The Broken Escapement – An A.D.D. Metaphor
“Each swing of the pendulum releases the escapement, making it change from a “locked” state to a “drive” state for a short period that ends when the next tooth on the gear hits the locking surface on the escapement. It is this periodic release of energy and rapid stopping that makes a clock “tick;” it is the sound of the gear train suddenly stopping when the escapement locks again.” (Text & Image Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escapement)
Isn’t the problem of A.D.D. really a problem of a broken escapement? The A.D.D. mind is that gear and, with a broken escapement, there is nothing to regulate its spinning. Sometimes the escapement is engaged, sometimes not. But it is the absence of this regularity that makes an A.D.D.er an A.D.D.er. It is why an A.D.D.er cannot sleep (their clock does not know when to tell them to stop); it is why an A.D.D.er cannot (easily) complete a task on time (they have no internal clock); it is why an A.D.D.er does not understand how small (positive) actions over a long period of time can a have a large (positive) impact in the future. It’s interesting that the lack of such a simple mechanism – an “internal watch movement”; the biological equivalent of an escapement – is the key that separates/differentiates the A.D.D.er from non-A.D.D.ers.
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