highlights
16 highlights saved, filed under psychology.
- 01
It’s like an omnipresent itch to make something.
- 02
people who have ADHD or VAST are also particularly prone to head toward gloom and doom in their minds because they have stored up in their memory banks a lifetime of moments of failure, disappointment, shame, frustration, defeat, and embarrassment. Given a moment to reflect on what’s likely to happen next, life has taught people with ADHD to imagine and expect the worst. Too many facts are readily available to support the thesis that, well, life sucks.
- 03
In a neurotypical brain, when the TPN is turned on and you’re on task, the DMN is turned off. But in the ADHD brain, the fMRI shows that when the TPN is turned on, the DMN is turned on as well, trying to muscle its way in and pull you into its grasp, thereby distracting you. In ADHD, therefore, the DMN competes with the TPN, which in most people it does not do.
- 04
Trapped in the past or future in the DMN, you’re likely to abandon projects you once started with enthusiasm, make careless mistakes, or, worse, fall into a state of misery and despair, for no good reason whatsoever.
- 05
All creative people can recognize only too well the phenomenon of being on a roll—creating—only to have a negative voice trying to interrupt the process. That’s the faulty “toggle switch” allowing the DMN to intrude on the TPN.
- 06
Another extremely common problem when caught in the DMN is what we call “pirouette syndrome,” a circling back to make sure you’ve done something you’ve already done.
- 07
As a practical matter, this means that the minute you start to ruminate and slip into brooding negativity, look elsewhere. Do anything. Walk around. Yell. Dance a jig. Dice celery. Play the piano. Feed your dog. Sing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” while standing on one leg.
- 08
The point is: Focus on anything external to yourself. Activating the TPN will shut down the DMN.
- 09
Don’t feed the Demon. Shut off its oxygen by denying it your attention. Do something else that engages your mind. Stay in action!
- 10
A person with ADHD has the power of a Ferrari engine but with bicycle-strength brakes. It’s the mismatch of engine power to braking capability that causes the problems. Strengthening one’s brakes is the name of the game.
- 11
Alan Turing summed us up when he said, “Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine.”
- 12
“ADHD” is a term that describes a way of being in the world. It is neither entirely a disorder nor entirely an asset. It is an array of traits specific to a unique kind of mind. It can become a distinct advantage or an abiding curse, depending on how a person manages it.
- 13
We’ve got an overabundance of attention, more attention than we can cope with; our constant challenge is to control it.
- 14
it helps to think of ADHD as a complex set of contradictory or paradoxical tendencies: a lack of focus combined with an ability to superfocus; a lack of direction combined with highly directed entrepreneurialism; a tendency to procrastinate combined with a knack for getting a week’s worth of work done in two hours; impulsive, wrongheaded decision making combined with inventive, out-of-the-blue problem solving; interpersonal cluelessness combined with uncanny intuition and empathy; the list goes on.
- 15
Uncannily accurate intuition, coupled with a tendency to overlook the obvious and ignore major data.
- 16
Tendency to externalize or blame others while not seeing your role in the problem. This is coupled with a general inability to observe oneself accurately, which naturally leads to more externalizing, since you truly do not see the role you play in the problem. Distorted negative self-image. Due to the inability to observe oneself accurately, coupled with the heightened sensitivity to perceived criticism and a record of underachievement, people with ADHD usually have a self-image that is far more negative than is warranted.