by pinback » Tue Apr 12, 2005 12:02 pm
chris wrote:I mean, look at our lives.
Well, yes. There is merit, I think, to what you're saying here. However, I'm not so willing to completely toss the idea that there are other,
neurological (as opposed to environmental) forces at work here.
One thing that makes me think this is that AADD symptoms were described decades ago, long before the average schmo had ever seen a computer, much less had one in his home. Certainly traffic and work hassles have been a standard part of modern life for centuries, but cavemen fretted all day about getting eaten by roving carnivorous beasts, so who are we to complain about that?
Another thing that makes me think this is that the time during which I experienced myself getting worse and worse were also the same times when 1) I didn't have a job. 2) I didn't need a job. 3) I could sleep as long as I want. 4) My life was utterly complication-free, following whatever my next whim was from dawn to dusk. (In general, I highly recommend this way of living, if you can swing it.)
No, there's something else at work here, and neurological studies have borne that out. My own personal hypothesis is that in many cases, these symptoms are not simply symptoms of some newfangled, faddish syndrome called "AADD" (or "ADHD" or "ADD" or whatever the hell), but are instead comingling symptoms of
clinical depression.
Just off the cuff, I can come up with an example in my own life which may demonstrate how one can be confused for another, or how one and the other are actually the exact same things. Here:
I have trouble starting things. The reason I have trouble starting things is that, like any good depressive, I realize that
starting something is just another opportunity to
fail, and as any failure is taken as a monstrous, life-threatening ego hit, it is absolutely unacceptable to assume this level of risk.
Take this same pattern (A: identify task B: avoid task) and throw it into an overactive mind, add a lack of outside stimuli, and I think it could ratchet itself up to megahertz-level clock cycles, as your mind flips from one failure-avoidance scheme to the next, just searching for quiet, searching for solace, searching for a way out. Switching to the next thought is just a way to run from the first one. (In the same way that, for some, switching to the next street address is just a way to run from the previous one.)
Not saying any of that is true or scientifically valid. Just an idea.
[quote="chris"]I mean, look at our lives.[/quote]
Well, yes. There is merit, I think, to what you're saying here. However, I'm not so willing to completely toss the idea that there are other, [i]neurological[/i] (as opposed to environmental) forces at work here.
One thing that makes me think this is that AADD symptoms were described decades ago, long before the average schmo had ever seen a computer, much less had one in his home. Certainly traffic and work hassles have been a standard part of modern life for centuries, but cavemen fretted all day about getting eaten by roving carnivorous beasts, so who are we to complain about that?
Another thing that makes me think this is that the time during which I experienced myself getting worse and worse were also the same times when 1) I didn't have a job. 2) I didn't need a job. 3) I could sleep as long as I want. 4) My life was utterly complication-free, following whatever my next whim was from dawn to dusk. (In general, I highly recommend this way of living, if you can swing it.)
No, there's something else at work here, and neurological studies have borne that out. My own personal hypothesis is that in many cases, these symptoms are not simply symptoms of some newfangled, faddish syndrome called "AADD" (or "ADHD" or "ADD" or whatever the hell), but are instead comingling symptoms of [i]clinical depression[/i].
Just off the cuff, I can come up with an example in my own life which may demonstrate how one can be confused for another, or how one and the other are actually the exact same things. Here:
I have trouble starting things. The reason I have trouble starting things is that, like any good depressive, I realize that [i]starting[/i] something is just another opportunity to [i]fail[/i], and as any failure is taken as a monstrous, life-threatening ego hit, it is absolutely unacceptable to assume this level of risk.
Take this same pattern (A: identify task B: avoid task) and throw it into an overactive mind, add a lack of outside stimuli, and I think it could ratchet itself up to megahertz-level clock cycles, as your mind flips from one failure-avoidance scheme to the next, just searching for quiet, searching for solace, searching for a way out. Switching to the next thought is just a way to run from the first one. (In the same way that, for some, switching to the next street address is just a way to run from the previous one.)
Not saying any of that is true or scientifically valid. Just an idea.