Publisher's Update
from
carla (nelson) berg
Bouncing Off
to Bounce Back
The more things change...
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It's been quite awhile since I posted new work to this
site, although I've kept it alive as an archive while taking a break to do some client
work and organizing years of field notes in preparation for my
upcoming books and blogging. (Note:
Since writing this, my hub's retirement and our relocation delayed it all
yet again, but here in mid-06, my own projects are now coming back to
life.)
In the interim, a lot of things changed both on and offline, even before we talk about
9/11. The Internet Gold Rush ended, taking with it the last of the "get rich
quick" dreams that imploded in all those dot.bombs. As the Net slowed down, many of
we long-timers began to spend more time on other pursuits for a number of reasons,
including the need to have a real income again.
For me and most of my original bouncing brain cohort, that meant
getting back to our offline careers until we could afford to go back to working more for
love than money.
My most challenging project during that break was in business
development for a firm of what you might call "Hunter-Geeks". That sojourn alone
would be worth a book of its own, something about how to run a business with more than 50 Hunter
style personalities trying to work as a team, many of whom might also admit to some some
form of ADD. (That old line about "herding cats" comes to mind.)
All of the above meant cutting way back on my online activities. Not altogether a bad
thing, since I'd been up to my eyeballs in matters of mind and brain (a co-leader of the
ADD Forum on CompuServe and a prior host
of its Mind-Brain Sciences group) for many years by then. It was time to let the seeds of
all that I'd learned fully germinate.
For bouncing brains in particular, a periodic change of pace is often a good idea. Either
you bounce on to the next set of things you need to do to keep energized, or you find out
how much you miss what you left and bounce back, refreshed.
I had my first sign that I might be ready to bounce back to this work when I found myself
surfing ADD sites again in 2002. It was no surprise to find it was pretty much a case of
"the more things change the more they don't."
In most online venues about ADD there were still similar issues,
similar stories, similar road blocks to getting good diagnoses and finding effective meds,
and similar struggles with teachers, schools, testing and IEPs, although it was heartening
to see how many more well-informed voices had joined the chorus.
That's not to say the critics took a hike. There is still ample bomb tossing from the
hostile arm of the anti-med crowd, still vocal in their beliefs that ADD is a
"fad" cooked up by greedy doctors colluding with drug companies and an
educational establishment who would rather drug kids than teach. But I suppose there will
always be those who thrive on the drama they create with intricate plots and conspiracies,
particularly in ADD communities that are full of heat-seeking psyches.
Fortunately, the core groups of supportive, intelligent people who want to be
helpful are still very much in evidence at the many good sites that remain. The good news
is the helpful-minded now have many more resources than we did when ADD was still new as a
national issue. A simple search on "attention deficit" on Google.com today
yields 321,000 hits, while the bibliography from Amazon would print out enough paper to
make a book of its own. The challenge now is not how to learn more about it, but how best
to spend that time.
Given how many more ADD sites there are today on the Net, I'm pleased to have had a steady
stream of visitors to this locale, especially given that web site promotion never gets to
the top of my List. All of the topics covered here, relating to the personal side of
owning a bouncing brain and/or raising same, are still near and dear to me, even if
the need to assist my own kin has subsided these days. What's up for me now is deciding
where to take all that I've learned.
The first change you may have already caught is from "bouncingbrains" to
"hyperthought". Bouncingbrains.com is still a valid domain, but today that
domain is about my books. while the former BBcom content is here at hyperthought.net. My
aim with hyperthought is to make a bigger tent for all of the things I'd like to write
about eventually, not all of which will be about ADD. But that doesn't mean I
plan to abandon the ADD side of my learning or my writing.
Several interesting avenues have opened up in recent years improving our focus on the
whole of attention which I intend to use to add more dimensionality to my spectrum model of attention
differences. And just as the clinical lens has widened over time to better outline the
various hues of attention, it's becoming even more clear how the whole tapestry of ADD is
interwoven with threads of other conditions such as bipolar, OCD, TS, autism, dyslexia and
non-verbal learning differences.
But all that added awareness can be a mixed blessing, can't it? Sometimes it may only seem
that the more you learn, the more confusing it gets.
It probably took a large investment of your time and energy just to get up to speed on
ADD, whether done on behalf of yourself, your mate, or your child. To find that you may
also need to get up to speed on a half-dozen other things before the picture is complete
might only make you feel as if you've fallen down a rabbit hole with no end and no exit.
It's still my goal to place my own flashlight at the end of that tunnel, by making it
easier for fast-moving minds to leap to the bottom line, helping you mine the welter of
information about attention for the parts most likely to be personally relevant. I'd also
like to assist minds of all kinds towards a more vivid understanding of attention
differences across the whole spectrum from under to overthinking, whether or not AD/HD as
a condition is also part of their lives.
Now my children are launched and my client work is
almost complete, I hope to
bring those desires to life. Keep your eye on this space for previews of books and
details of their publication. Or if you haven't signed up for my mailing list, use this link to transmit a request, and I'll be happy to pipe on all
future news.
Meanwhile, please click around in our archives and thanks for
visiting!
