Saturday, January 13, 2018

Famous People with ADHD

The following is a repost, with some editing, of a page from
Alan Simons, ARNP

(Note: I do not endorse medication as a treatment.)

Source: http://www.alansimons.com/FamousPeoplewithADHD.en.html

Each of the people on the list below have either been diagnosed professionally
or their biographies show behavior patterns of ADHD. A lot of people on this list were misunderstood and under-appreciated for a
long time but with resilience and persistence, help, support, and a little
luck made a life that contributed. Some even learned to be happy. Can the rest of us mere mortals learn something from the lives of these
people--both about what may help us and also what we don't want in our lives? We have discovered 95% of everything we've ever known about the brain
since 1993. We now have technologies, medications and strategies
that most on this list never had.

Architect
Frank Lloyd Wright

Artists
Salvador Dali
Leonardo da Vinci
Pablo Picasso
Rodin
Vincent Van Gogh

Athletes
Terry Bradshaw
Andre Brown
Caitlyn (formerly Bruce) Jenner
Michael Jordan
Jason Kidd
Carl Lewis
Greg Louganis
Michael Phelps
Pete Rose
Babe Ruth
Nolan Ryan
Jackie Stewart
Alberto Tomba
Andres Torres  

Does because a lot of these people achieved what they did without
current technologies, medications and strategies mean that the
rest of us should be able to do the same?  

You could say these are "The Top Ten-Percenters." They had
extraordinary gifts that were uniquely honed by the time and
environment in which they lived.

Most of these had significant struggles that delayed and/or diminished
their work, home and social lives.  Could they have developed even
better lives with fewer struggles if they had access to
and took advantage of current help?

Authors
Han Christian Anderson
Charlotte and Emily Bronte
Lewis Carroll
Agatha Christie
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)
Emily Dickinson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Robert Frost
Samuel Johnson
Edgar Allan Poe
George Bernard Shaw
Henry David Thoreau
Leo Tolstoy
Jules Verne
Tennessee Williams
Virginia Woolf
William Butler Yeats

Of course, for every one listed on this page there have been
millions of others with ADHD who are/were not famous and
who are/were just as special.

Composer
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Beethoven
Handel
Puccini
Sergei Rachmaninoff

Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders
Richard Branson (Virgin)
Andrew Carnegie
Walt Disney
Malcolm Forbes (Forbes Magazine)
Henry Ford
Bill Gates
William Randolph Hearst
David Neeleman (Jet Blue)
Paul Orfalea (Kinkos)
Charles Schwab
Ted Turner
F.W. Woolworth

We are all ADHD snowflakes.  Some of these people were/are
bashful and like to be by themselves.
Some are out-going and are more comfortable being with people.

Some are more physically active and some are quietly focusing
on more still activities.

Explorers
Christopher Columbus
Lewis and Clark
Admiral Richard Byrd

Entertainers
Ann Bancroft
Harry Belafonte
George Burns
Jim Carrey
Cher
Bill Cosby
Zooey Duschanel
Danny Glover
Whoopi Goldberg
Woody Harrelson
Mariel Hemingway
Dustin Hoffman
Solange Knowles
Avril Lavigne
Adam Levine
John Lennon
Howie Mandel
Steve McQueen
Jack Nicholson
Ellen Page
Ty Pennington
Elvis Presley
Evil and Robbie Knievel
George C Scott
Karina Smirnoff
Will Smith
Tom Smothers
Suzanne Somers
Steven Spielberg
Sylvester Stallone
James Stewart
Justin Timberlake
Lindsay Wagner
Emma Watson
Robin Williams
Henry Winkler
Stevie Wonder

How about the millions of others with ADHD who lived good
and satisfying lives and who are/were not famous?  How about
the even greater number who because they didn't have access
to the hidden gifts within them, didn't have the supportive help to
guide them, or the luck of the draw to have been born in a place
and/or time so they could learn and use the advanced technologies
we have now?

Inventors
Alexander Graham Bell
Thomas Edison
Benjamin Franklin
Wright Brothers

Photographer
Ansel Adams

Political Figures
James Carville
Prince Charles
Winston Churchill
Dwight D. Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy Jr.
Robert Kennedy
Abraham Lincoln
Woodrow Wilson

Scientists
Harvey Cushing, MD
Albert Einstein
Michael Faraday
Galileo
Stephen Hawking
James Clerk Maxwell
Isaac Newton
Louis Pasteur
Werner von Braun

No comments: