[...] I do know I support Chuck Parker’s (and Barkley’s) new suggestion for a name for ADHD. EFD or “Executive Function Disorder”. Sure, I’d prefer difference, but if we want those accomodations [sic] we’d better stick with disorder; which it is in the hostile linear environments in which we must perform.
(Thursday, January 19, 2012 at 8:30am)

To which I replied:

EFD? Maybe. Captures a little bit more of the essence of the problem.
However, I suggest the following as a new name for ADHD:
Sonofabi#!@F*%K@%SHOLE Disorder
I just haven’t figured out how to pronounce it.

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So, how do we test the theory that society is conspiring against ADHDers? In the case of piles of mail, we test the theory by ‘measuring’ the amount of mail received during a particular time period. Unfortunately we do not have any control group with which to compare the amount of mail received by ADHDers with those of non-ADHDers since all are subject to the same societal forces. All we can do is rely upon human memory which we know is not always reliable. However, we do know that there has been a veritable explosion of advertising in both print and digital form and, in addition, we know that there has been a vast increase in disposable income over the decades (this, despite, our current economic malaise) and that advertising has increased exponentially in order to tap into this increased disposable income, therefore we can assume that the amount of advertising, specifically, that form of advertising that arrives via the daily post, has increased in equal proportion (if not greater proportion) to the increase in disposable income. Or, to put it another way, advertising increases in proportion to the increase in disposable income which, allowing for perfect elasticity of both advertising and disposable income, will reach equilibrium thereby providing, through the providence of the Invisible Hand, the correct balance between disposable income and advertising. You still with me?

So, by the powers invested in me by the elders of the Great City of Oz, I bestow upon you this esteemed list of one week’s worth of mail. You do not need a heart or a brain (or even courage) to read and understand this list. All you need do is click your heels and start reading.

Bon Appétit!

Here is one week’s worth of mail.

Wednesday April 27

1. Chase: Checking Account Statement
2. Chase: Savings Account Statement
3. Payless Shoes Postcard/Coupon
4. AAA Magazine
5. Postcard from local legislator
6. Health magazine from local hospital
7. Affiliate Marketing magazine
8. Chase: Amazing offer of 1% interest if I deposit $25,000 dollars or more!
9. AAA insurance promo
10. HSBC Credit Card promo…low low interest of only 19%!
11. $3,500 “faux” check from local car dealership

Thursday, April 29

1. AARP membership application
2. Sprint special offer
3. Harbor Freight Tools catalog
4. Catalog of music and acting classes in NYC
5. Cablevision offer: TV, Internet, Phone
6. Hometown Shopper: a “newspaper” filled with pages of coupons for local stores for Pathmark; Lowe’s; Rite Aid Pharmacy; North Shore Farms (local supermarket); Fortunoff’s; King Kullen (America’s First Supermarket!! Really!); Stop n Shop; Fairway

Friday, April 29

1. Staples  flyer
2. Postcard with list of events for local arts & performing theater

Saturday, April 30

1. Invitation to college alumni event
2. Bill for local car service (now referred to as “ground transportation”)
3. Verizon bill
4. Financial Times subscription offer
5. Invitation to see a “famous author” at a new restaurant in town

Monday, May 2

1. Flyer for local supermarket
2. Postcard reminder of local school board meeting

Tuesday, May 3

1. Letter for daughter from high school
2. Chase: Business account statement
3. “The New Yorker” magazine
4. Catalog for imprinted merchandise
5. Dell Catalog
6. JetBlue/American Express promotional offer
7. Verizion FIOS promotional offer
8. Postcard about summer camps
9. Advertisement for SodaStream
10. Costco Flyer
11. CHADD regional conference flyer
12. Flyer for flowers and plants at local nursery
13. Fund raising letter from Phi Beta Kappa

Wednesday, May 4

1. Advertisement for Pella Windows
2. SAT Test Prep classes
3. Offer for Cablevision Phone and Internet Service
4. MicroCenter sales flier

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I thank Lenore Skenazy’s recent Tweet that led me to the post Free-Range ADHD child and, from there, to the other blogs. Thank you, JoAnn, for your blog list.

A Free-Range child? It has nothing to do with feeding your children free-range chickens. (However, see my note below about free-range chickens.) The idea started from a seemingly innocuous act that Skenazy described in a column she had written for The New York Sun. She notes on her blog:

When I wrote a column for The New York Sun on “Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Take The Subway Alone,” I figured I’d get a few e-mails pro and con.

Two days later I was on the Today Show, MSNBC, FoxNews and all manner of talk radio with a new title under my smiling face: “America’s Worst Mom?”

It took only a bit of research for her to realize that our fretting over our children, worrying that they will be abducted by strangers at any moment, is really a case of media hysteria. Lenore notes that the number of child abductions by strangers was 115 in 2006. So millions of children need to be shackled to their homes because 115 children are abducted? (With those odds, your child is more likely to be hit by a flying toilet.) “Children, like chickens,” Skenazy writes, “deserve a life outside the cage. The overprotected life is stunting and stifling, not to mention boring for all concerned.”

Lenore’s blog: Free-Range Kids: How to Raise Safe, Self-Reliant Children.

Jeff’s Fact Check:

This same number – 115 – appears on the Missing and Exploited Children website. There were 74 million children in 2006. So about 0.000001% of our children are abducted by strangers. However, about 200,000 children are abducted by family members. It seems that we’ve been worrying about the wrong event. We should be keeping an eye on our relatives.

My Research on Free-Range Chickens:

NOTE: The following is based on my extensive research on the subject of Free-Range Chickens and has nothing to do with the concept of free-range kids or the blog of the same name.

Unbeknownst to many of my dedicated readers, I’m considered to be well known within the field of chickenology. As a chickenologist I’ve tried to understand the complexities of chicken in both its physical and spiritual manifestations. Examples of my research on the physical nature of chickens are here, here, here and here. What follows are my professional musings on the spiritual nature of the free-range chicken.

A free-range chicken is a chicken that is allowed to explore its “chicken-ness.” The concept of “free-range chicken” developed out of the chicken liberation movement though it has been difficult to precisely determine a date when this movement came into existence. Despite the seemingly long pedigree of the free-range chicken movement, it has not produced any philosophical works about the unexamined chicken life, the fragility of chicken life itself or how the reality of free-range-ness contrasts with the more common, unfree-range chicken existence.¹  Further, there has been no evidence of a Friedan or Steinem who has been instrumental in this liberation movement, nor has there been evidence of a chicken counter-revolution led by a Schlafly-influenced anti-free-range chicken proponent. Some have speculated that the lack of philosophical works or, at the minimum, a free-range Descartes — “I cluck, therefore I am” — is a consequence, not of their inability for metaphysical inquiry, but a consequence of their crude technology. As far as we can tell, chickens have no writing instruments other than their claws, and have nothing to write on, except the very ground they walk on. It is possible that, over time, we may discover a chicken semiotics which may help us to extract meaning out of their chicken scratches and, in so doing, discover the hitherto unknown Descartes, Friedan or, more likely, Thoreau of the chicken world.

1. One commentator has pointed out that the term “unfree-range” is a bit of Orwellian newspeak that has the effect of erasing our mental images of chickens in chicken coops. Further, it numbs us to the reality of the unfree chicken life where the population density within the coop makes the chickens depressed. Freudian chickenologists (psychologists specializing in the field of chicken psychology) refer to this feeling as “being cooped up.”

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****CLICK TO ENLARGE****CLICK TO ENLARGE****

Listen my Children and You shall Hear,

About a Confession to Make that I Hold so Dear.

It is Not Easy for Me to Say this Out Loud,

‘Bout the Very Thing of Which I Was Not Proud.

It Came Upon Me Like a Bolt of Lightning,

And the Realization, it was Very Frightening.

It is True what they say ’bout the Toves in the Wabe.

It is True what they say ’bout the Borogoves and Waves.

It is True what they say ’bout the Plates that they Shift.

It is True what they say, ADHD is a Gift.

It is why I am Sexy.

It is why I am Smart.

It is why I say “Flatulence.”

It is why I don’t say “Fart.”

This Brilliant Reality is What I Now See.

It is What makes me so Witty,

It is What makes Me be Me.

My Praise to the Lord for this Wonderful Gift.

It is what Makes me so Special,

It is what Makes me Full of Shit.

.

Happy April Fool's Day

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Dr. Vinnie Goombatz

Dr. Vinnie Goombatz (aka Dr. Vinnie), the organized crime doctor for the disorganized mind, offers his advice for ADHDers who are mob-connected. In this podcast he answers questions about how to handle a large project, aka, a big job.

Have a particular ADHD question that you would like Dr. Vinny to answer? You can send it to “drvinny at jeffsaddmind dot com.” Dr. Vinny may use your question in a future podcast. Remember…your questions become the property of Dr. Vinny and Jeff’s ADD Mind. If you got a problem with that, take it up with Fat Tony. Ciao!

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"The ADHD Daily" - Click On Image To Enlarge

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Dr. Schmaltzowitz has been an ADHD coach for over 35 years. His interest in ADHD actually began during his days at rabbinical school (he wanted to be a rabbi but decided not to pursue that career). While studying the holy texts, he noticed that the Call of Abraham is, in a number of respects, very much an ADHD-like reaction to a chaotic world. In Genesis 12:1 it says,

Now the Lord said to Abram, Go out from your country and from your family and from your father's house, into the land to which I will be your guide - Genesis 12:1

Abraham, as we know, promptly packed up his tent and said, in essence, “I’m outta here.” Dr. Schmaltzowitz speculated that the Call of Abraham and his subsequent reaction to that call, appealed to his innate ADHD need for physical movement, excitement and novelty. Dr. Schmaltzowitz found additional evidence of ADHD scattered throughout the holy texts. For example, he found:

• Inability to follow instructions (Eve eats an apple despite being told not to)
• Inability to control anger (Cain and Abel)
• Inability to do long-term planning (Moses, et al., wandering the desert)
• Need for detailed instructions for large complex projects (Noah’s Ark)

From this point forward, Dr. Schmaltzowitz realized the pivotal role that ADHD played in the founding of the Jewish faith and decided to dedicate his life to Jewish ADHD and Jewish ADHD coaching.

In this podcast, Dr. Schmaltzowitz provides a brief overview of the Jewish perspective on ADHD and ADHD coaching. In the near future he will be answering questions about ADHD. You can send your questions to “thejewishcoach at jeffsaddmind dot com.” Please remember that any questions you send become the property of Dr. Schmaltzowitz and Jeff’s ADD Mind. (If you have a problem with this policy, please speak to Dr. Vinny.)

Dr. Schmaltzowitz’s Professional Training

He received his degree in advanced psychiatry from the SUNY Medical Center in Syracuse, New York. He is a member of ACO (ADHD Coaches Organization) and NUTS (National Union of Trained Specialists).

1. I observe only some of the customs of being Jewish (e.g., complaining; family get-togethers on Jewish holidays; eating noodle pudding) while ignoring dietary restrictions (e.g., if it comes from a pig then I love it).

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Dr. Vinnie Goombatz

Dr. Vinnie Goombatz (aka Dr. Vinnie), the organized crime doctor for the disorganized mind, offers his advice for ADHDers who are mob-connected. In this podcast he answers questions about boredom and work, and how deficits in executive functions can be overcome with therapy.

Have a particular ADHD question that you would like Dr. Vinny to answer? You can send it to “drvinny at jeffsaddmind dot com.” Dr. Vinny may use your question in a future podcast. Remember…your questions become the property of Dr. Vinny and Jeff’s ADD Mind. If you got a problem with that, take it up with Fat Tony. Ciao!

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