Over the last couple of months I’ve been savoring Gabor Maté’s book on ADHD, Scattered Minds. Recommended to me by a former student last year, the book has been dwelling in the further reaches of my awareness, a reference point for whenever I struggle to follow through on a task, or when I feel strong identification with others, or when my inner critic gets too loud and overwhelming. Thanks to many dedicated posters on instagram, I carry a point of reference between some of these traits of mine with the diagnosis of ADHD.
Even though I see a therapist weekly (and a coach every other week), I have not been too invested in the western diagnostic model. I am aware that many have received an incredibly uplifting boost through the support of psychiatry, medication, and diagnosis. People close to me report their lives were saved by formal diagnosis of mental illness or neurodivergence. I’m observing a friend of mine open up to the world since receiving a formal autism diagnosis: a lot of subconscious self-image stuff just gets to proudly exist at the surface now.
And yet I also know that I have never needed to be diagnosed. Most people who know me know that I don’t exactly fit in as normal. A friend suggests I check out Intergifted, which relates to what we call “neurodivergence” through the lens of gifts. Rather than a diagnosis, they offer an assessment that gives each individual a unique “giftedness” profile. Perhaps some will read this and groan, lamenting the perpetuation of “snowflake culture.” For me, it is exactly the sort of reinforcement that my self-critical mind needed in order to be open to the diagnosis in the first place.
I resist diagnosis because of the fear that something about me will be revealed as wrong. I have lived much of my life in the paradigm of right or wrong. This kind of simplistic, binary thinking indicates an adolescence living inside me. And I see it pretty much everywhere. It points to exactly the kind of diagnosis that I had been avoiding.
Maté would argue that in North America, we are living in an entire ADHD culture, because of the institutional and cultural frameworks that inform how we receive attunement in our early childhood. Perhaps you have seen the claim that the behavioral characteristics of certain unhealed traumas are indistinguishable from neurodivergence. Each of us that carries trauma (perhaps this is all of us) reaches a sort of fulcrum, an inflection point in our lives, where we ask the question: Am I going to keep living from my trauma in this lifetime, or am I going to devote myself to healing?
For all my interest in healing, clearing karma, becoming self-actualized, etc. I put off checking out Scattered Minds until I saw that Hasan Minhaj did a video interview with Gabor Maté. Hasan is quite annoying to me in this video: he basically takes the role of “immigrant dad strawman,” resisting the idea of working through his own healing process because he doesn’t know how to navigate his own needs against the expectations of his family and culture. In a different stage of my journey, I may have related to him. But I found Gabor’s arguments fascinating. After many years of working on radical self-acceptance, letting myself have all of my feelings, tantrums, scattered interests, non-traditional this and that… here is somebody who is willing to say “you are totally valid as you are, and you still need to grow up.”
It was the sort of firm yet gentle parenting that I wish I’d received. Most of my parenting I remember existed in the binary. “This is good. This is bad.” Suddenly, life became about trying to avoid being or feeling bad. If I study hard and get into a top university, I will be good. If I date the right person, I will be good. Oh shit, everything feels bad! That’s wrong! Maybe if I drink, then I’ll feel good. Oh yeah, that works. Scrolling doesn’t always feel good but it helps me from feeling bad!
The whole thing has been a mess.
Learning how to savor the complex range of life experiences is a form of growing up. Taking responsibility for one’s own emotional landscape is a form of growing up. Accepting one’s role as parent and providing a safe container for a child to come into these overlapping complexities at the right stage of development is a form of growing up. Learning to parent yourself in the absence of parents who have the resources to understand what “growing up is” is a form of growing up.
My journey with this isn’t glamorous in any way. It has looked like journaling when I’m angry to get to the heart of things, instead of lashing out. It has looked like taking steps to be in charge of my own economic stability, especially when I left the world of careerism. It has looked like being patient with myself and others, and learning to see the world as it is.
One of the ideas that has stuck with me from Scattered Minds is “unconditional positive regard.” Maté argues that this is a primary quality of parenting that provides a safe environment to nurture a child’s healthy ego, their ability to have an authentic yes and no, their capacity to hold complexity beyond the good / bad binary.
This doesn’t mean to parent permissively. This doesn’t mean the parent doesn’t have boundaries. All it means is that a young child, learning to develop emotional range and secure attachment, is constantly searching for attunement and presence from their primary caregivers. The book has many great examples of how young children, even at the pre-verbal stage, are able to notice when their attachment figure is present with them. And of course, they’re able to notice when their attachment figure is distant, distressed, or distracted. Actually, we adults have that attunement awareness too.
Some of you may have seen the ways that children have an almost endless need for attention. Maté argues that at certain developmental stages, this is simply unavoidable. As the child grows older, it becomes important for the parents to be able to say “no, I’m not available at this moment” and perhaps to receive the disappointment and hurt of the child.
No, it’s not about acquiescing to the child at all times. But there is something to being able to offer “unconditional positive regard” even when the parent and child disagree. To be able to provide containment, letting the child know that the parent is not an emotional punching bag, that they too have needs, without diminishing the quality of attunement, presence, or affirmation.
No one can be happy all the time. Even now, I see how my parents get squirmy when I express a negative emotion. When I indicate that I’m sad, scared, grieving, angry, upset, irritated. I have been practicing sharing my genuine emotions with my parents for some time now, but it has been a journey. As a child, if I expressed irritation or anger, my parents would give me some food, my body would settle, the emotion would be suppressed, and then they’d say “oh, he was just hungry!”
No wonder I learned to sedate myself with food whenever I feel strong emotions.
But something in me persisted, and I realized the only way out was to let myself have the feeling. This whole blog is a sort of documentation of me coming into more and more acceptance of my own complex emotional landscape. At first, bringing these emotions up with my parents would induce a sort of denial in them. “You’re not angry.” “Don’t be sad.” “Why are you making things difficult?” These responses would just stoke my anger.
Later, I came to realize that my strong feelings simply evoked strong feelings in them, feelings that they didn’t know how to welcome without suppression. My anger brought up their shame. My fear, their sadness. My grief, their heartbreak and helplessness. Their own feelings were not acceptable, so they had to make my feelings unacceptable.
Rather than “unconditional positive regard,” I experienced positive regard when my parents were comfortable or knew what was going on, and otherwise the attunement channel between me and them was severed. So I learned that in order to receive attunement — which is just as important for the child as food — I had to show “good” feelings, perform “good” behavior, achieve “good” results.
Maybe you have your own similar version of this experience. Were all emotions fully accepted in your early childhood? Did you get the sense that some were “preferred”? Even now, do you notice those preferences for some feelings and experiences over others?
I’m not saying this is a sign of ADHD. I’m saying that the culture we operate in at this time of history is riddled with this sense of preferential treatment. We are taught to prefer happiness over sadness. Success over failure. Intimacy over longing. Contentment over grief. Like neurodivergent experiences, feelings labeled as “negative” are pushed to the side, sequestered, left out of many narratives.
And yet we are fascinated with the shadow. We love watching movies where people experience catharsis. We get out the popcorn when conflict erupts and read out long, emotionally charged group texts to our friends. We are fascinated with rage, grief, denial, loss, sexuality, tension, heartbreak.
There is a sort of release when suppressed emotion is allowed to be expressed.
My own fascination with these things was a sort of compass to my deep suppressed emotions that I was desperate to experience and express. Something big changed for me when I stopped drinking — my system started to be flooded with all of the emotions I was avoiding, primarily at the time anger.
I am grateful to have one close person who was able to provide positive regard for me as I was wielding this anger for the very first time. They affirmed my right to my anger, set healthy boundaries, and provided a space where I could experience my connection to myself while at the same time feeling connection to another.
Of course, that positive regard couldn’t be unconditional. I have learned (thanks to the aforementioned therapy / coaching and friendship) that no one is actually going to be able to provide the unconditional positive regard that I have longed for from my parents.
Scratch that, there is one person who can provide it. Me.
In fact, I am the only person who can provide unconditional positive regard to myself. This means the buck stops with me. I’m allowed to be angry, but I’m the only one who might celebrate it. And I have to take responsibility for the impacts of that. If I’m grieving, I might be the only one who says it’s okay to rest, Rishi. Take a pause and let yourself feel.
I’m not saying we should be doing any of this alone. In the jam world, we make time for the exquisiteness of each person being able to receive positive regard for exactly whatever experience is moving through them. In fact, it is far more satisfying to co-create space where people feel safe enough to let their suppressed stuff come out. In groups where positive regard for all emotional expressions is valued, there is capacity for some to hold that space while others rest. Each person gets to choose how they show up and what they have the capacity for. And there are no wrong answers.
All I’m saying is that no one else is going to be able to provide unconditional positive regard for you, but you. Some people will come close, and will help you find your own self-love and self-acceptance. But ultimately it’s gonna have to be you. I think cultivating that self-authority is a part of growing up, too.
Lately I’ve been practicing slowing down so my inner parent can witness my inner child, unconditionally. I will say to myself “oh.. I see that you’re feeling hurt. I’m sorry you’re having a tough time.” Saying sorry to myself is doing wonders. Everyone should try it.
The more I accept my own inner experience, unconditionally, the more layers to it I discover. I learn the ways that I hide my true nature, preferences, feelings, and desires, and this hiding costs me energy. I am learning how to soften into my true nature and put down the routine of working so hard to hide.
And as I soften, I see how others become more open to me and my feelings. I think it has something to do with not being so at odds with myself. Being at odds with myself is an experience of tension; it generates tension in others. Accepting and unconditionally loving myself is magnetic and contagious; it makes space for others to love themself, too.
Just other day, I was sitting in the car with my dad, who was visiting me from out of town. I expressed that I was feeling fear about a dispersed camping trip I’m taking later in the year. He immediately took my hand, and I asked “what’s happening for you?” He replied: “the thought of you feeling fear makes me feel sad.” Neither of us made ourselves wrong for those feelings. We just basked together in a rare and cherished moment of intimacy.
I am beyond grateful for the journey just far. I’m aware that I’m in some kind of “Act 2” of my life, and the richness of my experience in my body, my relationships, and my emotional world is deeper and more profound than ever. I truly wish this kind of experience for all of us. And I know that I’m still growing up, still coming into more openness to myself and to others, more acceptance of the fullness of the human experience, more ability to create spaces where people can experience positive regard, more accountability for myself and my needs. I look forward to the journey.
As always, I am willing to talk more about these things. If you end up reading Scattered Minds, send me an email (rishter@gmail.com) or leave a comment. If you want to explore doing some coaching, let’s have a call.
Beautiful writing and excellent work expressing yourself on a complicated topic.
Thanks for sharing (such beautiful writing btw) and articulating what I also find so frustrating with the diagnostic healing approach in the west- this need to label and shed the shadows instead of creating space to look at the nuance of our experiences, the environmental and interpersonal reasons behind our “trauma” and the bravery it takes to make space to explore ourselves beyond these identities. Annnnnd hell yes gabor! Your parents! YOU!!