Kurt continued & ADD – 31st July 2023

Kurt continued & ADD – 31st July 2023

ADD can also have a hyperactive component which creates a whole extra set of difficulties for the child and his/her family. And they can be physically violent as well as not recognising danger, so a family is constantly on the alert which becomes very draining. Siblings probably become relieved to be away from the home for example and so the family is strained and stressed. Fortunately, the youngster with the ADD or ADHD does make progress with time.
In families that have a member with Rett Syndrome (RS), they sometimes find that they have a close relative with ADD.
In my work, I determined that its most likely that there is a relationship between the RS and the ADD in these families, (though its also possible for a relative to have an unrelated case of ADD, but statistically, I lean to the former). I also determined that If the person with the ADD has the same colour of eyes as the family member with RS, then that adds to my certainty regarding their conditions being connected.

Is the ADD in these families the same as the ADD in families where there aren’t any relatives with disabilities? I couldn’t say without having contact with such families.

Are there people with RS that have ADD, absolutely, but in the scheme of things, the person with RS has some very major issues, some life threatening, so an ADD component falls into another tier. That said, once a child with RS is showing signs of a major learning disability, then if its appropriate ADD assistance might be called for because ADD in RS is most likely going to be severe and unrecognisable as ADD, but will appear as an inability to focus. And if you can’t focus and its ongoing, then very little learning and that will cause misery, with an already difficult disabilty like RS.

I recall reading that Kurt haf some male relatives that very sadly took their lives. I hope I’m not mistaken in that? But that being so, then its reasonable to think that there was possibly a genetic issue for some of his family in the male line.
And quite possibly Kurt inherited it. His hands indicated to me that he carried the gene for auburn hair, yet he was blonde and blue-eyed. So at some point, to my mind, this gene had partial expression because I have only ever seen hands like that with auburn hair. Which includes my hands.
My question is why. Because if i am correct in that, this will have turned the genetic problem he had into a syndromic problem. Ie. the issue was turned into a multi faceted compound of issues. This then was similar to the problems that people with Rett Syndrome have. Its syndromic, affecting all manner of functioning so there is problems with growth, with movement, hand use, with speech, tremor, seizure, physical issues, eye problems, eating, constipation and more.
Not that Kurt had all these, but I know he was slight of frame (growth) and some of his lyrics indicated other physical issues, which were things he could easily recognise and articulate, but he would have had no understanding of having to play music and sing in memorised sequences, he would have just known the difficulty of it and being driven by his artistic self and love of music. If he displayed the cyclic condition of bipolar disorder which his family and friends would have noticed then this is yet another aspect of his problems being syndromic.

My father had ‘the hands’ yet he had black hair. But in the sunlight, you could see the hidden auburn in his black hair and his pale skin that freckled. His hands were exactly like mine. He had partially expressed his auburn gene.

My son Sean, some very important things happened. He tans! He doesn’t have the pale skin. But his hands have some of the ‘features’ that I learnt to recognise associated with auburn hair. And I know my son has the auburn hair gene, not because of genetic analysis, but because for about two years of his young life, his hair was auburn with the brown. So I know my son has the auburn gene and he also had partially expressed it. My son inherited his disability from me and his genetics behaved in such a way as to minimise the damage, yet still very serious. Did this partial expression of the auburn gene help him and I believe it did. (Thats another story).

For Kurt, its difficult to know why, if indeed I am correct about his carrying and partially expressing the auburn gene. I never saw him clearly enough to know if he had the pale skin. Only the hands. The structure of them. This partual expression was either random and consequently harmful, or, he was going to have a very severe disability and the syndromic effect divided that major impact into many directions, in smaller segments. I would need to know more about his genetics and changes that occurred, along with his early development, to have a more informed opinion on that.
Fiona MacLeod (C)