ADD, but I think of it as a blessing rather than a curse. I have always excelled on computers because they can keep up with me. I find that in other situations the world is just too slow. People don’t realize that I can keep up with 10 things at once. This is unconceivable to them, but to me this is the benefit of ADD (i dont believe in ADD, so I use the term loosely) Its nice to see that other people feel free by using computers as well. Great article.
Wow. I have for myself noticed the fact that the internet and the fast changing world is a natural fit for me while I had tremendous difficulty getting through university. I never diagnosed myself as ADD and I still don’t know whether I should, but the similarities are striking.
Thanks!
I think I might have ADD. What kind of blood tests do I need to determine if this neurobiological condition is present in me?
Who is WB1EA and why are his/her call-letters plugged into every comment? They’re not in the QRZ.COM database; is he a Silent Key?
Oh. Yeah. Hi. The list sounds pretty accurate as the plus-side for “not living up to his potential” which I grew up with (but then, I’m HS Class of ’67, and that was what they called ADD back then — ‘self-medicated’ for me means ‘coffee: straight, strong and black’).
There’s another ADD-associated trait I’ve noticed in myself and my sons; I’m curious whether others have noticed it. It’s a high receptivity to others’ thoughts and emotions (yes, I know some call that telepathy or empathy, as if you could exclusively assign one or the other on a roll of the game-dice). On the plus side, it means being able to ‘synergize’, to work in sync with selected others to the point of generating tasklists from their nonverbal (and even non-present) inferences, finishing their sentences, and singing in exact synchrony with them. On the minus side, it means being vulnerable to others’ loose thoughts and opinions, to the point where sometimes you HAVE to switch tasks because the attention the other person is focusing on the current task you’re doing is so LOUD that you can’t reliably find your fingers (and forget it if they’ve decided that you can’t do the job, because that’s a difficult command to overcome once it’s imported, regardless of your skillset and expertise). Are any of you like that? Do you get badly rattled and distracted from what you’re doing by somebody unexpectedly staring at your back?
Guys (and gals), everyone here is falling into the trap of unscientific thinking. There is nothing in here that implies a cause and effect situation. Just because these attributes may be common to people with ADD, it doesn’t mean that people without ADD also have these traits and are in the IT field.
You have to have controlled experiments to be able to say whether success in the IT field is anyway correlated with whether you have ADD or not.
I have to agrgee with Dylan, ive never even thought about add as anyhting other than “some condition -other- people have.” But readiung this and reading your 5 minute test really rings some bells. Love the article!
Could ADD just be a type of person or a type of normal because there seems to be a lot of ADD people around ADD people ARE normal and normal people have ADD..
I have an Uncle with ADD. I found this article both fascinating and enlightening.
Thank you,
http://www.onlyriddles.com
Having been diagnosed with ADD about two years ago, a lot of what you wrote in the article has rang true for me. Thanks for sharing it. I’m the creative director for a web development company, and the web is a perfect fit for me. Without medication, I’m not able to stay on task or stay focused. I hope this article encourages those that might have it, or have symptoms of ADD to see a doctor/psychologist for diagnosis.
I most likely have ADD and while you are right there are some positives it not all the bees knees. Sometimes repetitve tasks that come along with my tech job make my brain melt. Also reading some tech heavy books to learn something new can often be a challenge. I almost have to just do it, rather than reading. This takes more time for me to learn, but I also think after I’m done, I know it better than others.
I’ve recently moved more into the creative side of the tech world becoming a creative director. ADDers like me excel in deadline driven work. Co-workers at the end of a deadline are often saying things like, “Stand back, here he goes again.”
Very good blog post…
Question: How do you think the best way to get diagnosed for something like ADD is? What kind of doctor does one talk to about this?
It’s rather humorous that the vast majority of the highlighted points of ADD in this article fit me and yet I have fantastic mental focus and attention to topic and detail for extended periods of time. What’s funnier is that if I were born a few years later, I would be the AD(H)D poster child of the universe, but back then, I was just weird and nothing more was said about it. Certainly nothing medical anyway (^_-)
While those with ADD may have a leg up on these traits over their Attention Disordered bretheren, it’s not inconceivable for someone to exhibit the same or similar traits by simply have an active interest in many fields. The reasonable people my age (23) don’t refer to these traits as ADD or any other pseudo-neurological jibber jabber. We call it multi-tasking.
It’s just a simple fact that those prone to multi-tasking are more prone to being distracted by other tasks. Simple excercises in mental focus allow anyone to keep a sharp mind on any one task at length while reverting back to what’s really fun at a whim. I’m proof of that. (^_^)V
See, all I read were the headers and that was enough information for me, great post.
It is unfortunate that the disorder is considered a Defecit. I agree that with a little self-awareness someone with ADD can turn this into a strength.
Alternate acronym: Hyper-Attention Syndrome – this wording suggests that it is an affliction, but does not have as much of a negative connotation.
I’ve been tapering off, but this partially explains why I’m wanting to quit my ADD medicine. My creativity just wasn’t as high, and I felt like my mind was more ‘thinking inside the box’. I was, however, able to get some of my more boring work done.
All of you who may have ADD there is something important to understand: While there may be benefits as one person put it “when everything just clicks”, there is in fact more benefit to having it treated.
I have dealt with the effects of ADD for the better part of 28 years. Two years ago, I was prescribed Strattera. Since then, I have put all of that “multi-threading, hyper intellectual” power my ADD brain has and generated focus from it.
blood tests don’t diagnose ADD you need a medical diagnosis from a doctor psychologist or psychiatrist who knows ADD.
WB1EA is a problem in my wordpress template that happened when i’ve changed the background color of the comment section of my theme. I’ve tried to get rid of it but haven’t been able to do so. I’ve posted on wordpress support forums but have had no response yet.
ADDers are often very intuitive. many of us (not all) can pick up on other peoples emotions, a kind of hypersensitivity. some ADDers are just very sensitive to their surrounding and not others some are both. Active, not passive meditation can help.
Right on Pete! I have two part-time jobs in IT. One as a PeopleSoft Upgrade Analyst (tends to be very tedious UNLESS were in the midst of an upgrade which isn’t often enough) and another building Blackboard (Bb) courses and doing Bb marketing to our faculty and staff which is heavy on the High Creative side. What you said in your article resonates with what I experience at work in my two different functions. And depending on what aspect of my job I’m doing I seem to either be a top notch performer or struggling to keep awake. I especially agree with your examples of Hyper focusing I realize that I do my best at work when I’m under pressure and highly engaged, 14 hours pass like its only been one and I’m all of sudden just too hungry to keep going or feel I ought stop because “oops, it’s been 12 hours.” I do in fact have four computers running autonomously linked together with four monitors linked with multiplicity so I can seamlessly switch between them (it’s for upgrades) but it’s almost not enough and I won’t even ever touch an old machine that doesn’t have enough RAM because it IS too frustrating. I am a scanning addict. One of my favorite things to do is fly airplanes and helicopters. As a pilot one of the most intense things you can do flying is fly instrument approaches. When you’re coming in to land flying by your flight instruments alone in bad weather there is SO much going on its crazy and I love it. You’re flying the airplane, talking and listening to air traffic control, adjusting engine settings, flaps, radios, navigation, monitoring altitude, airspeed, course headings, time, reading approach charts and constantly doing 10 things at a time without end. Oh and don’t forget landing gear…I really can’t put into words how much insane fun it is! I love your take on the ADVANTAGES of ADD. I hope I have it…actually I think I do.
ok… ADD doesn’t mean that you will have the energy to work on stuff, i think you’re getting ADHD and ADD mixed up.
Lately I have been hearing people use “ADD” as a synonym for the ability to multitask. But an official ADHD diagnosis includes “clinically significant distress or impairment in social, academic, or occupational functioning.” That’s not to say that ADHDers don’t have strengths, but this kind of rah-rah for ADHD propaganda confuses the issue. Chaotic and unstable work histories are way more common in ADHDers than great successes — that’s a major reason why I went into treatment (and I do WAY better with my work in IT now that my symptoms are more under control).
This would explain why my husband used to prefer “computer time” over “family time.” I used to get so jealous of the computer! I just couldn’t wrap my mind around his preference for the computer. He is doing so much better now with counseling. However, once in awhile things get crazy. Oh my, he is so smart!!! He just amazes me with all his extensive knowledge, and his great thinking processes. However, I do consider him to be more laid-back than I by far. We complement eachother very well.
He found this website, and I will be researching to learn more about my husband. Who also, has a career in IT, but also loved cooking in the fast-paced reataurant scene.
The people that say they have ADD and are very energetic, are they on meds? I do not find my husband to be very energetic at all. I am way more energetic than him by far. He does sleep less than me in general. I require 8-9 hours, to keep up with our two young children all day.
One more question… those of you on medication or the spouses of, do you find a change in personality that does not sit well with you?
I found with my husband on Adderall XR, his personality changed to my dislike.
My husband (an IT-man) sent this to me because it so adequately describes him. I, however, am a 1st grade teacher and your article has given me a whole new vision of how to teach and utilize the skills that my mini-ADDers have. How great to have such a refreshing view of something that has such a negative stigma.
Thanks for the insight!
~Becky Clifford
“WB1EA is a problem in my wordpress template that happened when i’ve changed the background color of the comment section of my theme. I’ve tried to get rid of it but haven’t been able to do so. I’ve posted on wordpress support forums but have had no response yet.”
Looking at the page-source in Mozilla, and at /wp-content/themes/default/comments-popup.php, line 46, in wordpress-2.0.1.tar.gz, it would appear that you mistakenly altered a character-entity (composed of a sequence of: ampersand, hash, two-to-four-digit decimal number, semicolon), thinking it to be a color-code (hash, red-octet, green-octet, blue-octet). The ‘W’ is the truncated character-entity which remains (ampersand, hash, 87); the ‘B1EA’ characters are probably the green and blue values you put in there, with the ‘B’ causing the browser to stop parsing the character-entity because it’s non-decimal. Fix that line and you’ll probably stop blaming a perfectly innocent (and apparently nonexistent) radio amateur
Too bad WordPress doesn’t have a Preview button — I’d really like to be able to check this comment, and tweak as required, in case it censors out or mangles the non-alphanumerics to deter cross-site script exploiting, before posting.
I read this article on Lockergnome and, since the 10 advantages describe me to a T, I linked here and took the screening test. According to the test, I don’t have ADD/ADHD, from what I noticed in some of the posts, I fit even more of the ‘symptoms’, so what gives? The only unusual thing I know about me is that my IQ is 157.
Good post. Glad to see you were able to put a positive “spin” (for lack of a better word) on ADD. Two of my sons also have it, and traditional schooling environments typically label such kids as hard to manage, etc. The younger one is now doing a homeschool hybrid thing and is finally doing well academically.
Interesting that you should cite Paul Orfalea (pronounced “ORF-a-luh” BTW). I used to work for Kinko’s corporate as one of their last full-time Mac programmers in the early ’90′s. He was one of the first to “get” Desktop Publishing back when it was new and experimental. I probably only talked with him maybe a dozen times, but he is one of the creative geniuses I’ve known in my life that stand out (and I’ve known a few – not dropping any names…).
I just finished getting my PhD in Psychology, and I was diagnosed at age 8. Love the article. I wrote something for my blog, which I have uploaded to Gather that you might be interested in:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976722623
Good article. I have always known I have a different mind than everyone else. I tend to over analyse things, especially with computers, which can be a benefit but not good for time and schedules. I think there is a classification for people with ADD that excel in Math and not in English. I also notice I have good spacial recognition and visual memeory. I realize I have better conceptual thought than others. I also have to plug how much greater the Mac interface is or my ADD and visual mind.
ADD is great in a sales environment, it is very easy for me to tune into who has a strong need, service them quickly and close the deal.
Awesome idea for a web site.
I have medicated ADD and that describes me exactly some days I just sit there and code hour after hour. Great Article!
Wow, its a great article. It lays out everything.
and, btw, all ‘usual’ ADD/HD meds only put me to *sleep*. (80mg of dextroamphetamine and i’m snoozing . . . ?!) So i can’t take those meds. i’ve yet to figure out what people who can mean by the difference they feel within when they find the right med(s).
h’m — point of fact, nearly every anti-depressant i’ve ever been prescribed, whether for psych or migraine treatment, puts me to sleep. (Wellbutrin/buproprion gives me a constant migraine.)
Ah! And all those advantages are worth diddly/squat if your lead and/or supervisors do not believe in it. They may set up a 504/accomodations with you, but if they don’t *accept* that it exists or that you have it, it won’t help much. Word to the wise.
Great article! I, like so many mothers, took my son in for possible ADD and found out I had it. I decided to not medicate my child (until he’s older, if he needs it)but I have been having great success with behavior and medical treatments. I am a full time writer – sort of the same type of work as Hi Tech – always on the computer. Yes, I can sit here with my lap top for hours!
Also, a quick thing to add – my husband has ADD, too and we were both in the military. I think a LOT of military people have ADD – high energy, exciting job and we love the strict routines. Just IMHO.
I will bookmark this site and your others – great reference. Thanks!
militarygrrrl
hmm. does this describe me? yes, does it mean i have ADD, maybe, maybe not. this is hardly a valid self-diagnosis web site. while an interesting read nonetheless, it doesn’t mean anyone who matches the observations—in full or for the most part—has ADD.
As a person with both ADD and OCD I can tell you that to a degree the article is correct. As a coder, it can be advantageous. However, once you enter management and are no longer a coder, the ADD can become a real hinderance. Unlike coders, managers have to stay focused longer on tasks that are possibly not very interesting. This makes follow through and completion somewhat challenging.
I was always multi-tasking when I was a coder. I would get bored with a task and move on to something else and eventually circle back around. This approach works well within a matrix or other such type of organization in which resources are shared among projects. The reputation as a super-coder was a nice side benefit.
Now, as a manager, I find that I often have no other task or item to which I can turn when I am bored with my current task. Sitting in project meetings, conversing with CEOs and other execs, status reports, and so on. Not being able to focus on these long term tasks makes it difficult to be the best manager I can be. I typically try to assign myself some coding tasks on each project in order to help me cope; however, I am not always able to do that due to budget constraints and so forth.
In summary, in the short run early stage of a coder’s career ADD and to a degree OCD can be beneficial. However as the career transitions from short term task oriented work to long term goal oriented work, ADD and OCD become more of a liability than an asset.
I need scientific facts.
I love it, now i know why i get in trouble at school for not reading a book because i hate it and there is no action. I love this article and will print out to show my parents. you should make this very poplular because i think people should know this stuff and that it can help them because they will know what makes them, THEM!!!
Wow, I am not alone. Everyone tells me I have ADD, and I tell them that my brain simply works faster than theirs.
I am a web designer/coder. Right now I have FTP open, Photoshop open (with 11 documents), IE has 10 pages loaded, Firefox has 5, Surfofflins is spidering a website for an offline .zip file I am making, Winamp is playing, I have 3 folders on my HD open, as well as 12 notepad documents and 11 dreamweaver documents. Multi-tasking is no problem, getting everything finished on time is. I check every scrap of code hundreds of times for security flaws, design, well-formedness etc.
Managing the quirks of my brain has been a lifelong challenge. I got in so much trouble at school trying to stay entertained. While the other kids were struggling to make sense of the lecture, I had already understood the rambling (having heard it before) I had analyzed all the people in the room, noticed all the chips in paint, observed the weather, drew a picture of the tree outside, and started hitting on the girl next to me. Then I get detention or suspension and pass the test while most kids failed it while paying attention and not understanding. The school system needs to seperate fast learners from slow learners. We are not all equal in any sense.
Thanks, as always, for the great article. I thought it dovetailed very nicely with http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2006/02/mediocrity_by_a.html#comment-13940706. Between the two of them, I’ve been trying to figure out what the right job for me (and my ADD) would be.
http://joshua.herzig-marx.com/?p=47
Willie, ADD can be a blessing or a curse depending on how you manage it. There definitely are disadvantages to it, no doubt, but most of those are very well known. What I’ve tried to do in the post is to show some real practical advantages of having ADD, to balance the equation. To many people just see the negatives in having ADD and many avoid diagnosis and treatment because of the ignorant stigma of others.
Matthew, thats why I think many ADDers gravitate to high tech careers, low boredom threshold and the need to be in an enviornment to keep up to our fast pace brains.
So Steve are you volunteering to do the double blind studies?
Chris, I hope so too, thats one of the main reasons I wrote it. Pass the word around.
Ng,
Another acronymn I use is attention surplus condition, we don’t have a deficit of attention, we have too much of it.
Mantari, you may just need to adjust the dose of your ADD meds or switch meds, sometimes that’s all you need.
Empathy, intuitive, emotionally receptive ADD… Check out Ten most common traits of “Indigo Children and Adults.”
They come into the world with a feeling of royalty (and act like one).
They have a feeling of “deserving to be here,” and are surprised when others don’t share that.
Self-worth is not a big issue. They often tell the parents “who they are.”
They have difficulty with absolute authority (authority without explanation or choice).
They simply will not do certain things; for example, waiting in line is difficult for them.
They get frustrated with systems that are ritual-oriented and don’t require creative thought.
They often see better ways of doing things, both at home and in school, which makes them seem like “system busters” (nonconforming to any system).
They seem antisocial unless they are with their own kind. If there are no others of like consciousness around them, they often turn inward; feeling like no other human understands them. School is often extremely difficult for them socially.
They will not respond to “guilt” discipline (“Wait till your father gets home and finds out what you did”).
They are not shy in letting you know what they need.
An Indigo Child is usually an individual with the following characteristics: (THE CARE AND FEEDING OF INDIGO CHILDREN – Doreen Virtue)
Strong-willed.
Born in 1978 or later
Headstrong
Creative, with an artistic flair for music, jewellery making, poetry, ETC.
Prone to addictions
An “old soul” as if they’re 13, going on 43
Intuitive or psychic, possibly with a history of seeing angels or deceased people.
An isolationist, either through aggressive acting out, or through fragile introversion
Independent and proud, even if they’re constantly asking you for money
Possesses a deep desire to help the world in a big way
Wavers between low self-esteem and grandiosity
Bores easily
Has probably been diagnosed as having ADD or ADHD
Prone to insomnia, restless sleep, nightmares, or difficulty/fear of falling asleep
Has a history of depression or even suicidal thoughts or attempts
Looks for real, deep, and lasting friendships
Easily bonds with plants or animals.
These are my own observations, based on the completed questionnaires.
1. They prefer individual sport, if enjoying sport at all
They bond profoundly with the opposite parent, a son with his mother, a daughter with her father.
They prefer the company of older or much younger (children) people, to their peers.
They have deep, lasting friendships with the opposite gender. Their own gender often makes them feel insecure and misunderstood.
They have a profound “world of their own”, which is either created in the mind, through music, art, fantasy or the computer.
Their emotional intelligence is much more developed as long as they are calm, relaxed and sure of themselves.
They have a very strong connection with the spiritual world; some see auras, angels, guides or energy.
They “pick up” everyone’s emotion and often this causes them great confusion not knowing who’s “stuff” they are dealing with, their own, their parents or others in their space.
They “tune in” to Universal Law, not our Social laws.
They have a very profound connection with the spiritual realm, moving in and out of this realm, comes as easy as breathing. Often they are not aware that others don’t experience life in the same way.
I wanted to say how grateful I am for your article of the top 10 advantages of ADD in a High Tech Career. It was passed unto me by a friend and I was very quick to share it with my husband (adder) and my son who is 15 is a classic ADHD. Not only is it very comforting, but it was very encouraging. I have 3 children… 2 sons who have both been diagnosed with ADD. The oldest who is 15 fits your description to a “T” and sadly both boys are doing miserably in the school system. They are always bored, completely unorganized and hopeless at fulfilling tasks on time. They end up failing mostly because of these issues than it being a question of intelect. It seems that we are constantly trying to make them “fit” because if they don´t they are branded for life! I find the emotional side of ADHD to be the most problematic while growing up as they seem unable to balance the emotional with their intelectual capacities and get lost. The comments of wellmeaning teachers with little knowledge or paticence to the “non conformist students” can utterly damage the self esteem and hence the future success of these children. Sadly my experience has been exactly that due mostly to the “this is just a question of lack of discipline and not a “real sickness” approach.
My real question is how do I get the boys through school so that they can get into the job that would be the most adequate for them if they constantly flunk?
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