Adult ADD Strengths

It’s all about the brand baby. All about positioning. Getting sent to jail for more than a night in the drunk tank tarnishes some brands. So Paris Hilton had to polish her’s a bit with a branding repair exercise on the king of the softball questions and Mr reluctant on followups to scripted answers that sound fishy, Larry King. Larry admit’s he’s not a gotcha type guy and he’s good at the soft news personal story type interviews. But too many Paris Hilton type interviews and he runs the risk of being the designated interviewer for celebrity reputation white wash jobs.

I read the rumour about Paris Hilton having ADD and being on ADDerall before the interview, and was a bit worried that

a) it was true, which wouldn’t be hard to believe and
b) she might try and blame all of her troubles on ADD like some others have done. ADDers get enough bad publicity as it is, we don’t need more.

Much to my surprise when she did admit she had ADD it wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. Her answers were heavily, repeat heavily scripted and positioned to attempt to portray her in the best possible light. Hint for next time, when you’re doing a brand repair job, aim for a bit of plausibility, not for total suspension of reality, as she did in some parts of the interview.

Here’s some quotes from the transcript of Paris Hilton’s brand rehabilitation/interview with Larry King, specifically relating to Paris Hilton’s Adult ADHD.

KING: You were not on medication?

HILTON: I have been on medication since I was a child. I have ADD. So I take medication for that.

KING: That’s the only thing you deal with, attention deficit disorder.

HILTON: Yes.

KING: Have you ever been addicted to drugs?

HILTON: No.

KING: Taken drugs.

HILTON: No.

KING: Never taken drugs?

HILTON: No.

hmmm. Excessive cognitive dissonance here. Watch this video of Paris smoking pot through a vaporizer in Amsterdam

that’s so cool. It tastes better than normal

also see these screen shots of Paris smoking up

or you can search the net for the NSFW video of her saying what she’ll do for cocaine. Many ADD Adults self medicate with pot alcohol and other drugs. If you’re using pot while you’re on stimulants for ADHD, the meds won’t be of much use. Marijuana  relieves some ADD symptoms in the short run, but makes ADD symtoms overall worse in the long run. I’ll do a blog post on that later.

Paris isn’t the only ADDer in jail. There’s a huge percentage of ADDers in jail. I think 30% is the smallest number I’ve read on medline studies and I’ve seen up to 80% in some studies. It’s only 5% of the adult population. I guess that’s one consequence of society stigmatizing ADHD in children and adults and not providing adequate diagnostic and treatment services for ADDers.

She’s had ADD all her life and is taking Adderall, a common stimulant prescribed for ADD, one of many medications for adult ADD and she said it in a calm matter of fact non drama queen way. It looked like she had the inattentive form of ADD.  Thankfully the other parts of the interview ie couldn’t answer the favorite bible quotes question even when scanning her written notes (how many people are allowed to bring notes to place on the desk and read when going on TV interviews?) etc seemed to overshadow the ADD part.

KING: So how have all these stories gotten out about you? Medications — well, the ADD, that’s a strong medication, isn’t it?

HILTON: Um. It’s Adderall, I think. Anyone who has ADD takes it.

KING: You’ve had it all your life.

HILTON: Yeah.”

One thing about having ADD is that you’re likely to have other co-existing conditions as well, such as depression, anxiety, OCD, substance abuse etc. One such condition is Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Not that I diagnose, but I’d suggest it’s a strong possibility that Paris Hilton might have this condition and if so, it’s probably more of a problem for her than ADD. She also said that ADD didn’t affect her in her business life.

KING: How did ADD affect you while in jail?

HILTON: Well, it’s — attention deficit disorder so it’s hard to pay attention to things and I don’t know, I just …

KING: When you have ADD …

HILTON: … it’s the way I’ve dealt with it my whole life.

KING: When you have ADD you can’t — you lose concentration?

HILTON: Yes.

KING: And you’ve had it since you were a kid?

HILTON: Since I was like 12.

KING: So it had to be tougher when you were in a situation where you were kind of entrapped.

HILTON: Yes, it was but I learned to deal with it.

KING: How does — does it affect you in business?

HILTON: No.

KING: Television?

HILTON: No.

KING: Singing?

HILTON: No. I’m doing fine everywhere.

KING: Go back full time with your career?

HILTON: Yeah. Everything is back to business.

There’s a lot of ADDers in the entertainment industry, it’s a perfect fit for ADDers, constant stimulation, always something new, lots of opportunites for creative expression, not a lot of boring paperwork etc.

One thing no one can argue about is that Paris Hilton is very talented at getting attention. Not many people have 60 million hit’s in google for their name. It’s probably one way she self medicates for ADD by getting the tabloid media’s stimulating spotlight to crank up that dopamine ADDers are in short supply of. She may have little other talent other than partying but she’s is undeniably good at attracting media attention and creating several businesses around that ability.

Granted she does it in ways that most people would not want to emulate, but shame is not in her vocabulary. If she ever gets tired of the party girl lifestyle as business model she might consider starting a business on teaching people how to attract and keep media attention. Well at least for people with no shame and a hunger for the spotlight. Maybe she’ll use her media platform for something positive but I wouldn’t place any bets on it.

While i’ve started a section of famous living confirmed adults with ADHD on my website, I don’t think I’ll be adding her to the list because she’d fall under the category of infamous confirmed adults with ADHD.

One aspect about some ADDers is they’re more likely to be serial or multiple entreprenurs which she is, and there’s a lot of ADDers in the entertainment industry, actors, musicans comedians. Be nice to hear about some positive role models in that industry. Many have come out and said publically they have alcohol/drug/gambling/sex addictions and depression/bipolar etc. but few have said they have ADD.

Wonder why an inherited (80%) neurobiological condition like ADD would be more cause for public embarrassment than a crack addiction?

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