Newton’s First Law of Motion

“An object that is at rest will stay at rest unless a force acts upon it.”

I watched the movie “Wonder” today. It makes reference to this law when panning through an overhead view of a classroom, centering on the main character, August (Auggie) Pullman, a boy with a major facial deformity, sitting at his desk. The other kids in his class start to take their seats and, as the scene unfolds, it starts to become glaringly obvious that they are all avoiding him as all the adjacent seats by him remain empty.

The quote is important for showing how hard it can be for someone to get somewhere in life on their own. And it foreshadows the point that the movie makes later in showing how important it can be, and how much impact it can have, when even just one person comes along to give you the help that you need to keep going.

The use of Newton’s Law in that movie spoke to me because it relates to how I’ve felt often in my life. That I’ve always needed that ‘force’ outside of myself in order to get somewhere, and if I never had anyone help me, I’d never get anywhere. I would have never admitted it to most people, and spent most of my life trying to deny it to anyone who might say otherwise, but I’ve always thought of myself as a lazy-ass or slacker. I’ve always considered that I’m just ‘flawed’ in that kind of way because of how much I have wanted to do in my life but, ultimately, going nowhere; just being that object at rest. It’s always been hard to accept help to get going too, because, having felt deep down that I’m ‘lazy’, I’ve always felt that I don’t deserve it and that I’ve needed to fix my problems on my own. But, sometimes it’s just the act of being helped by someone itself that’s the key, and I feel that spending so much of my life not feeling worthy of that help and turning it away has been such a hinderance in my life.

Getting diagnosed with ADHD, however, has helped. One of the aspects of ADHD I have been reading about lately is how it affects the ‘Executive Functions’ of the brain, part of which deals with how we do things like decision making. This is often split into 2 different aspects: ‘cool’ EF, which relates to the use of the unconscious part of the brain and is used to sustain attention when making every day decisions ; and ‘hot’ EF, which relates to the use of the conscious part of the brain in making the more important, often more personal decisions.

Now, while there has not yet been enough study yet to confirm exactly how ADHD relates to executive function, there has been enough to confirm that it does. The ‘inattentive-ADHD’ type is so named because they are prone to have dysfunction in ‘cool’ EF, which is shown through the inability to sustain attention when needed (or sustain too much attention); the ‘hyperactive/impulsive-ADHD’ type are so named because they are prone to dysfunction in ‘hot’ EF, which is shown through making ‘impulsive’ or ‘quick’ decisions for choices that require more thought (or vice versa, taking entirely too much time on relatively unimportant decisions); and ‘Combined-ADHD’ type which has problems with both ‘cool’ and ‘hot’ EF.

I was diagnosed with the ‘Combined-ADHD’ type, but leaning more towards the ‘inattentive’ side. This helps explain why I can have so much trouble sustaining attention to doing things and why it can be so hard to help myself. Since then, I’ve been recieving professional help in learning more things I can do to mitigate the problems that ADHD presents, and how to apply those things in my life; and with the help of friends and family, I’ve been slowly building my self-esteem back up.

I don’t intend to use ADHD as an ‘excuse’ for my life, I intend to use it as just a part of the framework of what I have to work with in my life. I’ll need help with that I’m sure. Possibly always will. Hopefully less as time goes on. I don’t feel that anyone owes me that help, though; we all got our own things we deal with in life. I hope that I can be more accepting of that help going forward, however, and I hope to can get myself to a point where I can be more of a help to others, as well.