Could we come up with a better name than ADHD and ADD?

I hate the terms "attention deficit hyperactivity disorder" and "attention deficit disorder." Don't we have enough issues without being labeled as having not just a deficit but a disorder as well? One of them should have been sufficient. Besides, we don't have a deficit of attention. We have plenty of attention; we simply can't regulate it. I am paying attention to a whole lot, which is why it is so hard to focus on that one thing I am supposed to be doing. More importantly, I'd like to point out that I am not disordered. The mere term suggests that everyone else is "ordered" and I've met many people who don't have ADHD, and they are not ordered.

To make matters worse, the whole term misunderstanding of ADD versus ADHD gets confusing. Logically, I know that the correct medical term is ADHD, but some people write it as AD/HD. Worse, I know that some people misunderstand ADHD as being one subtype and ADD as being the other and I don't want to confuse them by using one term in an article. So I find myself writing "ADD/ADHD" and "ADD or ADHD" and it gets very tedious. I want one term and I want a more accurate.

Sure, we have come a long way. After all, the term used to be "minimal brain dysfunction" and then it was "hyperkinetic disorder of childhood." But considering that half of the term now is "deficit disorder," I don't feel we've improved that much. At least with ADD we could come up with all these great terms. When I had my own coaching business, I called "ADDed Possibilities" even though I knew it should actually be ADHDed Possibilities."

I know my hopes for a better name will never be realized. Just as I know that bookstores will never move the ADHD books out of the children's section, even when the title includes the word "adult" in it. But I can dream, right? And as my brother said to me once, "There's a reason they call it ADD and not MINUS."

Gotta love him for that.

Darcy