User-Friendly Labels for “ADD/ADHD”

OUTSIDE-THE-BOX ABILITY

These days there’s medication to calm humans with the gift of distraction. It’s mostly little humans who haven’t yet had a chance to explore it. This is our educational system, at least in the western world, anyway. ADHD kids are a handful, but they mature into hard workers. ADD kids evolve into productive people, too.

When we think about it, isn’t it difficult for anyone to sit for an hour and a half or so and just listen and record notes and pay full attention while being schooled? Perhaps many are able, but the deep thinkers have distracting thoughts. Daydreams we call this. Some say it with a disapproving facial expression like it’s useless. “Daydreaming again…” And yet the dreamers’ reveries, musing, and fantasies create music, and life-changing inventions, soul-arresting art, and written stories or information that outlasts readers’ lives.

Attention Deficit Disorder. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Disorder? I find that a tad judgmental. Anyone or no one may agree.

To be more accurate, I have user-friendly labels for this so-called affliction.

ADD:
Attentional Dreaming Discoveries
Attentional Directive Detour.

ADHD:
Attentional Differences However Devising
Attentional Differences Hail Development.

If the standard label was issued to your intelligent mind, your child’s or any other human you know, the accused are in the good company of these humans. Interestingly, ADD/HD persons may also have or may develop bipolar “disorder,” and you’ll recognize some individuals on the list:

Albert Einstein
Galileo
Mozart
Leonardo da Vinci
Robin Williams
Cher
Bruce Jenner
Charles Schwab
Henry Winkler
Danny Glover
Walt Disney
John Lennon
Greg Louganis
Winston Churchill
Henry Ford
Stephen Hawkings
Jules Verne
Alexander Graham Bell
Woodrow Wilson
Hans Christian Anderson
Nelson Rockefeller
Thomas Edison
Gen. George Patton
Agatha Christie
John F. Kennedy
Whoopi Goldberg
Rodin
Thomas Thoreau
David H. Murdock
Dustin Hoffman
Pete Rose
Russell White
Jason Kidd
Russell Varian
Louis Pasteur
Werner von Braun
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Robert Kennedy
Prince Charles
Gen. Westmoreland
Eddie Rickenbacker
Gregory Boyington
Harry Belafonte
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Mariel Hemingway
Steve McQueen
George C. Scott
Tom Smothers
Suzanne Somers
Lindsay Wagner
George Bernard Shaw
Joan Rivers
Beethoven
Jim Carey
Carl Lewis
Jackie Stewart
“Magic” Johnson
John Corcoran
Sylvester Stallone

This list was scooped from http://www.psychcentral.com which is an accurate and dependable site for information regarding mental health.

Thanks for reading~

Cell and Chain

PING-DING-RING THING

What started out as fun has become, well, not fun. And dangerous perhaps.

I’m driving and I see this kid propped up by his handlebars, on a banana seat and he half-ass steers himself away from me. He lifts his face and takes a brief, hurried look at the road, but not me. I slow down, look at him texting on his rusty handlebars. Wait now… yeah—no—he’s on Facebook. On a bike. On the road. I say, “Hey, guy. Are you not worried about getting hit?” I think it sounded like I was patient and calm. Good. ‘Cause I feel like I appeared snotty. Kids have a sense of entitlement; I very much dislike their attitudes. Nonetheless, I love teens.

He let his foot drag and stopped the bike. He shrugs, shakes his head. He said, “Who made you the texting police?” Pushes off and scrolls, peddling slowly.

I want to get mad and tell him he’s dense. But I feel sorry for the kid. He’s riding alone, but in the company of Facebook users. What does this kid do when winter storms fill the roads? I suppose he just walks. He seems to be going nowhere, and maybe it doesn’t matter if he arrives anywhere. Traffic was coming, I had to move on. I said, “Careful, okay?”

He nodded, and I think the corner of his mouth raised his cheek. Briefly, though. Just for a sec.

When we baby boomers were that kid’s age, we all had bikes and we ran in packs. We didn’t even know what a cordless house phone was. We had Packman, Archie magazines, and we twisted the curly phone cord around our fingers while making plans to meet up or drop by each others’ homes. If our parents were on the phone we walked blocks and blocks to each others’ home. We did not know that so-and-so just made delicious spaghetti. We didn’t know what a profile pic was. Photos were at home in an album or box. Summer nights we played hide and go seek in neighbours’ back yards. The people in my neighbourhood couldn’t afford fences, so we got it goin’, running like untamed beasts.

Humans are distracted by ping-ding-ring thing noises.  Some keep their phone off, many do not. My hubby is a commodities relocation manager. This means he drives transport. He gets lonely and bored, so my cell phone rings off his Bluetooth. It makes me tense when I’m driving. I hope nothing has happened to him. A pretty Zen harp. I used to like it, but I throw up a little in my throat when it rings now. I think I’m an introvert, pretty sure. I couldn’t be hooked into the texting thing or social media on the go. I prefer to write in peace on my desktop, and go out to get away from me. If that makes any sense? To me it’s a cell and chain, I’d have it off mostly if I didn’t have to be available in case my hubby got hurt on the highway.  No ping-ding-ring thing all day long for me, thanks.

I am curious, however, about how humans manage the distractions of the cell sounds.  I have the attention span of a common goldfish, so I just won’t deal with such interruptions when I’m trying not to speed in my car. ADD they said. That means Attentional Daydream Disorientation. Not so bad; not ideal.

Thanks for reading~

Someone Recorded Crickets then Slowed Down the Track, And It Sounds Like People Singing – UPDATE | True Activist

Someone Recorded Crickets then Slowed Down the Track, And It Sounds Like People Singing – UPDATE | True Activist.

A narrator speaks briefly a little ways in. Listen well past that and  you will hear opera singing. It’s incredible, honest to God~ Oh—you’ll see a track if you scroll a bit. Click at the beginning of the track and enjoy.

Is Being Highly Emotional a Disorder?

EXQUISITELY STRUCTURED MINDS

Emotionally sensitive individuals have exquisitely structured minds—imaginative, creative, expressive, perceptive, and sensitive—and we’re highly responsive because of this.

Is being highly emotional a disorder? Perhaps it is. That being said, our emotions are a part of being human, so how is it that being inordinately spiritual is a disorder? That in itself isn’t really a disorder per say, because each and every human is overly emotional at one time or another. Watching sports causes emotional outbursts, the birth of our children causes elation, death of loved ones causes profound sadness, etcetera. Emotions are spiritual responses. They come from within us, from our hearts and souls.

Some are more prone to display emotions than others. We who laugh and cry easily, feel indignant, feel a rush of joy, or tear up simply because we see our friend or lover crying, we’re intuitive.  We feel compassion and love, joy, peace. We have faith, gentleness, kindness, meekness—and self control—apparently except for total control of our emotions. And we might be closer to the spiritual realm of God than we think. We were designed in an extraordinary way, after all. It’s a gift to be sensitive, because seeing beyond the surface and conveying emotions through medium is a gift. Ask anyone who loved Robin Williams’ acting or comedy routines. God rest that man’s soul. Bipolar depression trapped him in despair for one last time. I know I’m not the only one who shed salty sadness when that news landed.

Mostly, emotions are temporal, though. We feel and release them, but letting our emotions make decisions isn’t helpful. God guides, emotions glide. We need to release tears as much as anger or laughter. Release it and move on.

Being highly emotional is not a disorder. Some humans’ sensitive feelings and reactions are more prominent, that’s all. We sensitive characters in life are the poets and writers, the artists, the actors, and the counsellors.

Thank God for feelings and imagination. Thank God for those emotional humans who write greeting cards.

Fellow human spirits, have an emotionally rich day and a wonderfully peaceful night.

© L. P. Penner, 2015

Clasping Hands

SORROW AND JOY SHARED

A dark night is temporary, as is a bright day. Humans’ hands were designed to clasp together so we could go through sorrow and joy side by side.

May God Bless your days and nights~

© L. P Penner, 2015

God Helps Greedy Guts Hubby To Reform

NO VEGGIE, NO POTATO

The system was that I made dinner and Hubby would get his three-course din-din to go for the next night so he could warm it at work. Well, I made extra one night so I could do something with it the next night. Hungry early the next night and looking forward to an easy din-din, I went to the fridge for the extra. I couldn’t find it. I moved stuff. I squatted down, hung onto the shelves and thoroughly inspected the fridge’s contents. Still, it was gone. I shut the fridge, counted to three, and opened it again. I was looking like a curious dog, you know, how they turn their heads. Then it hit me…my guy left his reasonably-sized  supper container and took my large container of extra. I laughed and laughed—four chicken legs with wrinkled, cold skin on them, shoved carelessly into the container, no veggies, no potato. Ew. Ha! I knew what he was calling about that day. It was either for sympathy or we’d laugh together. I laughed the hardest.

God has a way of letting us know when we need to rethink our behaviours. So there. God can do two things at once. I needed that belly laugh, and Hubby needed to know the biggest isn’t always the best. 😉

L. P. Penner, 2013

Funny Facts About God’s Cats

CAT CHAT

We cats are quite remarkable.
Allow us to explain
what it is about us
that makes us so very vain.

Cats don’t merely walk,
we strut.
And cats don’t need much sleep,
just naps.

We cats rarely feast,
we prefer to nibble.
And we too have different tastes,
some for canned food,
some for kibble.

Cats don’t just jump,
we pounce.
And we’re very agile;
astounding balance.

Cats don’t give in so much
to what you expect of us;
we negotiate,
until you give in to us!

So, if you are so lucky
to be owned by one of us,
or maybe a couple or three,
perhaps you can learn a thing or two
about living independently….

L. P. Penner, 2015

On Marriage and Slumber

SLUMBER WARS

He jostles his hip finding
the sleep-ready sweet-spot;
she may always grimace,
but says not a word of retort.

He has three pillows
he fluffs and he scrunches;
she thinks he’s ridiculous.
He says he needs the support.

When he’s settled in
then she will stretch and bend
to slumber with her husband,
that pillow man.

Asleep, he somehow determines
that it just isn’t enough,
those three pillows he hordes—that worm…
and now hers is his fourth.

She knows he works hard;
won’t disturb his sleep,
but deep down she wishes
less pillows he’d keep.

The night before she wrote this
he did cross the dream-sleep line….
He shoved a pillow into her chest
not once, but more than twice.

She clutched it and flung it
to her side of the bed
where he couldn’t reach it,
not ever again.

© L. P. Penner, 2015

Keep Asking

SILENT LISTENER

When we think God has heard not our words
and we’ve been calling to Him for awhile,
just know He is the silent listener
skillfully attending to
full detail.

© L. P. Penner, 2015

Define Crazy

I JUST MIGHT BE CRAZY

It’s early, I know, only five a.m. or so. Perhaps my sleep is not complete, but it’s different each time the night leaves, the sunrise, I mean. Its king-painted colours, its time-determined cant. I crave to see the daily variance. People say that I’m crazy, leaving my bed prematurely. They say I need to sleep in to feel rested for the expected day ahead.

My impulse, though, is to celebrate the celestial, eastern canvas. What if this time it’s as if airbrushed—many soft pastels merging—to create colours I’ve never beheld? And early may bring a hand-detailed oil acting out a dramatic scene of sharp dark lines, spunky dark hues depicting a seasonal storm warning. Or will I see mostly pinks, gentle and sweet shaped like birds’ wings and smeared into blues? Never have I seen an identical canvas by The Artist, yet there’s been forever a sunrise.

No matter the season, I can count on the eastern view when it’s early, because I wake and arise although I’m still sleepy. After all… I just might be crazy.