Thank you for sharing this Pen. I have known many people through my life that have undiagnosed ADHD. Back when I was in school (a really long time ago) the kids were just labeled hyper, inattentive, or troublemakers. It’s known now with proper treatment, or even just understanding how the brain is processing, people with ADHD are some our most brilliant, creative and productive. If you haven’t read Thom Hartman’s book about ADHD, “A Hunter in a Farmers World” it’s a good one. Thom has ADHD and had researched it extensively.
An extraordinarily effective way to share your experiences and help others to recognize similar symptoms or struggles, and to seek assistance. I'm so glad that you found answers and treatment.
Karen, thank you for sharing the recommendation about Thom Hartmann's book. Thom is a remarkably insightful voice in this surreal time wr inhabit.
Pen, this piece was an uncommonly brave act. Thank you for the insight it provided as I get to know you.
In my teaching days I read hundreds of these. It became easy to spot the good psychologists from the weaker. You had the good experience to have one who translated your life experiences and commentary wisely.
The mystery is whether it would have affected you or your teachers and those who interacted with you 30 years ago as profoundly. Now you bring a lifetime’s experience to it and have had literally dozens of “Aha” moments. My personal experience was that such a report didn’t necessarily affect the child as much as it provided parents a cudgel with which to legally beat the school and demand differentiated education (that’s how it works in Canada - a Psych-Ed report is a legal obligation to a school.
Even at that, even with a more suitably tailored education, what was really transformational was that one teacher who relentlessly believed in you and poured his/her soul into helping you. Some kids found that person. Some didn’t.
I continue to admire your persistence, your ability to scramble under, over, or around deep obstacles. It feels to me like a life well-lived. I hesitate to even write that because I had things considerably easier growing up, and it feels judgmental to say that.
One last point, based on an earlier post. You talked about the quest to live in a technocratic utopia. I am interested in your more fully developed thoughts on that because I am suspicious of both words.
From one Canadian to another, thank you for these observations. Although I was born in Kitchener, Ontario, I've only spent one full year of my life in my native land, and I only snuck into the computer labs at the University of Waterloo in order to play the first multi-user computer games that existed (they were all text-based). None of my formal education happened in Canada, although I did try to join the Canadian Armed Forces at one point. When they rejected me, I drove a motorcycle from Ontario to Florida and joined the U.S. Marines instead.
In regard to the diagnostician who assessed me, we are in complete agreement - very wise. I hope she will reach out to me from West Virginia some day. I am sure she's doing good work helping people there understand their own little slice of the human condition. I really enjoyed the several conversations I had with her during my testing and results. Fantastic human.
Technocratic utopias and dystopias are both right up my alley, and you can count on future essays about both. Your suspicion is probably warranted. Humans tend to make the same mistakes over and over regardless of the powers their technology provides. I just finished watching a documentary about how we are abusing water across the planet: Day Zero. I recommend it if you enjoy documentaries: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13323462/
Nothing is more important than connections where minds and hearts meet, in my opinion. Can you reach out to the doctor who helped you as questions occur to you or your life circumstances change? Or do you have to wait for her?
I do enjoy documentaries so I will take time to watch what you recommended. I am currently devouring a book called “We’re Still Here: Pain and Politics in the Heart of America”. It is basically a series of discussions between a sociologist and men and women living in an old coal mining area of America. It’s heartbreaking - the most vivid description I’ve ever read about the realities of poverty in America. It is appalling to see what toy ways people find to hold on to a small sense of self-worth in the light of their many “failures” in a system that dooms people to face impossible choices. The disgraceful trope of self-reliance which is at the very center of the American mythology and *cannot be killed* causes people to feel such deep shame. I am beginning to think that this is the epicenter of American rot as a nation. It infuriates me - people at the lower end are victimized time and again by a system that squeezes them from every direction, so that others can get obscenely wealthy and thus have their self-worth bolstered. I don’t know this life, but I am meeting it head on.
I live in an old former coal-mining town here in the Pacific Northwest. American capitalism is evil. It rots everything from top to bottom while teaching Americans they must be blindly faithful to the very system that its squeezing all the joy out of their existences.
Sums it up with more brevity than I can muster. Dead on.
Btw, I rarely correct my many genuine and auto-correct induced errors. But I must do so here. In my response above, I meant “tiny” ways, not “toy”. I do not want to give an impression of demeaning these people, who manage to find meaning.
Very well said. I agree with everything 💯. After I made my post I realized I forgot to appreciate Pen’s experience and hopped into mine. Forgive me, Pen. My daily goal is to be a better person than I was yesterday... I felt that was true of you since I joined your conversation.
I have had friends and family tell me I was brave. I never agreed. Brave is serving with your life against an armed enemy that you don’t even know. Respect. And, having done that deserve the benefits of care you were promised from the nation you served.
Eric, I will have to return later. I have questions about how ADD/ADHD is being researched and translated into therapy. I’m doing sidewalk chalk art with my grands on this sunny Easter Sunday.
Enjoy the grandkids, and please feel free to make it about yourself whenever you like. I am reevaluating who and what my enemies might be, especially after the way we left Afghanistan. But that's an essay for some other day.
Let's all work on being a little more human to one another!
Never fear ... by now learning is hardwired... I knew long ago a lifetime wouldn’t allow me the time to learn everything I wanted to know about this amazing experience... from stars to planet... and everything above and below.
I’m undiagnosed ADHD. But fairly certain, nevertheless. I began researching it in my 30’s. I’m the oldest in an alcoholic family. My parents, certain there was something wrong with me, mentioned their concerns to the family doctor who prescribed EEG’s into puberty. Because I was fairly attractive and singled out at home, I learned social skills quickly. Traits I developed from growing up in an alcoholic family include an uncanny ability to read a room, empathy, and codependency. I loved school and did well until late high school when rebellion kicked in, having had enough of the hypocrisy of alcoholism and church on Sunday. I used hyper focus to my advantage as often as possible, still do, honing my curiosity and learning as much as I could about the things that interested me. I spent a lot of time at the library. The best compliment I ever got was from a neighbor with a PhD in agriculture who taught at University... who told me I was as educated as many of his colleagues and more informed than most. I never attended university, but I also, never stopped learning. Still.
Please never do stop learning. The more informal and formal learning I do, the more cognizant I become of just how little I actually know about this universe. The library was a safe escape for me as well. It allowed me out from under the monolithic views of my fundamentalist family. Used bookstores did the same.
I'm very thankful that I was allowed to read freely as a child. My grandfather was an alcoholic, and as a result my father rarely indulged. He would drink a cold beer once every year or two, but that was about as much alcohol as I was exposed to in the home.
I am glad you learned to use your undiagnosed ADHD to your advantage!
Thank you for sharing this Pen. I have known many people through my life that have undiagnosed ADHD. Back when I was in school (a really long time ago) the kids were just labeled hyper, inattentive, or troublemakers. It’s known now with proper treatment, or even just understanding how the brain is processing, people with ADHD are some our most brilliant, creative and productive. If you haven’t read Thom Hartman’s book about ADHD, “A Hunter in a Farmers World” it’s a good one. Thom has ADHD and had researched it extensively.
I have not read it, but now I will be. Thank you, Karen, for the recommendation!
An extraordinarily effective way to share your experiences and help others to recognize similar symptoms or struggles, and to seek assistance. I'm so glad that you found answers and treatment.
Karen, thank you for sharing the recommendation about Thom Hartmann's book. Thom is a remarkably insightful voice in this surreal time wr inhabit.
Pen, this piece was an uncommonly brave act. Thank you for the insight it provided as I get to know you.
In my teaching days I read hundreds of these. It became easy to spot the good psychologists from the weaker. You had the good experience to have one who translated your life experiences and commentary wisely.
The mystery is whether it would have affected you or your teachers and those who interacted with you 30 years ago as profoundly. Now you bring a lifetime’s experience to it and have had literally dozens of “Aha” moments. My personal experience was that such a report didn’t necessarily affect the child as much as it provided parents a cudgel with which to legally beat the school and demand differentiated education (that’s how it works in Canada - a Psych-Ed report is a legal obligation to a school.
Even at that, even with a more suitably tailored education, what was really transformational was that one teacher who relentlessly believed in you and poured his/her soul into helping you. Some kids found that person. Some didn’t.
I continue to admire your persistence, your ability to scramble under, over, or around deep obstacles. It feels to me like a life well-lived. I hesitate to even write that because I had things considerably easier growing up, and it feels judgmental to say that.
One last point, based on an earlier post. You talked about the quest to live in a technocratic utopia. I am interested in your more fully developed thoughts on that because I am suspicious of both words.
Thanks again.
From one Canadian to another, thank you for these observations. Although I was born in Kitchener, Ontario, I've only spent one full year of my life in my native land, and I only snuck into the computer labs at the University of Waterloo in order to play the first multi-user computer games that existed (they were all text-based). None of my formal education happened in Canada, although I did try to join the Canadian Armed Forces at one point. When they rejected me, I drove a motorcycle from Ontario to Florida and joined the U.S. Marines instead.
In regard to the diagnostician who assessed me, we are in complete agreement - very wise. I hope she will reach out to me from West Virginia some day. I am sure she's doing good work helping people there understand their own little slice of the human condition. I really enjoyed the several conversations I had with her during my testing and results. Fantastic human.
Technocratic utopias and dystopias are both right up my alley, and you can count on future essays about both. Your suspicion is probably warranted. Humans tend to make the same mistakes over and over regardless of the powers their technology provides. I just finished watching a documentary about how we are abusing water across the planet: Day Zero. I recommend it if you enjoy documentaries: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13323462/
Nothing is more important than connections where minds and hearts meet, in my opinion. Can you reach out to the doctor who helped you as questions occur to you or your life circumstances change? Or do you have to wait for her?
I do enjoy documentaries so I will take time to watch what you recommended. I am currently devouring a book called “We’re Still Here: Pain and Politics in the Heart of America”. It is basically a series of discussions between a sociologist and men and women living in an old coal mining area of America. It’s heartbreaking - the most vivid description I’ve ever read about the realities of poverty in America. It is appalling to see what toy ways people find to hold on to a small sense of self-worth in the light of their many “failures” in a system that dooms people to face impossible choices. The disgraceful trope of self-reliance which is at the very center of the American mythology and *cannot be killed* causes people to feel such deep shame. I am beginning to think that this is the epicenter of American rot as a nation. It infuriates me - people at the lower end are victimized time and again by a system that squeezes them from every direction, so that others can get obscenely wealthy and thus have their self-worth bolstered. I don’t know this life, but I am meeting it head on.
I live in an old former coal-mining town here in the Pacific Northwest. American capitalism is evil. It rots everything from top to bottom while teaching Americans they must be blindly faithful to the very system that its squeezing all the joy out of their existences.
Sums it up with more brevity than I can muster. Dead on.
Btw, I rarely correct my many genuine and auto-correct induced errors. But I must do so here. In my response above, I meant “tiny” ways, not “toy”. I do not want to give an impression of demeaning these people, who manage to find meaning.
Very well said. I agree with everything 💯. After I made my post I realized I forgot to appreciate Pen’s experience and hopped into mine. Forgive me, Pen. My daily goal is to be a better person than I was yesterday... I felt that was true of you since I joined your conversation.
I have had friends and family tell me I was brave. I never agreed. Brave is serving with your life against an armed enemy that you don’t even know. Respect. And, having done that deserve the benefits of care you were promised from the nation you served.
Eric, I will have to return later. I have questions about how ADD/ADHD is being researched and translated into therapy. I’m doing sidewalk chalk art with my grands on this sunny Easter Sunday.
Enjoy the grandkids, and please feel free to make it about yourself whenever you like. I am reevaluating who and what my enemies might be, especially after the way we left Afghanistan. But that's an essay for some other day.
Let's all work on being a little more human to one another!
Never fear ... by now learning is hardwired... I knew long ago a lifetime wouldn’t allow me the time to learn everything I wanted to know about this amazing experience... from stars to planet... and everything above and below.
I’m undiagnosed ADHD. But fairly certain, nevertheless. I began researching it in my 30’s. I’m the oldest in an alcoholic family. My parents, certain there was something wrong with me, mentioned their concerns to the family doctor who prescribed EEG’s into puberty. Because I was fairly attractive and singled out at home, I learned social skills quickly. Traits I developed from growing up in an alcoholic family include an uncanny ability to read a room, empathy, and codependency. I loved school and did well until late high school when rebellion kicked in, having had enough of the hypocrisy of alcoholism and church on Sunday. I used hyper focus to my advantage as often as possible, still do, honing my curiosity and learning as much as I could about the things that interested me. I spent a lot of time at the library. The best compliment I ever got was from a neighbor with a PhD in agriculture who taught at University... who told me I was as educated as many of his colleagues and more informed than most. I never attended university, but I also, never stopped learning. Still.
Please never do stop learning. The more informal and formal learning I do, the more cognizant I become of just how little I actually know about this universe. The library was a safe escape for me as well. It allowed me out from under the monolithic views of my fundamentalist family. Used bookstores did the same.
I'm very thankful that I was allowed to read freely as a child. My grandfather was an alcoholic, and as a result my father rarely indulged. He would drink a cold beer once every year or two, but that was about as much alcohol as I was exposed to in the home.
I am glad you learned to use your undiagnosed ADHD to your advantage!
You are white?