EXCELLENT!!!! Observation and take. Have you seen the new Medlar study out on ADHD? MAGNIFICENT. At least we know for sure it's genetic. Easier to understand our children and grandchildren with it. Other's are on Microsoft and WE....LOL...are on MACHIIHAIRONFIRE Operating System. Wink, wink!

WARMEST ~

Lee

Along similar lines, this article in Scientific American discusses possible evolutionary reasons for the existence of depression.

The human brain is fascinating, and I wish we understood more about it.

MACHIIHAIRONFIRE

Hilarious. I think of it as having a bunch of squirrels living in my head, each running off in a different direction. My thoughts come very fast, and sometimes, when I get very excited, or I'm very tired, I have trouble slowing down my speech to a place where ordinary humans can get it (speaking in complete sentences, etc.)

The fun thing is, I have a friend with ADD or ADHD, and I can talk to her in hyperlinks (leave a subject, go out on a tangent, and maybe another tangent, and come back to the original subject) and she understands me completely.

As for Gregg, he'll sometimes ask "Do I have your divided attention?" which I think is hilarious.

When my daughter was about 9 yrs old, she was diagnosed with Aspergers. As the therapist was listing off the symptoms, I was sitting there saying me; me; me; me.

I was always socially uncomfortable. As an example: When my daughter or I are walking down the hall and we see someone we don't know well walking towards us, we have to THINK about what to say, how to behave, etc. Most people (I think) just know what to do without any intervention by their rational brain. Then, the fact that our response was routed through our brain, it seems insincere to us and we feel unnatural. Of course, sometimes we DO say or behave in some way that goes CLANG! and makes others think we're weird. Since I've been alive a lot longer, I'm a whole lot better at dealing with these situations than she is. But she's getting teh hang of it.

But I tell her that Asperger's has it's benefits. I have a whole bunch of capabilities that I wouldn't trade for the ability to naturally say "hi" when walking down hallways. I tell my daughter that most people can't get through a day without pissing on their shoes. But, since we give so much thought about where we piss, we don't have to worry about that.

I so get this! Thank you SO MUCH for posting this video. I'm on vacation (more like staycation), and I watched the whole thing waiting for the cable guy.

When he was discussing the internet and how some people think...wow.

I learn and communicate differently. When I try to explain it to the people closest to me (it's not that I am looking for sympathy - its more or less to let them know it's okay to ask me for clarification and/or know where I am coming from) it's that my mind "fans out" with many ideas all at once. So when you mentioned squirrels, I could completely relate.

The other one is that I interrupt *myself* when I am talking (most people find this amusing - but HELLO, that gets frustrating). But the cadence of my speech certainly is a good indicator of my stress level, or being run down (this also is noticeable in my writing). Its been said that I write and talk like I am on a treadmill.

After watching this, I realize that this could be why I always loved stories for communicating things to others - but not at all for learning new factual information. It was my way to translate.

I do however, love to hear people's life stories and perspectives on things. If I don't need to be *learning* anything new from what they are saying, it can be quite soothing and allows me to get away from the fact collection squirrels - allowing me to relate to others better. I just have to be careful to turn down my thinking mode a bit when they are talking - otherwise, I start "fanning out".

Oh hell, it's a process. Great post!

Thank you for the link Pseudonym.

I've suffered from depression the majority of my life and let me tell you when I tackled a problem I did it with such ferocity that I wouldnt eat or sleep. And in fact it cosumed the majority of my thoughts. You can imagine how trying it is on my body, what an impossibility it makes working any job, and how eventually my body breaks down physically.

My mother would tell me that my life was like I was living in a forest but only staring at one tree.

I burned it to a CD for the car with high expectations, but Good Lord is this thing dull. All this circle-jerky jargon about "framing"... It goes on and on and they don't SAY anything.