Just an FYI that if you’re poking around this site, some pages are a bit broken. Like the About and Books pages are missing photos. And when you click on a post and get taken to its page, there’s only empty light turquoise space on top and no post title. So it looks like there’s nothing there, but if you scroll down, you can find the post. I’m trying to drum up the motivation to redo this place, but so far, I haven’t been able to.
As far as what’s going on, I met a woman yesterday who — it became clear — knows nothing true about ADHD. When I mentioned my books, she started saying that she thought Covid and going online so much made a lot of kids have ADHD, including one of her grandkids. I told her that our use of the internet on our devices has shortened many people’s attention spans… mimicking many of the characteristics of ADHD. But that ADHD is a neurobiological, brain-based condition. She wasn’t getting it, and was — kindly — saying that her grandson’s parents were off base about the kid’s ADHD even though he’d been tested: “He can do things he loves great,” she said. I said, yes, that’s called Interest-Based Motivation. Many people with ADHD can be fantastically motivated to take action on projects that interest them. But it seems that their brains don’t produce adequate neurotransmitters to get them motivated to take action on things they don’t like. She was surprised to hear this. I said, very nicely, that maybe she should learn a little bit about ADHD.
I was perfectly nice to her (I’m aware that I can sometimes come off as strident and I’m working on that), but her ignorance gets me! Go fucking learn about this thing that you think your grandson can’t have because it doesn’t exist, lady!
