Comedian Jeff Allen On His ADHD Children And His ADHD Video

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

Here’s a funny video of a comedian who’s gone public with having ADHD. Jeff Allen, a Christian comedian talking about his ADHD children at school and his own experience at school with ADHD. Can anyone relate?

I think many comedians have ADHD both the paid ones and the ones that do it for free:)

Some comedians have gone public with having ADHD ie Patrick McKenna and Rick Green who made the great ADD and Loving It movie on Adult ADHD and the website Totally ADD. Howie Mandel has also gone public with having ADHD.

There are many comedians that some people think have ADHD, who may or may not actually have it and have never claimed publicly that they had ADHD. Some of those have dyslexia or bipolar and are mistakenly put on lists as having ADHD when they don’t. That being said, you can have ADHD and dyslexia and bipolar. It’s not just one or the other. Comorbidity is the norm for ADHD

One Possible Response To Someone Who Thinks You’re Talking Too Fast

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

Ever been told you’re talking too fast?

More than a few people with ADHD have. You might enjoy this response by Chris Matthews who is the host of Hardball, a political talk show on MSNBC who was on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno show. You might enjoy Jay’s response even more. It starts about 3.35, and I think it was on May 20th, 2010.

12 Ways To Be Miserable

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

Here are my notes from a talk given by Vancouver based Dr. Randy Paterson, author and psychologist at Changeways private clinic at the Vancouver Wellness show Feb 7th 2009

Here are my notes on his talk.

People often engage in actions and behaviors that if you keep asking them “and if you get that, what will that get you?” the ultimate result is often “If I get that I’ll be happy”. One way to figure how to achieve more happiness is to find what works to make people the opposite of being happy, being miserable, and then do the opposite of that in order to become happier. In this talk he’s discussing how to be miserable, not necessarily full blown depression.

Pete’s note:Adults with ADHD have much higher rates of depression and dysthymia than non ADDers

12 Ways to be miserable.

1. Don’t exercise
2. Don’t eat well
3. Don’t waste your time in bed
4. Give 100% at your work
5. Retail therapy
6.Do what you feel like doing
7. Exist on hope
8. Install a negative filter in your brain
9. Do downwards comparisons
10. Be informed, watch the news
11. Be fashionable, not stylish
12. Improve yourself

Sometimes depression is a natural reaction to some person’s life situation.

Ronald Kuhn was the first person to discover an antidepressant, the trycyclic Imipramine in the 1950′s. At first the drug companies weren’t interested in it because it would take hundreds of millions of dollars to get approved and they thought there weren’t enough depressed people out there to make selling it profitable.

Pete’s thoughts: there goes the conspiracy theorists “depression is a conspiracy of the drug company” theory out the window.

1. Don’t exercise.

James Blumenthal did a study of 156 people with major depression and divide them into 3 groups, aerobic exercise, antidepressant (Zoloft) or both. The

Exercise group had 60% improvement
Antidepressant group had 66% improvement
Exercise and antidepressant group had 69% improvement

To follow up he brought them off antidepressants and discontinued the Aerobic program. The relapse rate (became depressed again) was:

Exercise group had 8% relapse
Antidepressant group had 38% relapse
Exercise and antidepressant group had 31% relapse

Routine exercise is shown to be as effective as psychotherapy. Aim for 3 x 30 minutes a week, but 6 x 30 minutes a week is the best treatment for depression. It doesn’t matter what the exercise is, yoga, Taichi, weightlifting walking, as long as you build up a sweat.

2. Don’t eat well.

If it’s advertised on TV, you probably shouldn’t eat it. Broccoli doesn’t have an advertising budget. If it comes from dirt, eat it.

3. Don’t waste your time in bed.

Most people in urban centers are sleep deprived. Some suggest that even low levels of light might affect your quality of sleep. Your bedroom should be so dark you can’t see your fingers.

8-9 hours of sleep is the best. You can get jet lag by changing your sleeping schedule. It takes 3 days to set your circadian rhythm. So maintain a regular sleep schedule.

4. Give 100% at your work

If you do, how much is left for the rest of your life? Keep work in its place.

Think of the last 3 people you know at work that retired. Ask yourself this question.

Does their legacy live on?

5. Retail therapy

When you feel a void, buy something to fill it. Storage is one of the fastest growing industries in North America.

6. Do what you feel like doing.

Some activities start bad and get better. Some start good and get bad. The feelings after last the longest.

If you base your actions on your feelings about the activity beforehand, you’ll eat too much, drink too much, watch too much TV etc. So be more hedonistic. Do what you’ll be glad you’ve done, because the feelings after have longer lasting benefits.

7. Exist on hope

Hope can be destructive. Gambling is a hope disorder. A lot of bankruptcies are caused by hope. Appropriate hope is great. Inappropriate hope and excessive hope is self-destructive.

When we’re in hope, we’re living in the future, not the present. Don’t hope, plan.

8. Install a negative filter in your brain

Then positive and neutral events in your life won’t pass through. Depression tends to create an involuntary negative bias. Pay attention to the whole picture.

10. Be informed, watch the news media.

reality media filter    coverage

safe bus
safe bus
bus crash            bus crash
safe bus
safe bus

Avoid too much news consumption. Be usefully informed, not obsessively fixated.

11. Be fashionable, not stylish

Quentin Crisp said fashion was learning about how to become like everybody else. Style is the opposite. Take your individuality you want to hide and bring it up to the front. So be stylish, not fashionable. Spend more time being like yourself than others.

12. Improve yourself

We live in a culture of inadequacy. Even though he’s a self help author he says stop reading self help books. Or pick up a few, learn them, but don’t only read self help books.

Half the point of therapy is to get out of therapy. What if you were already good enough? What would you do then? Why not start doing it now?

Books by Dr. Randy Paterson

Your Depression Map: Find the Source of Your Depression and Chart Your Own Recovery

The Assertiveness Workbook: How to Express Your Ideas and Stand Up for Yourself at Work and in Relationships

I found it to be a very useful and interesting talk. I’m sure there’s more than 12 ways to be miserable but it’s a good start. He gives training and presentations to psychologists and to the general public, details are at his website.

Pete’s note: Adults with ADHD are far more likely to have major depression or Dysthemia (chronic low level depression) and anxiety than non ADDers. If you think about the symptoms of ADHD, and how they can impact a person’s life, it’s not too hard to imagine how having adhd and not learning how to effectively manage those symptoms could easily lead to depression.

You might consider making a list of what things you can do that will make your adhd symptoms worse, and try doing the opposite of those things.

What are some of the things that you do that make you most miserable? What are their opposites?

Life Coaches Are Everywhere

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

Overboard by Chip Dunham is one of the funniest comic strips out there. Louie is my favourite character. Life coaches are everywhere.

White Scientist Who Said Blacks Are Less Intelligent Has Black Genes

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

You can’t make stuff like this up. Nobel prize winning white scientist James Watson who claimed that black Africans were less intelligent than whites, according to the Independent,

has a DNA profile with up to 16 times more genes of black origin than the average white European.

An analysis of the genome of James Watson showed that 16 per cent of his genes were likely to have come from a black ancestor of African descent. By contrast, most people of European descent would have no more than 1 per cent.

16 Times more black genes. Hmmm.

This level is what you would expect in someone who had a great-grandparent who was African,” said Kari Stefansson of deCODE Genetics, whose company carried out the analysis. “It was very surprising to get this result for Jim.

I’ll bet Jim was even more suprised. To make it even more interesting, James Watson (along with Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins) won the nobel prize for discovering the double helix structure of DNA.

Watson apologized for his remarks about blacks in October.

The Plan Vs Reality

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

Here’s a funny cartoon on job hunting that I found at  Jan Karlsbjerg’s site by Canadian cartoonist Nicole Lee. I’m sure most ADDers that have been searching for work in the past couple of years or so can relate to it. You might also want to check out the daycare dropoff one too.

Brain Tumors Do Not Exist

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

From Jeff’s ADD Mind Blog

I am a brain surgeon. Well, let me clarify that. My area of expertise is brain surgery. This does not mean that I have any experience in the field of brain surgery. However, using my first-hand experience at cutting things open (see this blog posting on slicing chicken breasts) and whatever facts I can discover (I found out that the brain has two hemispheres. Would you like me to show you?) I have declared myself an expert brain surgeon.

Based on this experience and knowledge I conclude that brain tumors do not exist. In all my years as a brain surgeon I have never encountered a brain tumor. Please do not show me brain scan images. They are digital and, therefore, can easily be faked. I do believe that the whole concept of “brain tumor” has been concocted by unscrupulous surgeons who see it as a way to justify ten hours (or more!) of very expensive and, therefore very lucrative, surgical procedures.

Sound familiar?

As an expert on all matters involving the brain I concur with Mr. Collier that A.D.D./A.D.H.D. does not exist.

The conclusion is obvious. Mr. Collier has as much experience in the field of A.D.D./A.D.H.D. as I do in the field of brain surgery. Therefore his pronouncements carry as much weight as my pronouncements.

Read the rest of the story at his entertaining well written blog. A great way to respond to the people who don’t have a clue about mental health or ADHD, have no medical or psychiatric training, yet claim to be able to pass judgement about the validity of a medical condition.

You may also want to read my blog posts Does ADD exist? How to answer this question. Part one and part two, where I give the polite and not so polite way to answer these questions plus clinicial evidence of ADHD as a real condition.

Gong Your Prospects

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

The Electric Pulp blog did a hilarious post called 12 Inquiries that got the gong, named after the tv show The Gong Show

Some of the humor may be limited to those familiar with web design, here’s a few good ones.

4. I’d like to launch my site in 3 weeks and have a design/development budget of $600. Can you provide me with a .PSD mockup of your ideas to help me make my decision?

7. We manufacture approximately 85,000 industrial truck parts and need an ecommerce outlet available in four weeks. I need your help convincing the company to spend more than $1,000. How quickly can you come out?

8. … In lieu of payment, I could add you to my advertiser list once the site launches.

9. I’m starting my own development business and would like to learn more about how you price your projects. Can you tell me how you’d respond to the following RFP?

Humour aside, if you’ve recently started up a business, you will get some prospective clients you need to say no to because they’re not a good fit for you or have unrealistic expectations, or they’re going to be a more trouble than they’re worth.

Adults with ADHD are more likely than non ADDers to say yes to new opportunities, including business opportunities. This is because doing new things or adding on new clients can be stimulating and crank up the dopamine we’re so often short of. That and our tendency to be impulsive or entrepreneurial depending on the context. It often can be a major factor in our success (ADDers are often excellent enterpreneurs) or a major source of grief.

Sometimes you have to learn the hard way, that one way to create a more profitable and satisfying business is learning to say no to the wrong opportunities for you.

What business opportunities are you glad you said no to?

Karma Explained Entertainingly

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

Karma Ghost is a very cool funny flash cartoon by Billy Bob which gives you a good experiental explanation of Karma. Usually Karma doesn’t happen this fast or we’d all clue in quickly and start living differently right away.

We Could be Number One on the Google!

Post from: Adult ADD Strengths

Here’s some viral video tech humor. Slightly nsfw. Especially funny for anyone that has a clue about webdesign and SEO or search engine optimization. How to be number one on the google. via the excellent Webstrategist

For a hundred and fifty quid we could be number one on the google!

It was created by PushOn, a UK online marketing company. On their blog they’ve got a cool video of an ibar. An amazing interactive 10 foot long touch screen on top of a bar at a nightclub.

As someone who actually has been number one “on the google” and other search engines from time to time with different keywords, all with organic SEO, anyone that promises you that they’ll make you “number one on the google” is doing one of the following:

1. BSing you, taking advantage of your greed and lack of internet knowledge.
2. Getting you ranked for some irrelevant keyword that almost no one searches for.
3. Doing black hat SEO that may get you near or on number one for a while. But, if you do black hat SEO on your website or blog, you risk getting banned for a few months from google i.e., go back to pagerank 0, start over again.

If you only learn 1 thing about SEO learn the difference between white hat seo and black hat seo. Oh and get your title tags matching your page content. It’s irritating to see bobs widets in the browser bar on every single page on a website. Don’t assume your webdesigner knows SEO. They might, but they probably don’t. It’s just like expecting an SEO can also design your website.

Also google giveth and google taketh away. You could be number one for keyword term x and number 14 the next week. One more reason to cultivate the virtue of equanimity.