One man describes it as a blink of the mind. Without warning, his attention shifts from whatever he is reading, watching or talking about to something entirely unrelated.
When it shifts back, he often has missed something crucial without realizing it. Another man says it’s like having a multichannel TV screen in his brain and trying to focus on an educational program while “Star Trek” tantalizes from a corner of the screen.
Both are describing ADD, attention deficit disorder-a condition that created chaos in their lives for years.
Before his ADD was under control, Jim Reisinger, of Ann Arbor, Mich., couldn’t chew gum and watch a movie at the same time.
For Michael Ginsberg, 17, of Bloomfield Township, Mich., the consequences were far more devastating. Because ADD interferes with social development, “whenever other kids came around me, they acted like I gave off some poison gas cloud,” he recalls.
“Kids told me that I was less than human, and they had me believing it.”
They picked on him to provoke him into tantrums and even beat and kicked him.
Today, Reisinger and Ginsberg cope successfully with ADD through medication and adjustments. Reisinger, 52, is a financial planner, married 17 years, with six children. Ginsberg, a high school junior, is an Eagle Scout, co-captain of the swim team, president-elect of the Spanish club and a National Merit Scholar who has his sights set on an Ivy League university.
But both share the basic traits of ADD: Distractibility and impulsivity so severe it can interfere with school, work and relationships.
Not so long ago, ADD was blamed on family dynamics, high-sugar diets, food additives, inner ear problems, vitamin deficiencies or misalignment of bones in the skull. Doctors assured worried parents that their children would grow out of it. But a substantial percentage ended up dropping out or flunking out of school, getting in trouble with the law and abusing alcohol and drugs.
The view of ADD has shifted dramatically in recent years. Researchers now believe ADD is an inherited neurological disorder with symptoms that stem from a deficiency of certain brain chemicals. It is not considered a learning disability in itself, although some people with ADD also have learning problems. Nor is it a sign of low intelligence. Many people with ADD are quite bright.
“It’s just that their smartness gets tangled up inside,” say Dr. Edward Hallowell and Dr. John Ratey in “Driven to Distraction: Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder from Childhood through Adulthood” (Touchstone, $12). And contrary to long-held belief, up to 70 percent of people with ADD don’t outgrow it.
Treatments for ADD capitalize on the effects of stimulants. Medications such as Ritalin and Dexedrine are prescribed. In most treatment programs, psychological counseling, parent training and behavior guidance for the patient, such as tips on sticking to a schedule, keeping track of possessions and controlling impulses, go hand-in-hand with drug therapy.
“I will tell you this, and if I had a Bible here, I would swear on it: I never once in my life gave any less than my best effort- it wasn’t that I wasn’t trying,” Ginsberg says, sighing deeply.
But thanks to medication, therapy and the efforts of Ginsberg and his parents, his life began to turn around. His parents lobbied his schools to make allowances, such as letting him use a computer to write in-class essay exams, letting him sit next to positive role models and having teachers make sure he understood directions. After school, his mother helped him focus on the task at hand, whether working on merit badges or multiplication tables. And through it all, Ginsberg never quit trying.
“ADD sort of makes life a locked door. All medicine is, is a key. You have to put the key into the lock. You have to turn it, you have to open the door and you have to step through. Medicine simply enables you to do it. You have to put the effort forward.”
Reisinger, too, has found ways to cope with ADD, even though he wasn’t diagnosed until age 46. He never knew what ADD was until his youngest daughter had trouble in school and a teacher suggested that Reisinger attend a workshop on ADD.
With increasing attention being paid to ADD, parents, teachers and physicians are becoming aware of it.
Dr. Mark Stein, of the University of Chicago, worries that, in the rush to assign a label to a child’s problems, other explanations may be ignored.
Still, for those who really do have ADD, a thorough evaluation, followed by appropriate treatment, can be life-changing, as Ginsberg happily testifies.
“ADD is not this terrible thing,” Ginsberg insists. “It’s a challenge. And challenges have this weird thing about them. They can be a lot of fun.”
