My thoughts on Shappi Khorsandi's book: Scatterbrain (ADHD awareness & insight post)

Evening all! I hope you're enjoying your week so far. As for me, it's been boring so far. Mainly because I had been stuck at home for 3 days due to having a cold, and not being allowed out.

As of such, I thought about doing some more research on ADHD during the time being. However, what actually prompted me to do some more research on this, was because I specifically wanted to find the link to being a scatterbrain & having ADHD. This was where I had stumbled upon a search result on Google, which consisted of a book on the Amazon website with the very title: "Scatterbrain: How I got off the ADHD rollercoaster" I then immediately thought to myself: "Ah, this must be the right research source I am looking for!"

And sure enough, it certainly didn't disappoint...!

This book turns out to be Comedian, Shappi Khorsandi, talking about her experiences with ADHD. It also turns out that she was undiagnosed with the said condition, and reflects on her own behaviour in the past while being undiagnosed.

(Please do feel free to comment about my picture design!)

Rather than keep using rhetorical questions to form my thoughts, and guide me through what I am going to say, I'll just get stuck in.

I don't know about any of you, (and you may agree or disagree with me on this) but I have always seemed to find ADHD personalities & characteristics highly amusing. And I sincerely do not mean this in an offensive way at all. I think this is because of of the unpredictability that ADHD behaviour brings to oneself. A common example of this would be willing to start something, but unable to get that something finished. Especially within a set timeframe. Like Shappi herself, when she was writing her book, as she highlighted the crazy things she has done when the deadline of her book was looming upon her. This is where the scatterbrain effect gets linked with this type of ADHD behaviour, as it makes you think that you have the capacity of doing so many things while within a set timeframe. But in reality, this just puts you off your primary focus, because you have scattered thoughts/ideas running around in your mind as if each of them are running their own marathon. Again, this is 1 of the reasons why I personally find ADHD amusing. 

Another thing from the book which spoke out to me, was how much focus control there is involved in ADHD focus, (hyper focus) but also the lack of focus on normal focus. It would be stereotypical of people (who do not or have a lack of understanding about ADHD) to label them as "incapable" just because they do not maintain focus like normal people. It has been proven that many people with ADHD ARE very capable of focusing on something, but in their own time. Especially when it comes to something that they are deeply interested in. If this can work for Shappi, then it can work for anyone.

Back onto the scatterbrain topic, having difficulties with controlling your emotions can create scattered thoughts into your mind. Like with most ADHD people, they may experience an overload of excessive thoughts running around in their mind, and they get to a sudden point where they need to blurt how they feel out loud, as this helps them to let of steam inside their mind. Sometimes, these thinking out loud thoughts may become too compulsive for other people around them to hear, as well as being around that ADHD person, so they feel like they are just trying to gain much unnecessary attention as possible. But in reality, that person really cannot help what they are doing.

My psychology on Horrible Histories

I somewhat feel like talking about the educational effects about one of my favourite TV shows - Horrible Histories.

Whilst I understand that everyone is not a fan of kids' educational TV shows on CBBC, there is absolutely no need to be criticising other people, (especially grown ups) by telling them that it's "childish". Because, in my opinion, I still find this programme very helpful, as well as very funny in some parts. I'll further explain more into that...

  

Why do I find this programme educational?

In each episode, they talk about a vary of 4 different era's, which all consist from the before 21st century that we live in today.

I like how during these historical topic discussions, they use actors/actresses to do a role play, of what these type of historical people were like back in their century.  Let's talk about the Tudors for example... 

I'm sure most of you may have been taught about them already, so I'll give out a short explanation... They were strict people, who had silly policies. One of them being that you had to poop outside in public. The whole role play idea, makes the show enjoyable in my eyes.

In addition to this question, Horrible Histories have their own sister show, which is called: Horrible Histories Gory Games. It is classed as a kids quiz game show, as the presenter, (Dave Lamb) does 3 quiz rounds with 3 contestants, with added 4 practical games after each round. After, they reveal the earned scores, to see who has the highest. I honestly think, this just proves how successful and educational this programme actually is from what I make of it. I would wholeheartedly recommend it to every kid who want to learn about history, but in a comical way.

How does the presenting make the programme fun to watch?

As I previously mentioned about the acting involved in this programme, they sometimes throw in comedy parts, which encourages the TV audience to see the funny side of the story role play, as they can be silly, as well as interesting to learn more about. Essentially, by making it a family friendly show.  Some of these comedy role play scenes, can be taken from the already popular TV programmes. Such as: Britain's Got Talent, The X Factor, BBC News, The Great British Bake Off and even BBC Sport!

Still in relations to comedy though, there is a puppet rat involved named: Rattus Rattus. He would pop up every now and again during the show role plays, to inform the TV audience about if a told fact really is true? Or if something totally bizarre really did happen back in then?

There are some parts of the show, where he would be on his own in the sewer, explaining to the TV audience about the furthermore interesting facts and trivia on each era. He would then say: "The rat knows all..." This figure of speech, creates a sense of humour towards the kids, to make them think, that animals actually do know everything. This also encourages them to be smarter with their historical knowledge.

  

I mean, who doesn't love a puppeted animal on a kids' TV show?!😂
 

  

   

Well, I think I've summed up all of my points now. Thank you for taking your time to read through. Please feel free to ask me any further questions about this topic or if you have an interest too. I'll be back soon.