Notes from Scattered Minds by Gabor Mate

I listened to this book and these are my notes. They are shorter and doesn't have much context. It's mostly for personal use and review. These are points I felt I'm related to most.

as if my head is floating in a different world than my body 🦒
template for organization is missing in ADD mind
there's also passive hyperattention. you can attend to video games or other stuff like films. this can activate hyper-focus mode. you can watch films in hyper-focus but it's very difficult to listen to people in normal life.
when he's interested in he can able to focus in something. this is misleading for ADD.
they have no moments of relaxation without any guilt associated with it. it feels there is always something to do.
Two mental systems play a role in ADD. One is the logical mind that knows what to do, the other is the time perception of a child. the second one dominates most of the time.
time blindness
Only two units of time exist for the small child: now and not now
As Piaget describes it, children have begin to have a sense of time as a flow until the age or seven
ADD people forget the future. they don't have any time perceptional future
We are born without anything related to self-regulation on emotions, time and actions. Babies don't have any self-regulation capabilities.
Prefrontal cortex is just behind the forehead.
Genetic explanations to psychological disorders is soothing because it removes the responsibility of society and environment.
The most we can say is some diseases are strongly genetic. Very few of diseases are determined completely by genetics.
Identical twins have 100% concordance that their genes are almost identical. When one of the them has ADD, the other also develops 60-80% of the time. It's not 100%. This shows it's not always hereditary.
ADD has biological roots. There is a blueprint but it doesn't mean it's genetically hereditary
There's no causal relationship between the environment and ADD. Genetics creates a predisposition for ADD
Love of the parents is not always felt by the child

Gabor Mate is a psychiatrist but still has diagnosed himself with ADD until very late in his life

modern psychiatry tells that depression is caused by low levels of serotonin.
when Prozac is prescribed it doesn't only make the pain go away but all life experience becomes less colorful
emotional allergies
ADD is caused by impact of environment to extremely sensitive children
allergies are more common in kids with ADD than others
kids with ADD are told they are too sensitive usually
if children were the owners of language, we'd have phrases like difficult parent and the terrible thirties
unlike chimpanzees, human brain continues to grow at the rate as in the womb after the birth
more than 3/4 of the brain is developed after the birth
mental development in the infant is described as neural competition for neurons: nerve pathways are created competitively and the ones that are not used are pruned away
if you surround a child with silence for 10 years he will never be able to learn the speech
if you don't give the brain light for 5 years the infant will be reversible blind
matrix is derived from the Latin for womb and in turn derived from mother
normal brain development requires emotional stability more than breastfeeding
ADD may mean that a significant person in our life may simultaneously experiencing the same stressful situation
mother reflects in babies mind that the baby won't be able to make a good connections through her their life
in the attunement it is the baby that leads and the mom that follows
behind the right eye there's orbital frontal cortex that handles coordination
ADD may also stand for attunement deficit disorder
all my Jewish babies are crying
seeds of depression
Parents of ADD children are somehow alienated from the extended family and have fever connections.
Violence is like box inside the box
blame is a not a meaningful concept.
the history of violence spans generations and generations. who will you blame?
The higher proportional ADD in North American people maybe due to their gene pool. They didn't like to sit, they take risks and board a ship across the Atlantic and found a new life.
In the North American life the calm attuned parenting became enormously difficult. That's the reason why ADD is more prevalent in North America.
Parents need to be together in the same room for kids to be feel their presence. That kind of being present in their life is almost inexisting in North American parents.
There's no public support for parents in North America, in the United States or Canada.
Unequal sharing of the emotional work between sexes is one of the reasons why women have more depression.
The show Sesame Street developed get attention from them short clips not taking longer than 2 minutes to remedy kids' short attention span.
without arousal human brain is not interested in anything. with too much arousal human brain is tense and anxious. we need the right level of arousal
children with ADD are either under-aroused or over-aroused
tuning out is a reaction to fear or anxiety
amygdala hijack can happen also with over-arousal. arousal breeds fear, it breeds more arousal, it breeds more fear. it's a vicious cycle.
difficulty in regulating internal emotional environment
attention is not a faculty or intellect. it's deep rooted in emotions
without attachment-attunement relationship between the baby and the mother, child cannot have enough attunement to regulate their emotions
ADD children are interested in their peers more than the material presented in a kindergarten. they're trying to meet their relationship needs
emotional longing for attention
attentive interest from an adult to ADD children is almost as good as medical interventions
The first thing that you must do is creating a warm attentive space for child. this will show that you care without any conditionals
environmental enrichment is possible in later stages of life to remedy the difficulties of ADD child
deep feelings of shame is associated with ADD
shame in children is not directly related with shortcomings or other kinds of failure. the underlying cause is related to mother-child relationship in early stages.
I'm sorry is the most common phrase in ADD vocabulary
over the top excitement and nonverbal vegetative state. ADD people swing between these two.
it's not curing ADD children need, it's growth.
sensitivity of child may help parents or may be a detriment in their relationship with the kids
invite the child to interrelationship enthusiastically and genuinely
Shame is a response you got from being cut off from your environment and from your social interactions
if the relationship with your child is on a shaky ground then do not even attempt to improve some of their shortcomings
Love your child unconditionally
even positive judgment about your child still a judgment so it's conditional
parents can demonstrate that kids' well being is more important than any school obligation
put your emotional bonds with your child about everything else
without attachment-attunement relationship between the baby and the mother, child cannot have enough attunement to regulate their emotions
emotional longing for attention
attentive interest from an adult to ADD children is almost as good as medical interventions
in childhood moving too much between homes is a contributing factor to ADD
laziness or procrastination are not immutable traits of a person. they are the expressions of their relationship with the world and other people.
many children will go for negative attention rather than no attention at all
guilt, shame and self-judgment come in interview with ADD.
low self-esteem and merciless self criticism
difficult to know where ADD ends and low self-esteem begins
inability to say no
superficially positive self image is incompatible with high self-esteem
respecting your son's autonomy
clear some ground for him to develop his self-discipline
During early teens many of these concerns are seen as irrelevant or absurd
I don't want to put myself into drugs to make myself more manageable or controllable
sensitive people are shamans prophets and doing vital work for the survival of the species

In the book there is an overreliance to evolutionary psychology that almost all psychological traits are explained in a way that if this wouldn't be useful it wouldn't be developed in the first place. I think this is too far fetched. A trait may be side effect of another useful trait.

If suppression was basic means to handle feelings and emotions, expressing them wouldn't be developed by nature.
Self is a rapid successional pictures seemingly continuous
oppositionality is a common trait for all ADD kids.
by definition opposing to something means that they are forced to something and they're resisting to that. there are always two parties in an opposition.
child's oppositionality doesn't stem from his/her will. rather it's the lack of will to decide and substituting this lack of will by automatic responses to parent's behavior.
self-esteem based on achievement is contingent
acquired self-esteem
self-esteem has nothing to do with self evaluation or success
a person who is comfortable in his skin never says I am worthy because of such and such
I am a human being whether or not such and such
deep shame in older ADD adults predates anything that could be a social success or failure
ADD personality has two oscillating fears. One fear is the fear of loneliness and the other is to fear from overcommitment.
what we call child's action is actually the reaction
as their reaction subside and they have more responsibility, that will also enhance their emotional regulation
either you didn't live anything or you live many things to remember and they are tuned out
what matters most is not a techniques to use to motivate the child. it is the emotional transaction between a child and parents
opposition is a self-defense mechanism and it's a defense against a powerful force. in child's case this powerful force is parents.

[Okunandan Kalan] #Attention Deficit Disorder #ADHD #DEHB #Gabor Mate