Is ADD a Disorder? Or a Syndrome?

When we made the documentary ADD & Loving It?! Dr. Margaret Weiss told us that if you don’t like thinking of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder as a disorder you could call it a syndrome.

“ADHD as I’ve described it, as a medical disorder, a syndrome, a collection of symptoms”

When she said that I was thinking, I wonder what’s for lunch?  Patrick’s good at asking questions.  She’s interesting.  I had forgotten my meds that morning.  I hate the term meds, when I relied on caffeine and adrenaline they didn’t call them meds.

Sorry another topic.

Now according to Webster a syndrome is… I probably should get a dictionary and see.  Where’s my dictionary!? Where’s my dictionary?!

Starik, Patter, RSS , Stingaree that’s cool what’s a Stingaree, sub central, stylish, surf clam it just sounds dirty doesn’t it?  Synchronous, syncopated, syncope. Syncretism the combination of different forms.

Syndrome! a group of signs and symptoms that occur together and characterize a particular abnormality.

Oh I’m abnormal.

We all want to be normal. I want to be normal, everyone wants to be normal… or do we? Do we? I mean what do we even mean by normal? Let’s look up normal.  Where’s my

dictionary where’s my.

Norwegian, norm, oh here we go normal.  Normal, normal, perpendicular to a tangent at a point of tangency.  That’s so true isn’t it? and who wants to be perpendicular? Well actually

it’s better than being horizontal, that means you’re dead… or you’re getting lucky.

Not deviating from a norm.  No one wants to be a deviant, although most of us are in some way.  Even norm.

Standard, regular, average, all right who wants to be average? No one. Right? I mean we may

settle for average sometimes but come on we don’t love it, besides no one is average really. Actually my doctor said there’s no such thing as normal just the under investigated.

Where was I? Normal.  So ADHD is a syndrome, it’s a whole bunch of symptoms, you don’t

necessarily have to have them all, you probably won’t and they aren’t bizarre symptoms like frequently eats staples, or suffers from brutal but silent deadly flatulence.  Oh honey!

No the ADHD symptoms are basic human stuff, has trouble paying attention, drifts off in conversation, trouble finishing or completing tasks, interrupts, intrudes, restlessness, stuff

everyone in the world deals with, you know, sometimes.

With ADD’ers it’s 24/7 we’re even restless in our sleep.  So this is a syndrome, it’s a cluster of

symptoms, the symptoms have to be impairing to you in your life, and now you can call it a disorder but for some the symptoms aren’t impairing it’s part of a spectrum, a range, it’s a bell curve, it’s…

I was gonna say rainbow but a rainbow has a pot of gold at the end of it.