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Title edit
Attention Deficit Disorder - Born to Explore!
Description edit
Hi, my name is Teresa Gallagher, and I've added this section because people keep asking me who I am and why I wrote this page. The short answer is that I'm just another schmuck with a website. I am not a doctor, nor any kind of medical professional. My background is environmental science, which is why I view things from an evolutionary perspective and why I'm very cautious about medications - natural or otherwise. Natural history is a bit of a hobby for me, so for years I've read articles about how the brain functions, natural diversity, how social species evolve, and the reasons for human differences. Among other topics!
I became interested in ADD during my son's first year in the mid-1990s. At the time, he wore a bicycle helmet around the house and was nursing several stitches on his forehead. I wasn't overly concerned about it, in fact, I admired his energy. But I thought I should find out what the fuss over hyperactivity was all about, and bought a few books about ADD. The books seemed to describe my son.
And my son was a lot like me as a small child; fidgety, talkative and always getting into things. I remember a tearful episode when I was banned from my grandparent's fishing boat because I wouldn't sit still, even though I begged to go with them. They chose, instead, my calm cousin of the same age, who didn't really want to go in the first place. A small thing, perhaps, but I remember that it really upset me for a long time. According to my mother, as a child, I "never, ever, ever stopped chattering." Well, I sure handed that trait down! And then there was the grade school report cards that said "could do better, disruptive in class." But since I had gotten through graduate school with straight A's, I wasn't ready to buy into the "disorder" aspect of ADD. Maybe I had a lot of trouble paying attention in class, but I'm pretty good at teaching myself something when I want to, and a lot of people aren't.
