I was puzzled by a recent post in PsychCentral. I read it and reread it. I waited a few days to see what comments people would write. I looked at some of the other posts referenced by the author. Finally, I arrived at the same conclusion I had when I first read the post — this is pure nonsense. Beginning from its provocative title You Are Not Your Thoughts: A Personal Philosophy Of Mind, to the implied “seal of approval” by the use of a selected Martha Nussbaum quote, I found myself arguing with almost every point that was raised.

“You are not your thoughts” – Really? Then what am I if I am not my thoughts? A rock? A tree? I am my thoughts (isn’t that obvious?) and without them, I am not human.¹ I can change those thoughts which, the author — Gabrielle Gawne-Kelnar — acknowledges, is the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy and which she succinctly summarizes as follows:

In a (very small) nutshell, CBT asks you to question your thoughts, and the beliefs that underpin them. It asks you to have another look at the way you’ve got things set up in your mind. To see if the conclusions that it’s so easy to jump to in the heat of the moment are actually even real or right. To renovate the interior of your inner-most home. And it has a few user-friendly formulas to do it with. [Emphasis in the original]

But Gawne-Kelnar has a problem with CBT. It can devolve into condescending happy talk. While holding out the promise of personal change through the process of changing your thoughts (see Am I My Own Placebo Effect?), at the same time it passes judgment about those thoughts: this one is good; that one is bad. To some degree there’s nothing controversial here. This type of self-imposed talking cure has become a staple of the Westernized psyche. But now things become more problematic, more confused. Gawne-Kelnar wants to separate our thoughts from our sense of who we are, from our “identity.” She quotes Martha Nussbaum:

…shortly after [birth] we encounter external forces that corrupt and confuse us. These influences take hold of us: and yet they are not really us. They are not “our very own feelings,” but something from the world outside; and they enslave us as time goes on. [Emphasis in the original]

This quote is rife with assumptions that border on the nonsensical. To say that after we are born we “encounter external forces that corrupt and confuse us,” implies that without those external forces, a child will develop a sense of self, a sense of her own feelings that are pure. Really? And how does this miracle child acquire language? How does this miracle child acquire the mental capacity to understand, to describe, to express her very own feelings?² Nussbaum (at least in this quote) and, by implication, Gawne-Kelnar, are assuming that humans are born with some essence, some sense of self, that precedes socialization. While current research has pointed in the direction of infants “understanding” much more than we have realized, we also find that they cannot express those “understandings” without language which can only be acquired through those corrupting external forces. Bottom line: there is no self that preexists the effects of the external forces because it is those external forces that provides the human being with the conceptual language necessary to have the concept of self. By appealing to some mythical “self” that is separate from us and our thoughts, or that exists prior to birth and the corrupting influence of socialization, is to resurrect old philosophical problems of mind-body dualism. That may work well within the realm of new-age mysticism but not within the current state of science and psychology. You are your thoughts, even if you don’t think so.

1. If I am not my thoughts then doesn’t that mean I am in a vegetative state, that I am an empty vessel, a simulacra of a human being? Even to enter some Zen-like nirvana implies that I have some thoughts that are putting me in a calming, meditative “non-thought” state but I am still my thoughts even if my thoughts are not foremost in my mind at that very moment.
2. There are faint echoes here of Ayn Rand’s grand delusion known as Objectivism. For an eye-opening look at Rand’s absurd philosophy, see this set of videos.

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Source: http://23.media.tumblr.com/nCIWNGzuUk18deenxH5enuDio1_400.jpg

Be Yourself

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(Image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._C._Escher)

The puzzle of the human experience is that a thought – which comes from somewhere in the mind which comes from somewhere in the brain – can compel me (me? Who is this “me” that’s being compelled?) to engage in physical activity, like running, that in turn changes the physiology of the brain that changes the mind that changes my thought. But this is circular. It’s a closed loop. (A very strange loop!) Where’s the beginning? Is there a beginning? Do I know that I am really changing my thoughts or am I playing a game with myself to make myself feel better so I think up “changed thoughts” and I point to those “changed thoughts” as proof that my thoughts have changed. But have they really changed? We know that there is physiological evidence showing that physiological changes can take place in the brain as a result of physical activity. But I don’t see my brain-physiological changes. I only know about them within my own brain because (here we go!) I think I detect the changes. (What does “I ‘think’ I detect the changes” mean? Who’s doing the thinking?) Are my changed thoughts real changes? What are “real changes”? Certainly they are not changes that are independent of me but are changes caused by me. I’m my own cause and effect, my own Prime Mover. (Therein lies the promise of self-improvement because I can will myself to improve and that will-to-improve can bring about the very improvement that I seek. But is there an upper limit to self-improvement or can it go on forever? Does my physiology impose limits? If yes, is it possible for me to know what those limits are?)

There are times when I think I am my own placebo effect,  thinking that my thinking has changed because of the thought that by actually doing something, like running, I can bring about a change in my thinking.

I think that makes sense.

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Perhaps it’s time to put the kernel of truth —  the nut —  back into the shell.

Perhaps it’s time we looked at the phrase in its entirety.

It’s just a theory but I think the original phrase was “brilliant but not in reality.”

.  .  .  .  .

I lie when I say I think I’m a brilliant writer because I don’t think of myself as a writer. I think of myself as a transcriptionist and all I do is transcribe the voice in my head. It’s the voice, the oratory, the tonal quality, the inner Shakespeare, that I hear in my head and whose speech I am transcribing.¹ That voice is funny and brilliant and smart and suave and, if it ever manifested itself as a person, women would be throwing themselves at his feet which, of course, would be my feet.

Oh.

I have to tell you.

I had the experience of a lifetime.

I really had women throwing themselves at my feet.

Well.

Not really.

But it was the closest I’ll ever get to that feeling of being god’s gift to women.

I spent a week on a cruise ship and as part of the entertainment they were doing a “Dancing with the Stars” kind of thing. I didn’t volunteer to dance (but I really wanted to volunteer but my wife would kill me if I did) but was accidentally picked to participate.

Really.

No kidding.

I walked up to the bar to get a drink (this was before the contest started) and the cruise director said, “Aren’t you..uh…”

‘Jeff’ I said. ‘My name is Jeff.’

“And you’re from…”

‘New York. And don’t sign me up for the dancing. My wife will kill me.’

Of course, they start calling out the names of the participants and, sure enough, “Jeff, from New York, New York.”

I turn to my wife.

‘I swear. I didn’t volunteer. I told them not to pick me.’

They paired me up with this very attractive young lady who was part of the cruise ship entertainment team. There were three judges. They played a song. We danced. The judges critiqued and then one couple was eliminated. My partner and I were the second couple to be eliminated. (I got a nice Norwegian Cruise Line pen for my troubles.)

A day later I’m riding in the elevator with my wife and there are two women at the back of the elevator.

“You’re the one from the dance contest. They shouldn’t have eliminated you. You were good.”

I thanked them for their words of support and promised to be available later that day to autograph anything they wanted autographed. My wife didn’t appreciate that remark.

Another time, while standing in a crowded line of people to get into the theater for the evening’s show, a woman said “You’re the one who lost the dance contest.”

While at one of the ship’s nightclubs this little blond asked me to dance, sort of.

It was about 11:00pm. I was enjoying an Appletini² in the nightclub and this blond sits in a chair to my right. Her mother was standing behind her so I just looked at them both and smiled. But then the little blond patted the seat cushion, sort of telling me, “Come here.” I looked at my wife. I looked at her mother. The little blond patted the seat cushion yet again and, well, I couldn’t resist. I remember when my daughters were that little and how adorable they were at three years old so, right then and there, I stood up, the little blond stood up and we danced. I assured her mom that I wasn’t a pedophile but when grandma came over I figured I crossed some line so I smiled and sat down.

.  .  .  .  .

Ever since I’ve returned from that cruise I keep going to my local post office to check the walls. I’m praying that grandma hasn’t posted my picture.

1. Sometimes I imagine myself walking in the Agora, speaking eloquently about science and politics and human nature, and my writings are akin to Plato’s Dialogues, many of which are transcriptions (with some philosophical license) of the utterances of Socrates.
2. I’m not really big on drinking and so I switch off from Appletini’s to Margarita’s to beers and back (not all on the same night) because those are the only drinks that I remember that I like.

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Jeff versus ADHD

For years I fought my ADHD as if it were a virus that invaded my body. I tried to eradicate it but it is more cunning, more resilient than I expected. So I tried a different approach. I would wrestle it to the ground, wear it down and constrain its movement.  Once I got the upper hand I would put on the straight jacket of normalcy. However, this had an unintended side effect — constraining my ADHD also meant constraining me.¹

I can no longer tolerate being constrained. I am ready to own my ADHD, to embrace it, not as a foreign object but as an integral part of me. ( See Koretsky’s book on working with your ADHD.) I’m finally understanding the need to allow myself to be who I really am. I’m ready to go to the next step, to make ADHD a part of my daily existence in that other world, the world occupied by (self-described) “normal” people. I’m ready to open the ADHD closet door all the way. (See Coming Out Of The (A.D.D.) Closet)

But…

I have one concern.

Letting ADHD out of the closet is like opening Pandora’s Box. The forces inside are tremendous, uncontrollable yet, as I swing open the closet door even further, I want to be able to contain the uncontainable. I want to find the balance, the pivot point, between letting out the ADHD forces while living a somewhat sane existence in the land of normalcy. I want to control my ADHD but not the way I did in the past. I am ready to ride the ADHD waves like a surfer rides a wave. I would be in control while riding the forces that are beyond my control. I will be in harmony with the wave knowing that, if the surf gets rough I can decide not to ride a particular wave. There will no doubt be a wipe-out or two but that’s to be expected when you are riding a wave.²

This different approach, this new attitude towards ADHD is not so much a sea change (pun sort of intended) but an evolutionary change. I still see ADHD as a curse that gets passed from generation to generation, much like King Tut’s curse. But I now accept that this “curse” is a part of who I am. It is not a foreign object. I’m sure I will still have my days when I wake up and wish I had a different curse, such as the curse of too much wealth. But in the meantime, I will accept the curse that I have, the curse that makes me different even if I think this difference does not make me sexy.³

The bottom line — I am ready to let myself be me.

……………………………………

Source for Image:  http://buffetoblog.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/caption-contest-unfair-sumo-wrestling-match/

1. Some examples of these struggles are Adult A.D.D. As A Form Of Madness, my writings on ADHD as gift and curse, and my recent post A Ransom Note From The Kidnapper. Of course, most of this blog chronicles this struggle.
2. Despite my disdain for the beach, this seems the right metaphor for what I want to achieve. If they only got rid of the sand…I’m sure I would love the beach.

   The Walrus and the Carpenter
   Were walking close at hand;
   They wept like anything to see
   Such quantities of sand:
   "If this were only cleared away,"
   They said, "it would be grand!"

   Source: The Walrus and the Carpenter

3. There are some who may believe otherwise. See Adult ADHD Can Be Sexy

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My ADHD Desk

I sit down at the computer at 3:30AM and open the draft post entitled “No Memory – No Self.”  I google “memories definition” which leads to the Skeptic’s dictionary which, in turn, makes the concept of memory more complex than I need for that post. The problem of memory and self reminds me of another draft post entitled “Life as Zelig” that uses Woody Allen’s movie as a starting point. The post tries to show how the ADHDer’s life and career path can be very much like Zelig: the human chameleon who can so successfully take on the characteristics of those around him that these “others” become convinced that he has been a part of their lives all along.² Isn’t the meandering career path of the ADHDer simply this Zelig-like self-morphing as one goes from job to job? As this thought of the meandering career³ bounced around in my head it led me to the next one…the difficulty for an adult ADHDer (specifically the late diagnosed ADHDer who does not suffer from the delusions of self-worth inculcated through the Orwellian, “War is Peace; ADHD is a Gift” mind set) to fit into a world that requires a singularity of purpose in order to “succeed” in life. We delude ourselves (ADD really means Adult Delusional Disorder) when we assume that our inability to maintain focus is the perfect complement to our fractured, disrupted digital lives. On the contrary, without having an underlying structure, a connective thread which weaves these minutely divided behaviors into a coherent whole, the mimicked behaviors are, to a degree, empty gestures. The ADHDer is not succeeding in life because of this mimicked behavior in the same way that a computer is not thinking simply because it can mimic “answering” Jeopardy questions by using various forms of semantic analysis.⁴

At another time and place the ADHDer would be the perfect person, NOT for the life of a hunter but for the life of a farmer. Yes…a farmer…because a farmer’s tasks changes with the changing seasons. The animals do not demand linear thinking, do not require laser-like singularity of purpose on the part of the farmer. As long as the plants are more or less watered, as long as the animals are more or less fed and taken care of, everything is fine. Further, and perhaps this is the appeal that animals have for ADHDers, is that animals do not require long, drawn out logico-causal chains of explanation. Yes, you may feel compelled to explain to your chicken why she is going to be Friday’s dinner. However, a simple “circle of life” explanation is all that is really needed. (Disclaimer: This is not meant to denigrate the chicken nor to discount its intelligence. We are all aware of the fact that, to make a tender, juicy chicken requires a chicken to have self-esteem, to feel that their existence was not for naught but served a higher purpose. If your chicken is religious, you may want to mention that in heaven there are 72 roosters who can’t wait to rustle her feathers.)

My legs hurt. I will end this post here.

Postscript

This post was written on my Blackberry as I walked up and down the streets of my neighborhood. People must think I’m crazy…or they must think I am ADHD. (Wait…that’s redundant…no?)

1. I have not seen a doctor because it doesn’t bother me during the day and if it does…I ignore it, awaiting my body’s built-in self-repair capabilities though…now that I am over 50…the self-repair isn’t working as well as it used to.
2. I observed my own ability to do this when I got a “regular” job and found that, within a handful of months, my co-workers and even management saw me as an essential cog in the business operation. This was not a fluke. I’ve observed my ability to do this in every job…movie projectionist; adjunct lecturer; etc.
3. Being Jewish did not help me during my years of therapy since therapists attributed my moving from job to job as an indication of some Jewish wanderlust. Perhaps it was just my version of the Call of Abraham, the time when Abraham looked around, was disgusted by what he saw and said, “Fuck this” and packed up his tent and left. See Civilization and its Discontented.
4. See  What Is I.B.M.’s Watson?

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Some days I just get tired of having to push myself. I wish I could just wake up and, voila, no more adhd!
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Oh!! Here’s a fcuking eye opener. I have a client who is definitely ADHD. They are god damned psychotic! They drop off the face of the earth and then, blam! they send an email with a gazzilion complaints. They complain about shit I asked them about but they never replied to my earlier emails. Thank god I somehow manage to remember what I previously emailed them. Now I know why people think ADHDers are crazy. That’s because they ARE!
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Did ya ever wake up thinking that somebody in the middle of the night wiped out your memory and yu need to spend the whole day trying to put your “self” back together? That reminds me of that movie with Dana Carvey where every day when he wakes up he has to play a tape recorder because his memory is completely blank and he has no clue who he is.

You’ll like this one. So I contact this client, who really pissed me off, and said, “Hey, let’s talk about 15 minutes or so to see how we can solve your issues?” And you know what? They STILL don’t f–king respond! I’m a pretty patient guy but they’re really testing my patience!!

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Is this it? Is this as good as life gets? Is my ride here on earth going to come to an end? Do I get one more shot? Would we be better off like the dumb beasts who have no consciousness of their ending? And this is the sick joke created by God? He is so f–king powerful and yet he can’t make us be immortal? He can’t make us live a gazillion years?  So..what…we should worship Him and be thankful that we KNOW we are going to die? Wow. Some f–king god if you ask me. I want a god that creates a body that doesn’t slowly deteriorate. Oh, here’s one better. A non-deteriorating, non-adhd body. Now let’s see if God  is all powerful!

ADHDers think 2 dimensionally but live 3 dimensionally (they just don’t know they are living 3 dimensionally)

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Ok, so here’s the concept. Non-adhders live in 3 dimensional space defined as x, y and z being time (of course, I should probably have x, y,z and THEN time but, hey , my drawing skills are already taxed as it is). NOn-adhders know that they exist in this time dimension but ADHDers don’t know that about themselves. So imagine that we have a plane bounded by x & y and that plane moves along the Z axis but ADHDers have NO CLUE that this is happening. They are only (next)

aware of the plane they exist in. They move along the Z axis but have no idea they are even doing this.

This is the ADHDer at, say, moment one. And here at moment two, and so on. From the outside observer, the adhder is moving IN time (at least along the time axis) BUT the adhder, because their perspective is stuck in this plane (we are looking at it from the side) has no clue this is happening.

Why does the huffington post publish this new age, narcissistic bullshit? They are undercutting the seriousness of the news they report when they publish this garbage. When huffington post started they were real serious about stuff and tried to put out a different viewpoint. They publish so much of this trash (and lots of pictures of semi-nude women…not that I’m a prude or anything but imagine that the new york times started printing hot pics of women mixed in with their news…would you take anything seriously anything they wrote?) that there are times when I hate  the website. Arianna should decide, you want the site to be serious or shoulod it appeal to all wack jobs equally?

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In all fictions, each time a man meets diverse alternatives, he chooses one and eliminates the others; in the work of the virtually impossible-to-disentangle Ts’ui Pen, he chooses — simultaneously — all of them. He creates, thereby, ‘several futures,’ several times, which themselves also proliferate and fork. That is the explanation of the novel’s contradictions. Fang, let us say, has a secret; a stranger knocks at his door; Fang decides to kill him. Naturally, there are various possible outcomes — Fang can kill the intruder, the intruder can kill Fang, they can both live, they can both be killed, and so on. In Ts’ui Pen’s novel, all the outcomes in fact occur; each is the starting point for further bifurcations. Once in a while, the paths of that labyrinth converge: for example, you come to this house, but in one of the possible pasts you are my enemy, in another my friend.
- “The Garden of Forking Paths,” from Collected Fictions: Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley. Penguin Books: 1998.

A Definition Of The Word “Understanding”: To understand something means to know the significance of the object of understanding, to be familiar with it, to accept it as true.¹ But to truly understand something, which is the sense that I am most concerned with in this post, is to have an understanding that alters ones actions because those actions are based on that understanding. This “understanding” shapes you forever. All of your actions are done because of or in spite of this understanding.

The problem of ADHD is the inability to conceptualize — and internalize — time and thereby be able structure one’s life based on that conception of time.² At best, ADHDers can understand infinitesimally small pieces of time – namely, the-now. Yet even these infinitesimal time fragments can be obliterated into nonexistence by the ADHD storms of frenetic mental/physical activity. The holy grail for the ADHDer is to reduce the frequency of these storms. Within a fabricated calmness an ADHDer can begin to see and understand time. An ADHDer can then construct a life based on this understanding of how the-nows are related to the-near-term future — the soon-to-be-now — and the-long-term future even though that future can be weeks, months, or years away. Eventually the ADHDer understands that the long-term-future will become the near-term future and will become the-now.

I have achieved this ability to understand and “see” time. More of my actions in the-now are based on my understanding of the interrelationship between the-now, the near-term and the long-term future. I see actions as threaded together in time and across time.³ The acts that occur in the-now are no longer seen as discrete, isolated acts but as acts that can have an effect in the yet-to-be-seen future. This new understanding, this visualization of action across time and space has opened a new realm of thought and vision. I have gone from extreme mental nearsightedness to 20/20 mental vision. I see things I just did not see before. But this new vision has come at a price.

Before “the cure”⁴ I did not truly understand the linkages between the-now and the various futures. I could not easily alter my current behavior because it was based on a poorly developed understanding of time.⁵ I now see it, feel it, understand it. Current action is altered based on a palpably real, future possibility.⁶ My actions are not subject, as much as they once were, to the vagaries of the ADHD storms.⁷  They are more focused, more directed. But, as a consequence of this change, something fundamental has changed. Having arrived at the ADHDer’s “promised land” of internalized time, daily life has a different feel to it, a different texture. I am going through the “expected” motions of life, following a particular path — created by my choices and actions —  towards an imagined endpoint. The ADHDers illusion (delusion) of an infinite series of choices and do-overs is fading. I do not have the luxury, as in the writings of Ts’ui Pen, to choose all of the paths simultaneously.

This new understanding, this new realization, has created an internal tension. I want to return to that pre-cure state. I want to live again in the infinitesimal nows with the illusion of infinite do-overs, of being able to choose all paths simultaneously. There was a zest, a drive, a vibrancy that was fueled by a never ending swirl of ADHD storms. It was exhilarating, exhausting and chaotic.  Yet, I also want to remain in the post-cure state. It is calmer, more predictable. The zest, the drive, the vibrancy to life that characterized the pre-cure state is still there. It is not gone. But it has changed. It is no longer fueled by a string of ADHD storms. Its source of energy is a new understanding of time and action.

I wonder what my life will be like in the coming decades. I expect it to be an interesting journey.

The non-ADHDer may be puzzled by some of the ideas alluded to in this post. The following links may be of some help here.

• The Tyranny of Now
• The A.D.D.er Can Not Understand Life Because the A.D.D.er Can Not Understand Time
• Time Horizons
• The Broken Escapement – An A.D.D. Metaphor

1. You CAN accept something as true when it is false. The statement “two plus two equals five” is false which, we know, is true, that is, it is a true statement.
2. This is the essence of Barkley’s theory of ADHD.
3. For non-ADHDers, it is not a revelation to learn that life is a series of actions in and across time and space. However, non-ADHDers “naturally” internalize this concept and conduct their lives accordingly. For ADHDers, this concept is never internalized and the struggle becomes learning how to internalize it to whatever degree is possible.
4. The “cure” for me consists of medication, therapy, exercise and personal reflection.
5. Though I was able to alter my behavior based on some imagined “future,” it was only possible with gargantuan effort and within the tornado of forces that comprise the ADHD mind. It was done, in large measure, as a means of relieving the tornado’s pressure — which may have been in the form of a project deadline, for example — in order to be able to rapidly get back to the point where the pressure was gone. It was not necessarily for an imagined future, per se, but for a very near-term future that was pressure-free. It was always done to relieve “the pain.” When the perceived pain was gone, the activity stopped.
6. When I do not alter my actions as I should, the guilt eats away at me.
7. Admittedly there are still ADHD storms that temporarily nullify the actions and pull me back into the infinitesimal nows. But these storms are less frequent, less dominant.

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An admittedly strange question. However, there are different me’s (should that be “mees” or should I say multiple “I”s or multiple selves?) and sometimes the correct “me” appears when needed and sometimes not. Or sometimes the correct “me” appears but doesn’t stay around long enough and suddenly disappears (actually, it morphs into a different “me”). During my years of therapy,…..[ Read More ]

This post originally appeared in August 2007

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Before continuing I must address a problem that I am having with the word “self.” This blog entry began with the use of this term. However, the word implies a whole, coherent unit which for an A.D.D.er is a non-existent entity. In fact it seems that A.D.D. creates only facets of a self and these facets are in continual motion. [Now THAT is really the crux/the CURSE(!!) of A.D.D.] Consequently you feel that you are not a whole person, not “normal” (whatever THAT means). You undermine your own feelings of success (and, in fact, your own eyes may actually show you that you ARE successful but you aren’t going to believe your lying eyes…are you!) because you know that the “self” that others observe is one of your many personality facets which happens to be visible to the world right now and you know that it may not be there – be visible – several months from now. (It might return…but not necessarily when you need it to.)

So “me” is really composed of personality facets that are in flux and the struggle of daily life is to keep a particular facet facing outward for all to see – the “working at my job” facet, the “good Dad” facet, the “handyman” facet. And therefore the question I posed in the title of this entry should be restated as “How Long Will This Facet Be Visible?” And the answer: I don’t know…but I’m working very hard at consistently showing the correct facet at the correct time AND for the correct length of time.

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1 – If my exploration of some of the A.D.D. literature has taught me anything it is that being A.D.D. and not having multiple selves is the rare exception. It seems inherent to the definition of A.D.D. that you will have multiple selves.

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