The Asset:: A.D.D. My Ass!

THE ASSET:
A.D.D. My Ass!
Why Attention Deficit Disorder

is an Asset, Not a Deficit
By Carol Gignoux
Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010

Boston, Massechusetts
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced
without written permission from the author
Printed in the United States of America by

TsaRa Publications
Boston,MA 77904
http://www.theassetbook.com

The symbols shown left are the Tibetian mo syllables, “tsa ra,” which mean
“the sword of flames.” This symbol indicates the power and influence
inherent in the force of fire. The person who recieves these syllables should
understand the destructive powers of fire, and in this understanding wield
cosmic fire as a tool for declaring love, taking right action, and moving
through blockages.

My
Revolution
of
Self-Love

Perspectives

How a “rAfter”
Sees Themselves
This first section of the book is about changing perspectives. The

first and most important perspective is the one we have of ourselves.
A kid who grows up hearing, “No!” “Don’t” “You messed up!” a
hundred times more every day than the average kid, figures out that
there must be something wrong with them. It’s not complicated logic
to a kid. At a time when it is most important to be laying the
foundation of a life of success, self-love and love for others, many
rapid-fire thinkers are laying down layer upon layer of self-hatred,
frustration and loathing.
One of the problems is that they can’t see themselves in a true

light. They are looking at themselves according to how many times
they mess up compared to other people. Rapid-fire thinkers (rAfters)
need a translator. They need someone who really sees what they are
accomplishing and articulates it for them.
As adults who have grown up hearing that we have attention

deficit disorder, we need to literally deconstruct the false House of
Disorder where our self-esteem lives. In its place, we need to build the
castle of Gifted Excellence.
1
As a rAfter, you solve problems. From complex developmental
problems when you were an infant, to big world problems as an adult,
you constantly evaluate, communicate, experiment and fix problems.
Your imagination never stops leaping over obstacles. Challenges that
would frighten or stop many people are everyday apples and oranges
for you. If someone says that it can’t be done, you find a way to do it.
If the issues are insurmountable and the damage unfixable, you build a
bigger and better possibility.
The classic definition of ADD is a deficit or inability to keep

from changing your mind or being highly distract-able. It is a failure
to keep the focus and to restrain oneself from acting. A rapid-fire
thinker doesn’t control their thoughts and impulses as easily as other
people do. They have to work harder at it.
I want to stop here and say that writing this book and using my
life as an illustration of living with the label of ADD has been
terrifying. Why is being authentic such a big deal for me? I discovered
that I have layers of protective coating around me which translates
into not being vulnerable or intimate with very many people because I
am distrustful and afraid. I grew up being neglected and abused. I
considered myself unattractive, though the word I used was “ugly” and
on top of all that, I had this “disorder” and “deficit” label that just
painted a big red A on my forehead for everyone to see. For me to
come out and talk about it to you now is like taking off all those
layers. I’m saying, “OK World, I’m coming out of the closet.”
I will tell you straight up that being a rapid fire thinker, being a
kid who is a rapid fire thinker and not having the tools to channel and
2 Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010

harvest that wonderful energy, well, it’s an awful way to live. Any
minute you might open up your mouth and something stupid will
come out: you’re going to get fired, divorced, fail, create an incident
etc. While everyone in class is trying to learn algebra, you’re trying to
manage your behavior. While other students’ attention is fixed on the
teacher, YOU space out, so tired are you from trying, trying, trying to
focus.
The backlash from all this unharnessed and misunderstood energy

is equal amounts of anxiety and depression. I coach people who have
been living with the label “ADD” or “ADHD” and in most of my
clients, I find a funny combination of anxiety, sad emotions and
different thinking patterns.
Even though I am a high-functioning person with the gift of rapid

fire thinking, I still faced walls of blame, rejection, misunderstanding
and anger from other people. My response was to build my own wall.
Luckily, I did not sink into depression as so many do. I credit this to
my rapid fire thinking that helped me to see the truth: love is the
answer. The love of my aunts for me, the love I grew to have for
myself and the love I was able to give to others through service. In
focusing on love, I kept sadness at bay and built a life for myself and
my children.
Rapid fire thinkers have trouble with processing info from the
outside when they are distracted and can’t keep their mind on it.
Because of this distractibility, they struggle with learning. One of the
tools we will discuss in this book is how to use the energy of that

3
distractibility the way a Kung Fu master uses the energy of their
opponent’s kick to topple them.
Neuro-psychologists test kids and adults all the time and give
them the ADD or ADHD label. Sometimes they are correct and
sometimes they are not. A number of my teenage clients have become
upset when they worked to learn the tools to harness and harvest their
mental energy only to have a neuro-psychologist tell them they “don’t
have ADHD.”
The medical and mental health communities are still learning

about rapid fire thinking; what it means and how to channel it
effectively. This book is based on my learning and my experience
working with many rapid fire thinkers or “rAfters” over the last 30
years and my own life.
For every idea that a non-rapid fire thinker has, a rAfter has ten.
The law of averages makes this a winning situation as long as the
rAfter has the tools to monitor, discern and understand their idea flow.
The more ideas, the greater the chances that one or more of them will
be a solution or an invention.
If you are a rAfter, you are a super-evolver. Your ability to adapt,

change, create and envision is the grease on the wheels of a happy and
prosperous human society.
So tear it out, nail-by-nail, board-by-board! Pulverize the House of

Disorder and let your toes feel the cool marble as you step into your
Castle of Gifted Excellence. You are a rAfter. You are a super-
evolver. Live it and love it!

My Revolution of Self Love
Each time I look back on my childhood, I realize another level of

pain. I believe, however, that what I am experiencing in this life is
exactly perfect for me. These are the spiritual lessons I wanted and
needed to learn as a soul when I entered this body. When I talk about
the abuse and neglect of my childhood, I do it because it is my gold
mine. It is the place I can go to see myself and heal. Compassion
heals, awareness heals, letting go heals, understanding heals and
gratitude heals. So, here is my story told as a grown-up who is still
learning to love the girl and woman that she once was. I can now look
at the events of my past and see how my asset of rapid fire thinking
helped me to survive and to thrive. As I write, I will occasionally stop
and offer up my insights as a present-day rAfter.
Childhood
Growing up, my parents were in their early twenties but acted

much younger, more like teenagers. They were completely unable to
assume adult responsibilities. They focused on themselves and having
a good time. There was a steady stream of chaos and trauma created
by two people who had out of control personalities which often
resulted in physical, mental and emotional abuse. My mother was
needy, fearful and angry. My stepfather couldn’t support the family.
There was constant turmoil. I never knew when my parents would go
ballistic with rage. I lived in constant fear they would kill or seriously
harm each other – or come after me. I was the family scapegoat and
punching bag for whatever pent up rage family members were feeling.
In addition to physical and emotional abuse, many of my early
Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010 5

memories were of talking bill collectors away from the door, pawning
family possessions, selling objects on the street, and shoplifting to
survive. To this day I do not know the story of why we suddenly had
to leave the country but we did – for 3 years. I suspect it had to do
with losing everything we owned to bankruptcy which in those days
was more uncommon and therefore more debilitating.
My biological father left before my mother knew she was pregnant

with me. My mother, needing to find a husband, left me with a friend
shortly after I was born. Word has it the care was not great and I
suffered a level of neglect. But then I always wanted more from my
mother than she had to give. For her part, she needed continuous
attention and affirmation for how beautiful and desirable she was. Her
focus was on satisfying this never ending need and not on her chil-
dren. She was beautiful, had many suitors and 4 husbands.
When I was a girl, I felt so ugly I hid from people. I was also a klutz.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to get it right. I felt stupid,
foolish and ashamed because I was constantly making mistakes,
breaking things, not paying attention in school, blurting out inappro-
priate comments, acting without thinking, and unable to listen. It
seems like all I did was strike out. My belief was I was unlovable. I
couldn’t make myself as beautiful, charming and wanted as my
mother. Hell, I couldn’t get my own mother to love me.
Concentrating on learning was impossible for me most of the time. I
was preoccupied with what the other kids thought of me. This meant
putting all my energy into not looking stupid, which took my complete
focus. I also remember every waking moment being obsessed with
worrying about what was going on at home. I was trying to survive. I

felt lost and utterly alone.
One day, when I was 13-years-old, something happened. I don’t

remember what it was but I do remember the lost, sickening feeling I
had about myself. I hated myself: hated the way I looked! Hiding in
my room, looking into the mirror, I ran my fingernails down my face,
ripping my skin. It fit. Shredding my face with my own hands felt
exactly right as I was doing it, in the heat of my pain. As soon as I did
it, however, I couldn’t believe what I had just done and didn’t know
how I was going to explain it to other people and especially my class-
mates. I was forced to go to school. People stared at me but the inci-
dent was never discussed at home or at school. I just learned to endure
the pain and shame on my own.
This was often the case with me. I would do something impulsive -
self abusive - and then regret it afterwards.
When I turned 14, I noticed that a few other girls seemed to like me.
They liked being around me, talking to me, listening to me. Suddenly I
had friends and I didn’t really know why. Who was this Carol that
they had chosen?
I hardly knew her at all.
When my mother’s second marriage did not work out, she became
very needy again and began using me as her support system. Growing
up alone and afraid, with no solid identity of my own, it was easy for
me to assume someone else’s identity and in this case my mother’s.
After all, I had finally found a way to get her attention.

I realize now that I had become a symbiotic enabler for my mother.
To keep the family together, I was there to take on my mother’s angst
and frustration and take care of her. I had no idea who I was and what
was going on with me. By the age of 16, I had lost myself completely
and taken on a representation of my mother.
I was like a shell. I wasn’t sure who I was, what I wanted, or how I
felt. I did know exactly how my mother felt, however, and what she
wanted down to the smallest nuance. My life was a fog. Her life was
the only one I was living. I remember hearing someone say, “Your
grandmother left you money for college.”
I thought: “College?” College was so far away from anything I had

even thought of for myself, I could not grasp it. Then, my mother left
me again and moved to Europe with her newest husband during my
junior year in high school. I went to live in Georgia with my two
aunts. It became the first stable environment I had ever known.
After I came to live with them, my aunts would gently knock on my
bedroom door and come in just to sit on the edge of the chair and chat
a while before going to bed. A simple gesture like this filled me with
awe and confusion. Why were they seeking out my company?
My aunts believed in me though I didn’t believe in myself. Their faith
in me acted like a steady current of electricity that finally woke me up.
The light bulb went on inside my head and I said, “You can do better
than this.”
The Christmas tree at my aunts’ house was piled with gifts for me
that first year. I was shocked. Throughout my childhood and adoles-

cence, anything I’d owned of value and any money I had been saving
up to buy necessities like shoes had been taken from me under threat
or sold by my stepfather for gambling purposes. It was impossible for
me to believe that I deserved all those presents under the tree. I was
accustomed to turning inward and repressing my feelings and fears. I
never talked about my sense of invisibility and my feelings of guilt
and confusion when people gave me things and treated me with kind-
ness. I put the gifts in the closet and left them there.
My Aunts were always there for me - quietly, courageously and lov-
ingly. I did manage to graduate from high school. I did well in some
things and badly in others. I know now that this is typical of a rAfter.
At the time, I acted like any unaware, scared-to-death kid. But I was
learning to allow myself to breathe in my own body and learning for
the first time what it felt like to be safe.
Translation of a rAfter:
My asset of rapid fire thinking helped me process an entirely new

way of relating to others and to myself. I managed to keep my balance
enough to actually go to a new school and do fairly well. Even though
I was deeply emotionally disturbed, I picked up cues on how to
develop a sense of self and began to do just that. With a safe
environment and the modeling of normalcy, I pieced together mental
health – enough to stay inside of the structure of school and home. I
developed new relationships and expressed myself in new, creative
ways. I learned to receive love and material things.

9
College
I would say that when I went to college, I became my own person.

Everything changed. It was almost like going from hell to heaven. The
change didn’t happen instantly. It took some time.
I went to a small school, West Georgia College in Carrollton,

Georgia. My first year, all I did was drink. Soon I was on academic
probation and in trouble with my aunts.
In fact, the first couple of years, I was a lost soul. I was in a dorm
with girls from Atlanta. We called it “Hot-lanta.” They had money. I
felt lost, but they took me under their wing. Inside of me I was very
jealous of their clothes and labels, and they would bring back all new
things from weekend shopping trips. I focused on the underwear –
ruffles and silk. I had three pairs of cotton underwear and I would
wash it and try to hide it behind the door.
One day, everyone was out and I went into their rooms and stole
their underwear and put it in a drawer in my room. There was a dorm
meeting, “Somebody here has stolen some things that belong to other
girls and we are going to give you a chance to put it back. If you do
this, nothing will happen to you.”
I remember how painful that was and how I felt sick inside. I
found an opportunity to put the underwear back. No one ever said
anything to me but I think they knew that I did it.
I didn’t go on dates, other girls did. I would drive my friends

home and think there was something valuable about me because I

could at least be a designated driver. I often held their heads over the
toilet. After about a year, I started making friends with guys and
dating.
Thrown into yet another new living situation, I adapted and made
myself an indispensable member of the group. Still using my rapid fire
thinking skills to process through years of emotional and physical
abandonment, I evolved from considering myself invisible and unable
to receive gifts to a person who longed to have nice things. My
impulse to steal was a kind of self-acknowledgment gone awry. I was
able to adjust and correct and go on evolving.
Acceptance and Popularity
The moment that stands out for me was when I realized that I had
been accepted by a group of influential and rich girls on campus.
There was no sorority on campus at the time and we decided to start
one and only the best one would do. I look back on it and see that they
really did accept me and like me. I didn’t believe it until they chose
me to help them start this sorority.
I have good skills at picking good friends. I picked grounded,

smart people to associate with and if I wanted to be around them, I
had to do what they did. I showed a high level of problem solving at a
young age. I quickly realized that creating a grounded community for

myself was the most important way for me to be successful in life.
Within two years, my rapid fire thinking asset had put me squarely in
the middle of the strongest community on campus. As a rAfter, I
could have gone into the escapism of drugs or alcohol. I could have
become self-destructive, but my rapid fire thinking had allowed me to
process and heal enough to stay safe even though I didn’t know where
I was going yet.
I decided to transfer to a larger school for my junior and senior

years. When I went to the University of Georgia, I met women who
were like me. These women weren’t all from rich families. It was
more of a level playing field. We all had the same thing in common.
We all thought in 1970 that the United States was a mess and that men
had all the power. So we started a feminist group. I had all sorts of
boyfriends at that point and I basically went to the opposite extreme
and thought I was better than everybody else. I laugh when I think
about it now and realize that I was gradually developing a healthy
sense of self. During my final year of college, I became very
confident on the outside. The feminist movement and the anti-war
movement gave me a structure to build a life around. I seized the
opportunity enthusiastically.
That’s when I got married to a fantastic guy. I was 21-years-old

and in need of so much healing that it was going to be years before I
could have a decent relationship with anyone. Neither of us knew
that, though. I broke his heart because I just wasn’t ready to be
married.

My rAfter skills let me take the risk of changing environments
again. I put evolution over safety and left right when I had exhausted
the challenges in my first college. My rapid fire thinking asset gave
me the skills to communicate well with others, form goals and achieve
them and be a part of something greater than myself. Even though I
had had no social life with men until the year before, I quickly learned
how to act with confidence around the opposite sex. As a rAfter, my
asset allowed me to learn new ways of being in a short period of time.
I took a big risk getting married. The marriage taught me much

more about controlling my impulses and taking the time to heal.
Finding My Life’s Purpose
From that point on, I began to make discoveries about myself. I

realized that I wasn’t stupid. I could have friends and people thought
I was smart and I could learn many things. I discovered that I had
grown up angry and had been taking it out on myself. I began letting
go of that anger.
One after another, the discoveries rained down upon me as I began

to see myself as good. I shifted my energies from anger at others for
hurting me to being of service to others.
I rose in the ranks of the Women’s Movement. I got to know many

successful and committed women and men in the Women’s Movement
and the Anti-war Movement. I blossomed and came out of my shell
that I had been in. I realized that I wasn’t all damaged.

I did a moral and personal inventory and saw that I had a lot to
give and could have a good life. That’s when I committed to a life of
service. Some friends and I organized a home for women who had
drug habits and had suffered from physical abuse. We got together the
first rape crisis line for women, wrote a rape crisis manual advising
women of their rights, and lobbied for the Equal Rights Amendment.
I became involved in the community and helping poor people.
As I was living my life and discovering new opportunities, I found

Buddhism and learned that it was a practice that guided me to a life of
compassion and wisdom. Also, as a rAfter, I learned the benefits of
meditation. Not only did my compassion and understanding deepen
but my ability to control my mind and my thoughts grew. The focus
that meditation demands was the perfect partner to my rapid fire
thinking.
I decided that I wanted to work with emotionally disturbed kids

and got a Masters Degree. I got a full scholarship and helped to build
the first Department of Special Education for Athens, Georgia.
When law school in Boston didn’t pan out, I ended up using my

degree working for the Boston school system with their population of
emotionally disturbed kids. The minute I met those kids, something
inside of me ignited! I could relate to them. I’d found my place and
didn’t want to go to law school. Many of the kids I worked with had
ADD and ADHD. I got trained in the specific issues surrounding
rapid fire thinkers and learned many things from working with these
kids. The kids had drug habits and were bringing guns to school. The

adults in their lives were often cruel and physically and emotionally
absent. I saw how the kids tried to cope and understood.
I remembered how I used to feel when I was a kid. All those years
in school when I could have been studying, I was always afraid of
what would happen when I got home. I didn’t do my homework or
study. I don’t know how I got out of school at all. The school system
can’t deal with a kid who has all this emotional stuff going on, no
matter how intelligent and capable that child may be.
Today if I had a 13-yr-old girl who came to me with self-

mutilation marks on her face I would say, “Find a person who believes
in you and continue to listen to them. Continue to listen to them until
you believe in yourself.” I remember my aunts and how they loved
me when I didn’t even know how to feel my own feelings. They stuck
with me when I was a numb, drunken college freshman.
I said to those kids, “I’m here for you, I believe in you.” Then, I
showed them how to channel their impulses and thoughts into a
disciplined flow.
I said, “You thought you were stupid but today you know that you
are a rapid fire thinker, a super-evolver. You can stop blaming yourself
and start healing.”
The highest level in human evolution is the spiritual. My rapid fire

thinking asset gave me the clarity to see what was true and important
and what wasn’t. Even though I had to cull through millions of

impressions and ideas, I was still able to discern my life purpose and
create opportunities to be of service to others. Within a short period of
time, I learned the key to successful team dynamics and became a
member of a team that I loved and believed in.
Learning to Love Me
The point in my life when I really faced my past and how my

fragile self-esteem was when I knew I was about to become a mother.
College and post-college had been a hectic time of outward
achievement. I was such a good talker, student, organizer and friend,
but I hadn’t spent a lot of time learning to love myself and listen to
myself.
I went to therapy and worked hard at learning to love me. The truth
is that compassion is the healer. When my compassion for myself
outweighed my comparison of myself against others, I healed from my
wounds. When my compassion for my mother outweighed my pain of
abandonment, I healed from my wounds.
I often find myself talking about how important it is for people to

understand rAfters and to have compassion for them. Then, they
would be more accommodating around the lack of follow-through and
dependability and more receptive to the rAfter’s problem-solving
contributions and fantastic adaptability.
My Super-Evolving Journey
To bring my life story to the present, after years of being an

assistant principal, I found coaching. I threw my hat in the ring and

decided to build my own business. I had no money to pay for my kids’
college and they were two years away from graduation. I was a single
parent by then. Guess what? I made it! Today, I am the mother of two
children who have graduated from college. My business wasn’t about
ADD at first, but word got around that I could work with rapid fire
thinkers and I began doing seminars about positive self image. My
work allowed me to be part of many fascinating peoples’ lives. Every
day I am amazed at how gifted and unique rAfters are.
I’m a rAfter and I have massive unfulfilled potential. I know this

yet I feel scared when I face risks. This book is about me continuing
to take greater and greater risks and not worrying about managing my
behavior because I have the tools to do just that. I can do it, and you
can do it, too. It’s our job to imagine ourselves as the special gift
underneath our unique wrapping. Our wrapping paper may not be
ideal as judged by others. But in real life it’s the gift that counts and
it’s the wrapping paper that gets tossed away.
Healing takes time.
Everybody wants a quick fix.
Find someone who believes in you and listen to them. Keep

listening until the electric current of their faith in you wakes you up.
Establishing a habit takes time, but making the decision to establish

that habit takes an instant.
So, if you are a rAfter, here’s the habit I’m suggesting that you
establish:

Acknowledge out loud to the people closest to you that you have an
asset, the asset of rapid fire thinking. Own your ability to super-evolve
and express gratitude that you were born with this gift.
Write down your life history in a 1-3k word essay. Find in it the
ways that your asset allowed you to survive and thrive. Your past is a
gold mine.
For the rest of your life, starting today, look at yourself in the mirror
every morning; give yourself a smile and say, “You’ve got The Asset.
You are a gifted human being and I love you.”
Make It Real
Now that I’ve opened my heart to you and shared how I am

evolving from a person with a “disorder” to a gifted individual, I want
to hear your story. Whether you’re a rAfter or someone who loves a
rAfter, tell me how it’s been for you and where you are today.
Write to me at carol@theassetbook.com. Put “My Revolution of

Self Love” in the subject line.


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THE ASSET:

Why Attention Deficit Disorder

Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010

Printed in the United States of America by

Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010

Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010

Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010

Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010

This first section of the book is about changing perspectives. The

One of the problems is that they can’t see themselves in a true

As adults who have grown up hearing that we have attention

The classic definition of ADD is a deficit or inability to keep

2 Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010

The backlash from all this unharnessed and misunderstood energy

Even though I am a high-functioning person with the gift of rapid

Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010

The medical and mental health communities are still learning

If you are a rAfter, you are a super-evolver. Your ability to adapt,

So tear it out, nail-by-nail, board-by-board! Pulverize the House of

4 Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010

Each time I look back on my childhood, I realize another level of

Growing up, my parents were in their early twenties but acted

Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010 5

My biological father left before my mother knew she was pregnant

6 Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010

One day, when I was 13-years-old, something happened. I don’t

I hardly knew her at all.

Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010 7

I thought: “College?” College was so far away from anything I had

8 Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010

My asset of rapid fire thinking helped me process an entirely new

Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010

I would say that when I went to college, I became my own person.

I went to a small school, West Georgia College in Carrollton,

I didn’t go on dates, other girls did. I would drive my friends

10 Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010

Acceptance and Popularity

I have good skills at picking good friends. I picked grounded,

Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010 11

I decided to transfer to a larger school for my junior and senior

That’s when I got married to a fantastic guy. I was 21-years-old

12 Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010

I took a big risk getting married. The marriage taught me much

Finding My Life’s Purpose

From that point on, I began to make discoveries about myself. I

One after another, the discoveries rained down upon me as I began

I rose in the ranks of the Women’s Movement. I got to know many

Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010 13

As I was living my life and discovering new opportunities, I found

I decided that I wanted to work with emotionally disturbed kids

When law school in Boston didn’t pan out, I ended up using my

14 Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010

Today if I had a 13-yr-old girl who came to me with self-

The highest level in human evolution is the spiritual. My rapid fire

Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010 15

The point in my life when I really faced my past and how my

I often find myself talking about how important it is for people to

To bring my life story to the present, after years of being an

16 Copyright © by Carol Gignoux 2010

I’m a rAfter and I have massive unfulfilled potential. I know this

Healing takes time.

Everybody wants a quick fix.