+++

chrysocomae:

Some individuals with AD/HD, especially without hyperactivity, have an activation problem as described by Thomas Brown, Ph.D. in his article AD/HD without Hyperactivity (1993). Rather than a deficit of attention, this means that individuals can’t deploy attention, direct it, or put it in the right place at the right time. He explains that adults who do not have hyperactivity often have severe difficulty activating enough to start a task and sustaining the energy to complete it. This is especially true for low-interest activities. Often it means that they can’t think of what to do so they might not be able to act at all, or, as Kate Kelly and Peggy Ramundo say in You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!, they might experience a “paralysis of will” (pg. 65). “The clothes from my trip—a month ago—are just still lying in a heap in the suitcase.” “I spend a lot of time in bed watching TV but my mind isn’t watching TV. I’m thinking about what I should be doing, but I don’t have the energy to do it.”

- Sari Solden, Women With Attention-Deficit Disorder