Could ADHD Be Your Greatest Strength?
When my son Markus was diagnosed with ADHD at 12, his therapist told me that I should reduce his expectations so he wouldn’t be disappointed by life. Who in their right mind would tell their child that? Instead, I fired her. I didn’t know anything about ADHD but what I was intuitively certain of was that she was dead wrong!
Eight months later I was diagnosed with ADHD. No suprise there as ADHD is as heritable as height. That’s when it dawned on me that had my mother taken this same psychologist’s advice when I was a child, I would have never made it through college, law school or graduate law school. That’s when I made the commitment to learn everything I could about ADHD, because so many of the professionals I consulted with didn’t seem to have a clue.
Today, I believe that there is nothing defective about our ADHD brains. We’re MACs, in a Windows based world; we run on our own operating system. Like all of us with ADHD, my brain is interest driven. To be successful I needed to discover what it meant for me to live to my full potential because given my drivenness (a sign of hyperactivity btw), full potential was the only option.
Beyond all this, I also know that my energy, creativity, fearlessness, and non-linear thinking (all ADHD “symptoms”) are in large part responsible for my success. I also know that ADHD women with their irreverent humor, energy and creativity are my people, my favorite people. I want to hear all about you!