Neurodivergence

 ADHD From The Neurodivergent Perspective ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) is viewed as a disorder by the mainstream. Is it really a disorder? Does it really need to be medicated? Do people with ADHD really have problems with being hyperactive and/or inattentive? DRD4 7R has been strongly linked to both ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) and a behavior trait called "novelty seeking" which often underlies addiction. Scientists suggest that DRD4 7R occurred recently in human evolution between 10,000 and 40,000 years ago which was the period that anthropologists concur that humans were developing the first signs of complex societies involving agriculture, rudimentary governments, and the creation of cities for the first time. Humans were also rapidly expanding and exploring the planet. The DRD4 7R is shown to be an unusual, spontaneous mutation which became an advantage for humans, and so it became increasingly prevalent. It could explain why ADHD is ...

 Disorganized, Rapid Speech Is Not Necessarily Mental Illness  Psychiatrists and other mental health professionals tend to think that if a person speaks rapidly then they have manic speech. They think that if their speech is tangential, then they must be psychotic. They tend to judge people by their speech, and then tell them that they have a thought disorder,and so they tried to get them to take a neuroleptic. Some even want you to take Risperdal. That's what it was like for me as a Dyslexic, Dyspraxic, ADHD person. They didn't know that my rapid, tangential speech was cluttering. They never stopped to consider that at all. They told me that I had some "slight thought disorder" and wanted me to take a neuroleptic. When I came back to mental hospital for depression, they made me take Risperdal because of my speech irregularities. These psychiatrists never asked if I had a history of speech therapy nor special education. I had intensive speech therapy in special educat...

 As neurodivergents, our behaviors can be misunderstood by neurotypicals and even by other neurodivergents as well as ourselves. Therefore, it's very important to understand the neurodivergent processing in social interactions. We can't be judged based on what people learn from psychology books and the common views based on neurotypical behavior. One example is eye contact.   Page 41 from A SOLUTION TO THE RIDDLE – DYSLEXIA by Harold N. Levinson, M.D.  “Occasionally , dyslexics were considered to be negativistic on the basis of their hesitant, ambivalent, and anxiety-laden avoidance of handshaking and/or eye contact. Only in retrospect were these "anti-social" avoidance symptoms recognized to be due to primary somatic, rather than primary psychogenic, disturbances. Thus, upon neurodynamic exploration, hand contact was avoided because of right/left uncertainty and the anticipated embarassment of using the wrong hand. In a similar fashion, upon analysis, eye contact wa...

 Thom Hartmann believes that ADD well suits a person to live in a hunting-gathering world, but that it puts them at a disadvantage in a farming or industrial world. For the first two hundred thousand years of human history, ADDers ruled the world, but now that over 98 percent of the world's population lives in an industrial or developing industrial world, ADD has become a disadvantage --- unless you're one of those who has learned how reinvent your life to work with,instead of against, your neurological difference. He believed that ADDers and Hunters are one and the same. He believes that ADD traits are hunter-gatherer traits. He believe that the "normal" people who are good with routine, order, obedience, conventional are the farmer types.  Thom Hartmann was referring to the whole ADD, ADHD thing   In the DSM-IV-TR  There are 3 types ADHD,inattentive type ADHD,combined type ADHD,hyperactive type  A New View of ADD Not as a Disorder but as a natural adaptiv...

  Tom Cruise has a history of Dyslexia which is what I have in common with him,and so I did this post on him. Tom Cruise: "When I was seven, I was labeled dyslexic. I'd try to concentrate on what I was reading,and then I'd get to the end of the page and have very little memory of anything I read. I would go blank,feel anxious,nervous,bored,frustrated,dumb. I don't want people to go through what I went through. I want kids to have the ability to read,to write,to understand what people are saying to them,to be able solve life's problems." That's what it's been like for me. Auditory therapy,speech therapy,and phonics helped me develop the phonemic and phonological awareness to speak, decode,write and spell words well,but they did not help me to remember them well when it comes to reading and listening because I have impaired immediate visual memory,borderline impaired verbal memory,and borderline impaired sentence repetition according to Veteran Affairs n...

  I feel that mental health professionals can misdiagnose people at times, and they certainly misdiagnosed me! I want to show you the characteristics of some psychiatric disorders that Dyslexic symptoms can be mistaken for. I believe that many mental health professionals label Dyslexics without getting to know them. They just go by appearances, but as you know, appearances can be deceiving. Dyslexics are a true paradox. Only a very understanding, perceptive, and broadminded mental health professional can distinguish a Dyslexic from a mentally ill person. I do believe that Dyslexics can have mental illnesses, but some of the mental illnesses and their symptoms can actually be symptoms and experiences of Dyslexia that include low self esteem, anxiety, depression, insecurity, feelings of worthlessness, left/right confusion, slowed reaction time, deficits in the perception and processing of external stimuli, phobias,irritability,impulsiveness, problems with concentration or mind going ...

  A lot of people have misconceptions about what Dyslexia is like seeing things backwards. A lot of people don't know that in most cases,Dyslexia involves phonological,auditory processing problems. Also a lot of people aren't aware that speech problems are symptoms of Dyslexia and that many have had a history of speech therapy in special education. A lot of people think that all students in special education have mental retardation. They don't know that a lot of children in special education classes aren't retarded even though they refer to special education class as "the retard class" and refer to all special education students as "retards". They don't seem to understand that a lot of Dyslexics benefit from early intervention special education,and so they can learn to read,write,and spell well. A lot of people think that speech problems indicate low intelligence. For instance, I read a lot about how President Bush has problems with speech,and so...