Gone Coastal

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Attention Deficit Discovery

Okay, 'discovery' is perhaps too strong a word. It implies far more credibility than is warranted, but fits better in the title than unsubstantiated wild-a$$ theory. Perhaps 'diversion' or 'delusion' would be better.
Some of you may have heard a previous, related hypothesis from the Bear and I. I know we told someone, because I remember someone laughing hysterically at it - which was completely appropriate - I just can't remember who. For your amusement I'll repeat the background and original theory here before I add the new corollary.
Some of you who know the Bear know that he's quite ADD. If you know the Bear, but were not previously aware of the attention deficit, you might suddenly find a few things make more sense :) Anyhow, after we'd been married a few years, I learned a few things about ADD first hand, and over time found some good resources on ADD, particularly its effects into adulthood. The more I learned, the more I started to recognize certain common traits in myself. And the longer I was married to my favourite ADD adult, the more obvious and seemingly stronger some of these traits became. So in discussion with the Bear one day, we concluded that ADD is probably sexually transmitted.
So now you have the theory, here's the corollary. Since I've become pregnant (a condition also considered by some to be a sexually transmitted disease) I've noticed a certain intensification of some very ADD traits - and even the definite appearance of some I don't recall experiencing before. My best example of the latter is the complete inability to stick to one task for any length of time. This started first only at home, where the weekend's chores started to look like this: Wash one sinkful of dishes, wipe the stove but not the counter, spray cleaner in the upstairs bathtub, sweep the steps, wipe the kitchen counter and drain the sink, collect the bills from the coffee table, lose the pile of freshly collected bills, fill the bucket to mop the floor upstairs, respray the upstairs bath that's now dried again, and so on. And worst of all, it took awhile to recognize that I was even doing it.
Initially the work ethic and different stimuli at the office seemed to keep the effects isolated to home, but this week I started to notice it affecting me there, too. I have two computers at work, the PC provided by the client on which I do the majority of work, and the laptop provided by the company, which I tend to use more for corporate admin tasks, learning and research. On my worst day, I found myself frequently needing to jump over to the laptop to find some other brief distraction off the corporate intranet before I could continue with whatever job I had allocated my day to doing. Or I'd jump back and forth between two primary tasks at random points once or twice an hour.
So with this evidence before me, I've been thinking, "If relatively 'safe' sex over a number years with the same ADD partner results in a relatively slow but discernible transmission of select ADD traits, perhaps taking that act to its more frightening (admit it, parents, you were terrified, too) fruition in procreation results in a correspondingly more dramatic increase in ADD manifestations.
Of course, there's always the possibility that the original theory is flawed, that I've always been affected by ADD-like issues at a level somewhat below the radar and the fairly subjective clinical definition, and that it was merely my experience with and education about ADD in adults that made me conscious of it. And maybe all this recent stuff on which the corollary is based is just a typical effect of hormones. Or maybe the particular effect of hormones on a low-grade ADD adult. Or maybe a sign of an ADD adult-to-be growing within me.
Since I'm a first time mom, and there's never been any man for me but my same favourite ADD Bear, I can't exactly argue for a scientifically viable control case. I'd love to know if anyone out in academia has done some broader research on this; I'll admit I've poked around online to see if anyone was talking about it, but to no avail. Clearly I need more research, so send me your theories, your anecdotal evidence, your experiences. Maybe if I collect and formulate enough I can win me an Ig Nobel prize!

2 Comments:

  • "Just because I'm ADD doesn't mean... oh hey that dog has a fluffy tail!!!"

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:26 p.m.  

  • Ahhh... thanks for the late night smile, Jack

    By Blogger Coastal, at 11:14 p.m.  

Post a Comment

<< Home