I remembered the psychologist who did a complete psycho neurological, psycho-educational assessment after I had failed my second year in university, who told me that I had the intellectual capability to be successful in any course of action I should choice and in any educational program I might choose. I asked what she meant and she replied that I could study medicine, law, architecture, physics…anything. However, she had also picked up indications that there something quite wrong and recommended that I spent some time and effort finding out what that was. I didn’t. I was so relieved to find out that I wasn’t an idiot, not that they would have had the knowledge back then to find out anyway.

On yeah I had gone to night school and slowly, painstakingly acquired a bachelor’s degree in journalism, and then completed the BA at the university from which I had been debarred years before but these were not difficult programs and I still had trouble with them.

I realized, gradually, that most of the major choices in my life had not been made by me but by the disorders, ADD and the social anxiety subsequently diagnosed. I had jobs instead of a career. I had not chosen to stay single, to not raise a family, to not own property. I had not chosen to live most of my life alone. These things had been forced on me either by ADD or by social anxiety. Of course I also realized that there were thousands, maybe millions of people on the planet who would change places with me in an instant but quite frankly it didn’t make it any easier. It wasn’t about the quality of life, the opportunities or even about having a choice. It was about being deprived of the power of choice.

It cost me—mentally, emotionally and eventually financially. I filed for personal bankruptcy and spent too much of my time in regret for things that never were.

It took a few years, but then the medication, I was on both a stimulant and an antidepressant, began to work. I started to follow some of the other suggestions I had received, like taking a martial art and I came to terms with the past and began to look to the future…

Off the top, let me declare that I sometimes do marketing work in Canada for a Swedish company known as Cogmed.  They have created an on-line training program that improves working memory, a key component of ADD.  Improve working memory and you will improve focus and attention.

I first made contact with Cogmed because a friend told me he had come across their program and that, not only did it appear to work but that it was backed by solid scientific research. My friend works in the psychological services department of a large Canadian school board and spends a large portion of his work time assessing kids who have this disorder. He suggested that he and I together might try to acquire a license to use Cogmed Working Memory Training, and we set about to do that.   The discussions had just begun when I realized that we did not qualify to be a Cogmed practice a license but was asked by Cogmed’s CEO, Jonas Jendi, if I would provide support in Canada for marketing Cogmed.  At the present moment I am not engaged in doing this and have no financial relationship with Cogmed but I still view their organization and their primary service, Cogmed Working Memory Training, with a great deal of respect.

I was intrigued with how and why Cogmed worked.  I learned that Cogmed improves the brain function known as working memory but how does this happen?  I am no expert in medicine but I had thought that if a part of your brain wasn’t functioning properly, you were pretty well stuck with it.  Then I remembered a lecture I had attended at the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine in a series known as Mini-Med School, a course designed for the public to explain various aspects of modern medical practice.  The lecture I recalled was on stoke rehabilitation and the physician who spoke began by asking the class of more than 200 people, “When was the last time you saw a stroke victim on the street?”

The class seemed a bit confused and so he curled his arm up and limped across the stage the way I had seen lots of stroke victims do in the past but for the life of me, and for that matter most of the people in the lecture hall, I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen someone who looked that way.  A few people raised their hands and then the lecturer asked, “Do you know why you don’t see people like that anymore?’  No one answered and he began his lecture.

He worked at Baycrest Geriatric Hospital in Toronto and headed up the stroke rehabilitation program there.  He said that with a stroke the last function to go is motor control.  The reason stroke victims used to end up apparently paralyzed is not because they couldn’t move their limbs but because the part of the brains that makes them aware of the arm or leg that might be affected is not working.  If you could make them aware of a limb, according to him, they will be able to move it.  This concept is what guides the most advanced stroke rehabilitation today.  This meant that stroke rehabilitation where medical practitioners are painfully moving an arm, or a leg, back and forth hoping to engender some muscle control was a total waste of time.  Instead practitioners, at least those at Baycrest, were doing things like supplying patients with special glasses that shifted a patient’s vision to one side or the other and then after the brain had adjusted, removing the glasses and behold, the patient was aware of the limb and, more importantly, could move the it.

I realized, after some more research, that the concept of neuroplasticity is quite new and absolutely groundbreaking in the world of medicine.  In his bestselling book, The Brain That Changes Itself, Norman Doidge said, “The discovery that thoughts can change the structure and function of our brains—even in old age—is the most important breakthrough in neuroscience in 400 years.”

And so began my journey…