Attention Deficit...or Alternative Dimension?

So is ADD a disorder or not?

Well, by looking at my car, my house, my desk at work, my bag-of-a-thousand-things, or my brain at any given moment, disorder seems pretty much like the word of choice!

But anyone who really knows ADD knows that that's only part the story.

I like the words "Alternative Dimensional Design" a lot better.

Most of the world is basically "two-dimensional", or at least it tries to be, and reserves "3-d" for things that are supposed to be universally accepted as "really cool". Non-ADD people are basically those who are able to fit into this mold, whether they are able to also form to other dimensional paradigms (with or without drugs) or not. Then there are the ADD people of the world, for whom fitting in the "box" is just not an option -- at least not without serious drugs or years and years of hard, determined struggle.

Try watching an ADD sister or brother in a checkout line. Everybody else goes through the line, puts their groceries on the conveyor belt, glances with disgust at the cheesy tabloid headlines, interfaces with the cashier in a friendly and mutually forgettable manner, picks up the bags of groceries in a seemingly effortless swoop, and walks smoothly to the car. You don't even see them search for their wallet, freeze with apprehension as the card is processed, or figure out what to do with the receipt. The entire process is so graceful, dancelike that it seems to take no thought at all. In fact, it probably doesn't.

Well, the extremely ADD person is another story. (S)he is probably the last person in line, as several other people in the store have already scoped hir out as the one that they definitely do not want to stand behind. I don't even need to tell you hir adventures, because each one is a unique -- and long -- story. But you get the idea. Even the mildly, or well-controlled ADD individual has a hidden story (the 2-second glance at the tabloid, alone, probably set off at least 20 different trails of thought about everything from ex-girlfriends to aliens to world politics, all of which need to be stuffed hurriedly back in the brain in order to find the debit card).

There is a problem. It's not easy being ADD, it's extremely frustrating to live with one of us, and heaven help any teacher blessed enough to have one of us in a classroom for hours on end (I myself was a teacher once with about ten ADD students at a time. I'm still recovering).

HOWEVER, I firmly believe that the "problem" is not primarily in the ADD per se, but in the relationship between the ADD person and the rest of hir world. And yes, it is the ADD person's kuleana to initiate the change that needs to happen, both in hirself and in the society that is crushing our spirit as it crushes the planet we need to survive.

That's why we need a revolution.