Transcript

JANICE MCKENNA: As a child in school I was overall a good student and passed.

PATRICK MCKENNA: No.

JANICE MCKENNA: I get so wrapped up in what I’m doing that I lose track of everything else.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Do you want to circle that one for me? I saw you laughing. I saw that.

JANICE MCKENNA: Okay.

PATRICK MCKENNA: It’s true.

JANICE MCKENNA: I generally don’t like people who have different ideas from me.

PATRICK MCKENNA: True. No sense lying, you’re right here. You’ll just you’ll squeal on me.

JANICE MCKENNA: I usually do things my own way rather than giving in to the wishes of other people.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Circle true. Go ahead. Are you happy?

JANICE MCKENNA: I am.

PATRICK MCKENNA: It’s on tv now. It’s fun for you, isn’t it?

JANICE MCKENNA: I didn’t know it would be this much fun. Okay.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Attention Deficit Disorder.

>>It can be devastating.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Adult Attention Deficit Disorder.

>>Without a proper diagnosis, ADD can ruin your life.

DR. JAIN: We know for sure this is a disorder that will hurt you if you don’t look after it.

>>Okay. Having said that, the tremendous good news is if you get the diagnosis and you get proper treatment, not only can you avoid all those disasters, you can achieve spectacular success.

DR. JAIN: We also know for sure that this disorder, when looked after, can make someone very functional.

>>I mean, you can be at the absolute pinnacle, not only in terms of success, but happiness, fulfillment, a rich and wonderful life.

PATRICK MCKENNA: This is a documentary that dares to suggest that ADD is not necessarily a total disaster.

DR. WIESS: Many of the children that I see not only grow into successful adults, they grow into people that I admire tremendously, that are kind, that raise families and contribute something very significant to society.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I mean, recognized, acknowledged and accepted, ADD can become an ally.

>>The key to it all is education, what you’re doing right now.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I know, I know, the majority of people who are ADD are not loving it, especially if it’s running their life.

DR. KURTZ: Moderate or severe ADHD that goes untreated, leaves you really at a loss of life.

DR. VINCENT: This is why as a clinician we think it’s really important to detect ADHD early and treat ADHD early.

PATRICK MCKENNA: There’s millions of parents and children who are suffering. As a former child and current adult and parent of ADD, trust me, I know.

PATRICK MCKENNA: A lot of it was scolding of don’t do that, don’t do that, settle down, stop bouncing, stop banging your head, stop rolling your head, you know, settle down, sit on your hands, stop talking, behave, don’t be a fool, you know, don’t act foolish all the time, why can’t you read faster. Those are the formative years.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I’m discovering that everything I thought I knew about ADD is wrong. So whether you’ve heard that ADD submits you to a life of crime and suffering and possible cannibalism, many of you have heard the complete opposite, that it’s all bull roar made up by the drug companies. Whatever you heard, be prepared to be surprised. If you can pay attention long enough.

>>There are many myths about ADD and I think maybe that’s the scariest, is that there are so many.

PATRICK MCKENNA: The amount of misinformation is incredible. The experts aren’t sure of a lot of things and some widely accepted theories have been shot down.

DR. KURTZ: What I learned to do in graduate school to treat ADHD, I would now consider malpractice, which I know is a very strong statement, but it’s one that I do make and I make confidently.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Over the next hour I’m going to shoot holes in what you know about Attention Deficit Disorder and I’m going to take aim at adult ADD. Oh, I’m Patrick McKenna, your host. And this is ADD and Loving It. I didn’t say the title.

KATE KELLY: It’s a bull crap cop out.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Smarten up, pull your boot straps up and get on with life.

DR. KURTZ: If only you tried harder, you’d be able to pay attention.

DR. VINCENT: What makes me really sad is when I read in the newspaper, when I open the tv, and I hear someone saying that ADHD is not a real disorder. We have so much data, so much research behind it to know that ADHD is a neurological disorder and, furthermore, it is a treatable disorder.

JANICE MCKENNA: When Patrick agreed to do this, I felt as if we were about to reveal the little man in the Wizard of Oz and pull the curtain back.

JANICE MCKENNA: So to come out together and speak about something that is so intimate and something that we’ve spent all these years trying to hide so nobody knew there was anything wrong. This is a very brave thing to stand up and say I have this and these are the demons that I fight with and this is sometimes how difficult it is for me to get through a day.

>>Now have I had to learn strategies to deal with the downside? Sure. But those are learnable. Whereas the upside is not buyable or teachable or procurable in any way.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Dr. Lynn Wiess, ground breaking pioneer who has worked with ADD patients for over 30 years, has created a list of 29 positive attributes that she’s seen again and again. Attributes like sensitive, fun, inventive. You got a problem, we’ll tell you about it. You’re looking for an ADD person, look on earth. You can offend us and we’ll forget.

RICK GREEN: Stand up comics? She actually said stand up?

PATRICK MCKENNA: Do you do stand up?

RICK GREEN: Oh right.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Okay. Yeah.

RICK GREEN: We’ll cut this part out. You know what we should do, we’ve got so many questions, why don’t we put it in Post its and then we can be organized?

PATRICK MCKENNA: I love Post its.

RICK GREEN: Post its.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I got Post its everywhere.

RICK GREEN: Post its. Post its. You know Post its? Yeah.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Have you ever put a Post it on your forehead when you’re driving?

RICK GREEN: Yeah. Yeah.

PATRICK MCKENNA: People are trying to read it when you’re driving.

RICK GREEN: Sure. There you go.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I’m sorry. Okay.

RICK GREEN: All right.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Can we get bigger Post its, because this is sort of a post, but I need a Post it.

RICK GREEN: Yeah, I can get one letter here. We need bigger.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Yeah.

>>Big heartedness, generosity, all of those kind of qualities, charisma that are so commonly associated with children and adults with ADD, those can’t be bought or taught.

RICK GREEN: Last question.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Okay. All right. Now we’re organized. All right. Let’s get to the questions starting with um… we could start with um….

PATRICK MCKENNA: So we should get started with a question. Let’s see. We could use… this one. Exactly what is ADD?

>>Attention Deficit Disorder.

PATRICK MCKENNA: What’s the difference between ADD and ADHD? Um… H.

DR. VINCENT: ADHD stands for Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder.

>>Three core symptoms: Attention, impulse control and motor hyperactivity.

PATRICK MCKENNA: What is the ratio of boys to girls with ADD?

DR. VINCENT: If you look at the hyperactive, then it’s mostly boys versus girls. But if you look at the inattentive symptoms, then it’s almost the same ratio of boys to girls.

PATRICK MCKENNA: What other names did it go by?

DR. MUGGLI: Early on it was called Minimal Brain Dysfunction.

DR. KURTZ: There was a category of FLK. Are you familiar with that?

RICK GREEN: No.

DR. KURTZ: Funny looking kids.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Who discovered it and when?

DR. ADLER: Symptoms of ADHD have been around for over a century.

DR. KURTZ: Figety fill was first described back in the 1800s.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Don’t kids grow out of ADD?

DR. VINCENT: The adult will be able to better control it, so when you look at it as an outsider, you say it’s not there anymore, but it is still there, but the way it is presenting itself is different.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Why did it take so long to recognize it?

KATE KELLY: When you get to be about 13 or 14 years old, you get self conscious. You start looking at yourself and you do something to try to cover up or hide the fact that you’re different.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Why is there so much confusion?

DR. JAIN: This is a disorder that’s been going around for hundreds of years. We’ve just not be able to peg it easily because the names keep changing or we don’t describe it very well.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Is there any resistant to the idea of adult ADD?

KATE KELLY: The people closest to you have watched this behaviour over many years and they have made up stories about what it is. They’ve made up stories about, you know, you’re ornery, you know, or you’re just not trying hard enough.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Does it run in families?

DR. MUGGLI: Yes.

>>Myself I think I grew up with it and I know that one of my sons was diagnosed with Attention Deficit.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Is it genetic?

Yes.

PATRICK MCKENNA: How much of it is genetic?

DR. KURTZ: A greater percentage than even diabetes.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Do we know what gene or genes are involved?

DR. JAIN: The first gene that was described was called DRD4.7. Well, since that time, back in the late 1990s, lots of genes have been described, typically of the dopamine type.

PATRICK MCKENNA: What do you think is the percentage of people that might have ADD in Canada?

>>Seven out of ten.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Are you serious?

>>I would guess maybe 35 percent.

PATRICK MCKENNA: What percentage of the population is ADD?

DR. JAIN: One in 25 adults have ADHD.

PATRICK MCKENNA: How prevalent is it?

DR. JAIN: It’s every where. This is a worldwide phenomenon.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Do ADDers have a lot of learning disorders?

Yes.

JANICE MCKENNA: Problems with spelling?

PATRICK MCKENNA: Oh yes, very much.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Do they suffer more from diarrhea?

JANICE MCKENNA: I was or had trouble reversing letters.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Yes.

JANICE MCKENNA: Okay.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Yes. That’s very much.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Is it real?

DR. KURTZ: It’s take it to the bank real.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Does it affect self esteem?

>>Yes.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Does my Aunt Marjorie have it?

>>No.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Can you get it from toilet seats? Is it caused by food additives?

>>Nope.

>>No.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Are ADD people crazy, lazy, doomed?

>>No.

KATE KELLY: People with ADD are working their hearts out just to get through the day.

DR. KURTZ: It’s not a virus and it’s not contagious.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Is it caused by allergies?

>>No.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Is it a sign of weak morals?

DR. KURTZ: It’s not a sign of weak morals.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Is ADD a sign of bad parenting?

>>No.

DR. JAIN: We’ve got to stop telling parents they’ve done something bad.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Is it recognized by the Canadian Medical Association?

>>Yes.

PATRICK MCKENNA: What about the American Medical Association?

DR. KURTZ: Oh yes. And the American Psychological Association and the National Association of School Psychologists and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Is there one clear definitive symptom?

>>No.

DR. JAIN: If there was only one gene, all these kids would be the same. There’s not.

DR. VINCENT: But there are things that they have in common.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Can it be cured?

DR. JAIN: You’re built this way. Your genes drive this.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Why the explosion in the number of cases?

DR. JAIN: It overlaps a lot of different disorders in different ways.

PATRICK MCKENNA: So where were all these ADDers before?

DR. JAIN: We probably are misdiagnosing it as things like anxiety disorders, depression, personality disorders, people who have difficulties with bipolar or even high functioning Asperger Syndrome.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Why is the diagnosis so important? So you know you have it.

RICK GREEN: And also to make sure you can eliminate what you don’t have, right?

PATRICK MCKENNA: Right. Sorry? What?

RICK GREEN: Well, you know, it could be your thyroid. It could be any number of things.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Yeah. Yeah.

RICK GREEN: Okay, say you have a sore toe.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I don’t though.

RICK GREEN: No, but say you did have a sore toe.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I don’t have one.

RICK GREEN: Okay.

PATRICK MCKENNA: That’s one. That’s one. Oh my.

RICK GREEN: So now you could have a sore toe because someone stomped on your foot or your shoes are too tight, you stepped on a nail, you got an ingrown toenail.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Oh.

RICK GREEN: Heck, you could have toe cancer.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I got toe cancer?

DR. JAIN: Maybe there’s something wrong with your vision. Maybe your hearing is problematic.

DR. MUGGLI: It could be a mood disorder.

DR. JAIN: Maybe it’s an anxiety disorder.

DR. MUGGLI: It could be a thyroid issue.

DR. JAIN: Because mom changed the fabric softener and all of a sudden the kid was squirming in his seat and somebody said that kid must have ADHD. My gosh, you know, not everything walking in the door with motor restlessness is ADHD. Maybe the kid’s underwear is too tight. How do you know.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Have I got toelio?

DR. VINCENT: So it’s really important when you get assessed for ADHD that you see a clinician that knows what is ADHD and what it is not.

PATRICK MCKENNA: See, you can’t even manage or play to the strengths of your ADD if you don’t know that you are ADD.

THOM HARTMANN: All of a sudden a bunch of stuff fell into place for me. The main one was why I had not been able to do everything on the one hand and could do other things that other people couldn’t do on the other.

>>It’s like they tailored this whole entire survey and this whole entire questions and all the tests that they made me do to me.

PATRICK MCKENNA: What tests do doctors use?

DR. WIESS: We don’t have a blood test. We don’t have a brain test.

PATRICK MCKENNA: What tests do doctors use?

PATRICK MCKENNA: There’s the CAARS self report long version, the CADDRA assessment form, the Brown ADD scales. This is the Wender Utah rating scale.

JANICE MCKENNA: Mm hmm.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Because in Utah they do things differently.

JANICE MCKENNA: Mm hmm.

PATRICK MCKENNA: What do doctors look for?

DR. WIESS: Hyperactivity, impulsivity and problems with attention.

JANICE MCKENNA: I often do things based on how I feel at the moment without thinking about how they were done in the past.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I think you answered that as you were asking, young lady. True.

JANICE MCKENNA: Other people control me too often.

PATRICK MCKENNA: True.

JANICE MCKENNA: I enjoy getting revenge on people who hurt me.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Is there a true squared?

JANICE MCKENNA: I often wish that I was smarter than everyone else. You are smarter than everyone else.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Oh you’re good.

>>Don’t be afraid of getting the diagnosis. The only time to be afraid is when you don’t know what’s going on.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I look at people who are non ADD as… I envy them to a degree. I envy the fact that there’s a calm in their life that I don’t know.

PATRICK MCKENNA: How can adults find out if they are ADD?

DR. JAIN: The way medicine understands problems is that we look for patterns.

DR. VINCENT: It has two components. One with the attention cluster of symptoms and one with the hyperactivity impulsivity cluster of symptoms.

DR. JAIN: If you have both, you’re called the combined subtype of ADHD, but you only need to have six out of nine here and six out of nine here. You have to have it for at least six months. You have to have it in more than one setting and the symptoms have to be impairing. We know that once you get over six over nine, it’s quite likely that you’re going to have a hard time.

PATRICK MCKENNA: What are some common traits of adults with ADD?

>>The most common reason an adult comes to see me is, is that they are underachieving. Flashes of brilliance but then periods of completely blowing it, not only in work but in relationships.

JANICE MCKENNA: I will say remember the time we were with Steve and Jenny and we met their puppy. And, no, I wasn’t there, I just wasn’t there. And then you pull out a photograph of Patrick, Steve and Jenny and the puppy on the night of and it’s like… it’s almost like magic to him.

DR. VINCENT: When you deal with adults, usually they don’t lose things anymore. They lose time looking for their things.

RICK GREEN: Money management problems. If I had money… well, I did at some point I’m sure.

DR. VINCENT: I have the idea, I do it. I don’t have the time to reflect on it.

JANICE MCKENNA: We’ve moved 15 times in our marriage.

DR. KURTZ: They tend to be overactive, even in their sleep by the way.

PATRICK MCKENNA: We moved three apartments in the same building. Just got tired of the apartment. There’s one up on the eighth floor, let’s grab that.

DR. VINCENT: Hyperactive talking.

RICK GREEN: Interrupt frequently or inappropriately.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Well, one second. What do you mean by interrupt?

RICK GREEN: well.

DR. VINCENT: you kind of have pressure to talk.

JANICE MCKENNA: Inattentive and daydreamy.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I lose my temper more quickly than most people.

JANICE MCKENNA: True. What was the question? All right.

RICK GREEN: I was saying to my brother, you know, I was pretty calm in childhood. And he said are you kidding me, all you ever talked about was there was going to be a nuclear war. And I was like, oh, yeah, well.

JANICE MCKENNA: Usually I’m more worried than most people that something might go wrong in the future.

PATRICK MCKENNA: True. Don’t circle before I’ve finished.

RICK GREEN: All those who are workaholics raise their hands.

DR. ADLER: Rates of pathological gambling in untreated adults with ADD are higher.

RICK GREEN: Overeating? God no, we’re skinny as…

PATRICK MCKENNA: Yeah, the camera adds 40 pounds.

RICK GREEN: And this is like a five camera shoot, so there’s 200 pounds there.

PATRICK MCKENNA: So right there.

DR. MUGGLI: Everything is sort of chaotic and, you know, possibly, you know, they’ve been married more than once.

THOM HARTMANN: When I was in my teens and early 20s, I built two very successful businesses and then managed to kill them.

RICK GREEN: Problems with driving. Okay, I’ve had five car accidents in my life and none of them have been going faster than five miles an hour.

>>It’s sort of like having a ferrari engine for a brain, but there is one problem, you have Model T brakes.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I forgot to mention that time I took off to the mall by myself when I was three.

JANICE MCKENNA: Yes. Over a mile.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Oh, easily over a mile.

JANICE MCKENNA: On your tricycle.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Yeah.

JANICE MCKENNA: Crossed a four lane street. Went into

PATRICK MCKENNA: Woolco.

JANICE MCKENNA: Stole a gun.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Stole a gun.

JANICE MCKENNA: And got back on your tricycle and rode home.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Rode home.

JANICE MCKENNA: And who was waiting for you?

PATRICK MCKENNA: The police.

JANICE MCKENNA: Yes, that’s right.

PATRICK MCKENNA: But I finished the task.

JANICE MCKENNA: You did.

DR. WIESS: A good assessment for ADHD includes finding out why the patient is there, the history of how they came to be there, the family psychiatric history, the medical history.

DR. KURTZ: You must include a sense of a narrative over time that makes sense to you.

DR. JAIN: Did anybody ever make a comment about how you handled the birth of your siblings?

PATRICK MCKENNA: The questions they asked are pointed that it brought out specifics in my past. So it was enlightening to me to see the patterns being presented to me.

DR. WIESS: So the process of assessment pulls all that information together.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Now you may be thinking, I lose my keys, I must be ADD. Hey, wait, wait. Not necessarily. You know, as we travelled around North America interviewing all these experts, every one of crew members ultimately thought, hey, I think I’m ADD.

DR. VINCENT: A lot of people who don’t have ADHD look like they have ADHD because they want to do so much in so many short period of time.

PATRICK MCKENNA: It’s no wonder the skeptics dismiss it. I mean, that’s why self diagnosis is so dangerous, because being ADD is not about being occasionally overwhelmed or occasionally confused; this is ongoing.

DR. VINCENT: It shouldn’t be attention deficit; it’s attention modulation deficit. So someone who has ADHD can focus, but not always at the right time or for enough time or on the right task.

PATRICK MCKENNA: And as authors Kate Kelly and Peggy Ramundo point out, there’s four aspects to focusing, and the first being what the heck to focus on.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I go to answer an e mail and then I realize, well, I better just enter these receipts before I forget, so I’ll enter the receipts and do that. And then it’s like, you know what, I just need to anti stress here for a minute, I’m just going to play a quick game of solitaire and I’ll do that, okay, one round of that, and then it’s like oh my goodness, the guitar is sitting there, I just want to play a song before this thing happens because I want to remember those chords, I got a show in a month, I might want to remember that. Put that aside for a while. Then it’s like, oh, photos are sliding off. And then I’ll come out to Janice and I’ll go, I didn’t even answer the email.

PATRICK MCKENNA: The second aspect of focusing is focus itself, staying on task.

RICK GREEN: Okay, so this is the screening replacement kit, right, to replace the screen, so this is what you’re going to need.

PATRICK MCKENNA: We have to replace the screens all the time because the dog keeps running through it.

rick green: So it’s a spline. You get a spline, which is included.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I put one of those little doors but the dog doesn’t recognize the door.

RICK GREEN: Installation tool included in the kit.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Goes right through the screen.

RICK GREEN: And then there’s utility.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Habits. Habits.

RICK GREEN: Utility knife.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I have a utility knife.

rick green: Okay.

PATRICK MCKENNA: It’s more of a blade than a knife.

PATRICK MCKENNA: And the third element of focusing is monitoring focusing, so you’re not focusing on any one object too long or what they call hyperfocusing, because that’s detrimental when you…

>>I took my licensing exam for psychology. I think we had four and a half hours to take it, I took one break. My friend took it, she took four or five breaks.

DR. JAIN: So if you watch a television set, which is very stimulating, and my brain gets all the stimulation it needs, my filter does this and I can focus.

PATRICK MCKENNA: If I really care about something I can focus on it in ways that nobody I know can.

>>And it’s just not under their voluntary control.

RICK GREEN: Pat, everybody is waiting, they’re starting to close the store. Pat?

RICK GREEN: This is the fourth aspect that people with ADD have trouble with and that’s the aspect of shifting focus. For ADD people it can be really painful to go from one thing to another. Not always.

KATE KELLY: You don’t want to get off whatever it is you’re doing. You feel that, god, it’s so much effort to get here, please don’t make me do that again.

PATRICK MCKENNA: What’s it like being ADD?

KATE KELLY: There’s a feeling when you have unmedicated ADD that I don’t feel good, I don’t feel enough, there’s something out there.

PATRICK MCKENNA: When you’re raising children, when you’re thinking of I’ll do that tomorrow or next week I’ll make sure that I spend more time with him and do things like that, but you pass over that moment because you’re thinking beyond that moment of work now and what next, so you miss a lot of opportunities in life.

KATE KELLY: You’re stuck on channel surfing mode and you don’t have the remote control.

DR. VINCENT: Someone else is zapping the channels.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Why do ADDers like chaos?

KATE KELLY: It wakes up your brain. If I just juice things up here and crate a little drama, I feel wide awake.

DR. JAIN: In a world that’s 911 and it’s all collapsing around you, you are the calmest person around, but in a world of calmness, you’re in crisis. I wouldn’t even get you to balance my cheque book for god sake.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Is it true ADDers tend to be risk takers?

Okay. Somebody start, anybody.

DR. ADLER: It goes along with some of the impulsive symptoms and the difficulty delaying the impulse. And some of that relates to the areas of the brain that are specifically affected by those two neuro chemicals, neuro epinephrine and dopamine.

>>You’re essentially self medicating with adrenaline in a panic. And adrenaline is very similar, by the way, to stimulant medication.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I think that’s the thrill that I get of being on stage and being in front of a camera and doing plays and theatre and stuff is that all senses are alive.

>>Self medicate often with drugs or alcohol or with activities like gambling and sex and shopping and spending.

KATE KELLY: My brain is just ah and I have to do something to calm it down.

>>Remember imbedded in impulsivity is a positive, which is creativity. You can’t be creative if you’re not a little bit disinhibited, if you’re not a little bit impulsive.

DR. MUGGLI: So they’re always thinking two steps ahead or some other way of doing it or some new innovation.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Risk taking goes in all forms, not just jumping off a roof. It’s risk taking in the sense of pushing your boundaries out in life.

JANICE MCKENNA: You know, we’re running late, we have to get in the car and then I turn around and he’s stopped in the office to burn a DVD of something or a CD or whatever, and you’re going why now.

DR. VINCENT: ADHD is certainly not a choice. You don’t have the choice to have ADHD or not.

JANICE MCKENNA: That’s not intentional. That’s not somebody who’s thinking, well, I’m just going to… I’m really going to make her angry by being late. This is somebody who’s having a real struggle getting from A to B.

PATRICK MCKENNA: You know, a lot of people think that ADD is some sort of death sentence, while other people think it’s nothing at all, it’s completely made up, not an issue. Yeah.

DR. KURTZ: Your behaviour isn’t that much different from mine and if I control my behaviour, why can’t you control your behaviour. As opposed to, for example, diabetes, an example I compare to a lot, where clearly my pancreas is broken, that’s why I take insulin shots, and your pancreas works fine, you don’t have to, so it’s sort of a clear biological difference.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Is it true that adult ADD is hard to spot?

DR. WIESS: There is also a group of adults who have never been diagnosed who suddenly have that a ha experience.

>>Somebody popped up and said has anybody tested him for attention deficit? And I went, what’s that, you know, and then they described it to me and I went isn’t that normal?

DR. WIESS: They’ve wondered why they had to read for four hours to get a half an hour of reading comprehension or why they couldn’t rest or there are difficulties with relationships.

DR. JAIN: When my doctor asked me the question when did you last feel well and you say I’ve never felt well, I’ve never really felt happy, that I’ve compared myself to other people and I’ve never really felt the same.

DR. MUGGLI: I always felt bad about myself, like, you know, I wasn’t doing enough or it wasn’t good enough or why couldn’t I do it better or like the other kids did.

DR. JAIN: Everyone is better than me.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Oh, definitely. Definitely. Yeah.

DR. JAIN: But yet I’m an attorney, I’m a doctor, I’m a teacher.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Well, I’m a reasonably successful adult, I must be able to return a phone call on my own, I don’t need that reminder all the time, but now it’s ten after three and I missed the phone call.

DR. JAIN: How could I have got this far having this particular difficulty? Well, the fact that I’m on my third wife and the fact that I drink to excess, that I’m bankrupt. The fact that I live in misery and pain all the time.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I was the guy who was failing at everything, getting low marks, and, you know, you couldn’t play on sports because I didn’t have any foundation of how to play sports or what that was.

DR. JAIN: Well, sure, lots of people live life like that, don’t they? No, they don’t. This is different. You’re different.

DR. WIESS: In those individuals, integrating this new intervention and new understanding into their self concept means rewriting their whole life history and that’s a very large task and it’s an ongoing task which when you start in middle age is difficult.

THOM HARTMANN: The single most consistent predictor of future of adult success among children is self esteem. It’s not intelligence. It’s not any particular type of neurology. It is self esteem.

JANICE MCKENNA: As a child I was or have been suspended or expelled.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I would say quite a bit.

JANICE MCKENNA: Yeah.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Do people with ADD have lower self esteem?

DR. VINCENT: Well, sure. It’s increases the risk of having low self esteem.

JANICE MCKENNA: I lack confidence with people I do not know.

PATRICK MCKENNA: You circled it already.

JANICE MCKENNA: I did.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Why would it affect self esteem?

DR. MUGGLI: If you are sort of unruly or hyperactive and you get, you know, abused or beaten or you’re told that you’re stupid or lazy or you can’t do it or why don’t you just pay attention more, you know, when you really can’t pay attention, then you lose contact with friends, you become more isolated.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I spent a lot of time alone from about 6 to 12 or 13, before high school. I’d usually be alone. That’s where the Elvis stuff came in where I would just go and put an album on in my room and stay in the room.

DR. JAIN: That was your escape.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Exactly.

PATRICK MCKENNA: You failed, you passed, you failed, and then they would reach me at the back of the class and say you failed and you failed because you didn’t pay attention, you failed because you didn’t settle down. I told you to settle down and you didn’t do it. It’s your fault you failed. Did everybody hear that? Patrick failed.

DR. JAIN: You live a life people yelling at you all day. By the time you get to adolescence and into adulthood, it may look like somebody who has anxiety and depression.

JANICE MCKENNA: I always think it will turn out well.

PATRICK MCKENNA: False. This whole test is going to blow up in my face.

JANICE MCKENNA: You think so.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Oh, Absolutely.

DR. JAIN: When you have people who have difficulties of self esteem, loss of potential, anxiety, depression, one of the first things you got to say is when did this start and let’s go back to your childhood.

>>By far the most common reaction when someone get this diagnosis is relief, then a feeling of anger, why didn’t someone tell me sooner, a feeling of sadness, all these opportunities I’ve missed.

PATRICK MCKENNA: It can overwhelm you thinking, well, I thought I would be here by now, I thought this would happen by now or this is where I wanted to be but yet I’m over here.

DR. VINCENT: And it’s not a good idea to reflect back and say what if, what if I knew when I was a kid.

PATRICK MCKENNA: And I think that happened a few years ago to me particularly, I started to get overwhelmed. And when I look back at it now, I realize that a lot of it was probably more ADD driven than depression driven or anxiety driven.

DR. VINCENT: When you drive, you look forward. You have that mirror there, okay? You have to look there sometimes to be sure, but you really have to look forward.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Janice would often, you know, grab hold of me and take stock saying look where you are.

>>You let out the anger, you let out the sadness and then you jump on this wave of enthusiasm and excitement.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Actually, I have exactly what I’ve always dreamed of, right down to the tee of the description of the house we live in. You know, and the fact that your son in his 20s would still hug you every morning.

JANICE MCKENNA: Yes.

PATRICK MCKENNA: That you were great friends with your spouse.

JANICE MCKENNA: Yeah.

PATRICK MCKENNA: That you loved your work and your work enjoyed you.

DR. VINCENT: And what’s the treatment for low self esteem? Success. So when you treat ADHD, you have to aim for success.

DR. JAIN: I have clients who are the best athletes in the world, the most successful entrepreneurs in the world.

PATRICK MCKENNA: That’s right, some people with ADD are leading very good lives. So the question is, are there five things you can do to make life easier and will you cover them after the next commercial? Yes.

JANICE MCKENNA: He gets so impatient and so distracted. He was stuck in traffic coming home from Toronto one time. The only place he could get off was this cut off where there was a car dealership and he bought a car.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Yeah.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I have the diagnosis, what now? What tips do you give patients? What do I do? How can I beat my ADD?

>>I really think it’s important to embrace a strength based approach that does not in any way deny there is a downside, but that emphasizes the positive as a way of developing a positive.

DR. JAIN: We spend a lot of effort to ensure that people are educated. This is by far the most important intervention.

DR. VINCENT: So you need to know what you’re dealing with.

DR. JAIN: Once you’re educated, this is an individual who can start making decisions.

THOM HARTMANN: Know what you do well and do as much of it as you can and know what you don’t know and figure out a way to hire it out or get somebody else to do it.

DR. JAIN: I often have my patients dream of the ideal day. If I could wake up at the ideal time, if I could have the right breakfast, if I could do the right things and then go to sleep looking back at the day and going, wow, that was a great day. So in many ways first identifying a lifestyle that will make you happy and then saying what do I need to do to get there.

PATRICK MCKENNA: When I was in grade 10 my English teacher took me and another fellow to see Second City. And I knew that these were adults on stage having an incredible time and the infectious laughter that it created in the room. I was possessed, possessed from that moment on that this is what I was going to do. So I snuck in one Saturday afternoon and by the end of the audition process that afternoon, I was hired to be in the touring company. So I had to phone Janice and say I’m an actor at Second City and we’re getting married in a month, are you okay with that? And she went, Yeah, that’s what you should be doing.

DR. MUGGLI: A lot of people become entrepreneurs who have ADHD. They start small businesses.

DR. JAIN: About 15 percent of the patients that I treat work in the film/television industry. They should take that Hollywood sign down and make it ADHD City.

DR. MUGGLI: Even for me being a psychologist in a private practice, it’s great because I can come in when I see my patients. I can leave. I can teach. I do neuropsychological testing.

DR. JAIN: Fifteen percent of my patients work in sales, stockbrokers, real estate agents.

>>People with ADD focus in a crisis. They’re calm, cool and collected in a crisis.

DR. JAIN: Paramedics, firefighters, emergency room physicians.

>>A brain surgeon, an airline pilot, don’t worry, they pay attention when they’re flying, they just have trouble with the paperwork after they’ve landed.

>>Marry the right person and find the right job. And adults with ADD often make the same mistake in both domains, they marry and work for a caricature of a bad fifth grade schoolteacher. They marry and work for someone who is controlling, demeaning, picking and someone who doesn’t really like them all that much because they got the idea around about fifth grade that that’s what they needed, that they were a hopeless case so they had to be ridden hard on, they had to be controlled, they had to demeaned and put down and so on and so forth. So don’t do that.

DR. JAIN: Sometimes people have to walk a little further away from the cliff if they’re under a lot of stress or risk. Having a supportive system around you makes a big difference.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Should I marry someone who’s not ADD?

>>Marry someone who loves you. Marry someone who loves your upside and is willing to help you with your downside.

DR. JAIN: Why does she stay with you?

PATRICK MCKENNA: I’m funny.

JANICE MCKENNA: I love his sense of humour. I love his spontaneity. I love the fact that he’s never boring. I love the fact that he’s kind and generous and he’s really thoughtful and he keeps me laughing all the time.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I can’t disagree with her.

KATE KELLY: People with ADD get to be super achievers, which is not bad, unless it’s at your expense, unless you’re not taking care of your basic self care.

DR. JAIN: For short distances, you go very fast, but you’re not taking a Ferrari on a long distance around Canada tour. They have great value, they have great potential, but they’re high maintenance. Clear strategies are better sleep, better food.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Does exercise help with the symptoms? How about cod liver oil?

DR. MUGGLI: Yes. Exercise, Omega 3’s.

DR. JAIN: Anything that makes blood go to your brain and nurtures your brain is going to make your brain work better.

DR. ADLER: Any form of relaxation. The ability to be more aware of your body and its relationship to the environment. If you can do that, it can be quite helpful.

PATRICK MCKENNA: What if I can sit still long enough to meditate?

KATE KELLY: All you need to do is get out and walk and your focus, instead of being a mantra or a breath or something like that, is the feeling of your feet on the floor.

DR. KURTZ: We get asked about hypnosis. Hypnosis has proven value for some other conditions, but not for ADHD. We get asked about biofeedback, but it’s not there for ADHD treatment.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I think when our son came along and you started recognizing you had to have a schedule for children that the schedule actually fit me better than it did the child.

KATE KELLY: Post its, but a big caution with Post its is you don’t want to have too many reminders, because pretty soon you have an entire wall full of Post its and you stop seeing it.

DR. JAIN: We know good habits when they’re there makes the brain work like it’s on auto pilot.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Would a cluttered house or office stimulate the brain?

DR. JAIN: If you live in a world of clutter, your brain is cluttered. Simplicity is very important.

PATRICK MCKENNA: And then there are what you might call hey partners. Okay, get your mind out of the gutter. I’m talking about life coaches.

THOM HARTMANN: I think probably the most effective treatment for ADHD that I’ve seen, both in kids and adults, is coaching.

DR. JAIN: I’m not terribly interested in making you normal. I’m not terribly interested in making you the middle. I’m interest in maximizing your potential and giving you knowledge. If you know where the edge of the cliff is, you’ve got to make a decision, how can I stay here and be functional.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Isn’t all this advice just common sense?

DR. MUGGLI: Yes.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Shouldn’t everyone be doing this?

>>Oh yes.

>>Get up off the couch. Don’t look for the quick fix, the quick slogan, okay, I’ll do that tomorrow. Read the book. Do the homework. The stakes are high. We’re talking about your child’s health and your health in the case of adults.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Coming up, the secret to being ADD and loving it. Accepting. It can be a fun ride.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Welcome back to ADD and Loving It. I’m your host Patrick McKenna. Who wants to go again? Let’s go again. Let’s go.

JANICE MCKENNA: Patrick would make a doctor’s appointment and then he’d come home all upset and say I got to the doctor and they had no record of my appointment. I couldn’t believe it and I told them my time I don’t have time to come back and do this again and insisted and so the eye doctor took him in, and wrong doctor. Wrong day, wrong doctor. Not even the doctor he made the appointment with. He’s not even their patient and they see him.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Okay. We did that one. Did it. Got ’em. Got ’em. We did them all. That’s swell. I guess we’ve answered all your questions about ADD. You know, it’s been a personal journey for me. Mother Superior. Oh my. Oh boy. Oh. This is all about Ritalin and drugs, which is a whole other special really. You know, it’s probably like five other specials. Well, let’s just say this, when it comes to medication.

>>There’s so much fear out there.

>>What’s unfortunate about the medications that we use to treat ADD is people don’t realize how safe they are. It’s a real failure of public education.

DR. JAIN: If you walk into my office and the first thing you say to me is don’t even talk to me about the medication, you will hurt your kid. You are working on ignorance.

>>The fact is stimulant medication has been in use to treat what we now call ADD since 1937. Nothing lasts that long in the realm of pharmacology unless it is both safe and effective.

DR. KURTZ: So 80 percent of kids through many studies, not just the ones that we’ve done here, get a great treatment response, meaning that the benefits way outweigh the disadvantages.

DR. VINCENT: Aspirin would be more dangerous than Ritalin.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Can you say that again?

>>Stimulant medication when used properly is safer than aspirin. Every year aspirin kills tens of thousands of people due to geod bleeds and strokes. Hundreds of people commit suicide with aspirin. None of that happens with stimulants.

KATE KELLY: My experience is it opened up a whole new world. It was like a spiritual wake up call for me to take medication.

DR. WIESS: So that experience where you live for the first time symptom free can be dramatic.

DR. JAIN: Do the medications affect your creativity? No, they don’t. They affect your ability to plan them.

DR. WIESS: And it also can be enlightening because it helps the patient to distinguish who they are from the symptoms that they carry.

DR. KURTZ: Twenty percent of kids don’t get a great response, meaning either they get no response or the negatives outweigh the positives.

DR. WIESS: They feel too quiet or they feel zombied or they feel listless or a child will say to me it takes the sparkle out of me.

DR. KURTZ: If that happens, it’s clear that that’s the wrong dose of the wrong medicine.

>>The side effects are immediately reversible by discontinuing the medication.

DR. JAIN: They’re not the cure, but by gosh sometimes, you know, the medications when they work, they make the kid’s life successful and they stop the suffering.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Is medication something you still use?

>>Yes. Every day.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Every day?

>>Yes.

PATRICK MCKENNA: And if you have children eventually would you mind them going on medication at all?

>>No. Definitely. I think it would help them out.

DR. JAIN: You’ll learn the skills you need with the medication’s help. When you don’t take the medications, those skills will still be there.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Kind of like training wheels. You put training wheels on with the notion that eventually you’re going to take them off.

KATE KELLY: I don’t think I could have accessed the other methods that I use now without medication.

PATRICK MCKENNA: I’ve considered medication in the past, but not knowing what the side effects were and not having the information, I live by a lot of myths that were told to me by people who had no idea either.

>>The real side effects people ought to be worried about are the side effects of not getting proper treatment years of under achievement, years of frustration, years of failure, years into adulthood of lost jobs and failed relationships. Those are pretty severe side effects. So the good news is these medications used properly are safe and effective. The bad news is most people don’t know that and so they fear them.

DR. WIESS: So we have learned that ADHD is a very real brain based disorder that is responsive to treatment, is chronic, impairing and common and most important treatable. So this is a tremendous public health opportunity because we have a lot of people in our society who could be receiving treatment who are not receiving treatment, and if they were, their quality of life and the quality of life of those around them would be much improved.

JANICE MCKENNA: Okay. I do not think it’s smart to help weak people who cannot help themselves.

PATRICK MCKENNA: That’s false.

JANICE MCKENNA: That’s false.

RICK GREEN: When we started out on this journey, I have to admit I thought my ADD was a gift, even the key to my success. But the more I learned about ADD and other people, the more I realized I’ve been lucky. And then I started to see what it had cost me to get where I am and what it had cost my family. So now if you ask me can you really love your ADD, I would say no, but you can have ADD and love life.

PATRICK MCKENNA: Ta da.

JANICE MCKENNA: I just accept his behaviour as that’s who he is. Girlfriends will think, well, how do you lay down with a migraine and wake up and the house is painted a different colour or he’s taken out a wall and put in French doors? You went shopping for groceries and you came back and there’s a wall gone? Those things in life really they’re not that big of a deal. So what the dining room is purple. So what, you know, we don’t have the door there anymore. Those aren’t the big things in life, you know.

PATRICK MCKENNA: As long as we can get out of the house.

JANICE MCKENNA: Why sweat the small stuff? So he took a wall out.