Andy Warhol Was a Hoarder (32 page)

Gershwin's lightning-quick composition of
Rhapsody in Blue
is legendary. One day in 1924, the 25-year-old composer discovered that he was committed to producing a jazz piece for
An Experiment in Modern Music
, to take place at Aeolian Hall in midtown Manhattan. Although he'd felt the stirrings of a new composition, it was nowhere near completion, and the concert was only a month away. A train ride to Boston ignited his mind with its “steely rhythms, its rattle-ty-bang,” Gershwin reflected. “I frequently hear music in the very heart of noise. And there I suddenly heard—and even saw on paper—the complete construction of the rhapsody, from beginning to end.”

As with stimulating activities, noise can be soothing to people with ADHD, because it engages a part of the brain that might otherwise be distracted, says Hallowell. For Gershwin, ordinary sounds became music to his extraordinary ear. Bursting with drive and focus, he completed his magnum opus in just three weeks. He was determined, he later recalled, to do away with the misperception that jazz had to be written in the strict time of dance rhythms. Instead, he composed with “unwonted rapidity.” Gershwin called
Rhapsody in Blue
a “musical kaleidoscope of America—of our vast melting pot, of our incomparable national pep, our blues, our metropolitan madness.” It was performed on schedule, as promised, bringing down the house with explosive applause and three curtain calls.

Gershwin's energy, his hyperactivity, infused everything—the zigzagging melodies he orchestrated, the way he thought, the way he moved. He was always on the go, always in a hurry. He tap-danced while waiting for elevators, cracked peanuts during rehearsals for
Porgy and Bess
, and chewed compulsively on pipes and cigars, according to Pollack. Sitting was rarely a sedentary pursuit. The actress Kitty Carlisle remembered Gershwin poking her in the ribs during a prizefight in the Bronx. “I came out with my whole side black and blue,” she recalled. Gershwin filled notebooks with melodic ideas that gushed through his mind. His curiosity was boundless, even when the subject had nothing to do with music. A pretty plant would set him off on a quest for information about what kind of soil it liked and how often to water it, recalled Kay Swift. “Anything he wanted to learn, he hit with a terrific sock,” Swift said. “He just tore into it.”

A legendary partygoer, Gershwin entertained friends and acquaintances late into the night with his exuberant and propulsive artistry. Mostly, he played his own compositions, delighting his listeners with his virtuosity and magnetism. His audience became caught up in “the heady surf that inundates a room the moment he strikes a chord,” Behrman wrote in the
New Yorker
. “It is a feat not only of technique, but of sheer virtuosity of personality.”

Gershwin wrote that American music must “express the feverish tempo of American life.” His compositions did that better than anyone else's—and along the way, he may have rescued himself. Kogan, the psychiatrist and pianist, believes strongly in the curative
power of music. The act of creating, playing, and listening to melodies has provided inner harmony for many musicians, Kogan says, including Beethoven (who suffered from depression), Tchaikovsky (depression), and Schumann (bipolar disorder)—perhaps forestalling the worst of their mental illness. Gershwin's fortuitous encounter with Maxie Rosenzweig, who became an acclaimed violinist, prompted a young street kid to channel his innate exuberance into the keys of the piano, forever changing his destiny. “The Gershwin story,” says Kogan, “is one of the best stories I know of music's capacity to truly transform the life of a youngster.”

A
TTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER
has been documented in the medical literature for more than a century, but one of the earliest and liveliest descriptions appears in a children's poem called “The Story of Fidgety Philip.” Written by a German physician for his young son in the mid-1800s, the verse describes a “naughty, restless” little boy who can't sit still at the dinner table, despite his parents' stern instructions. “He wriggles, And giggles, And then, I declare, Swings backwards and forwards, And tilts up his chair, Just like any rocking horse—‘Philip! I am getting cross!' ” Fidgety Phil soon became an allegory for ADHD and was even analyzed by contemporary medical researchers to refute the notion that the disorder is an “invention” of modern times.

ADHD was initially documented as a clinical condition in the medical literature in 1902, when a British pediatrician named George Still described a cluster of children, most of them boys, who showed “a quite abnormal incapacity for sustained attention” and an immediate need for gratification, no matter the consequences. They were not, however, intellectually impaired, but
instead were “as bright and intelligent as any child could be.” Over the next several decades, researchers documented similar symptoms in other children, amassing enough evidence for an official diagnosis in 1968, when the condition first appeared in the
DSM
as “hyperkinetic reaction of childhood.” It was redefined as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in 1987.

Researchers have found that ADHD, like other mental health conditions, runs in families, and they are searching for genes that may make some people more susceptible. Evidence suggests that preemies are at greater risk, as are babies born to mothers who smoked or consumed alcohol during pregnancy. Lead exposure, which is toxic to the growing brain and is linked to decreased IQ, has been associated with ADHD symptoms as well.

Does an ADHD brain
look
different? Scientists have discovered that the development of brain regions that control thinking, planning, and attention are delayed in kids with ADHD; one area does not develop fully until about age 10, compared to age 7 in unaffected kids. ADHD brains also show less mature connections between an area responsible for internal thoughts, including daydreaming, and an area that allows us to focus on tasks and get things done. The end result: distraction infringing on focus.

Despite these intriguing findings, there are few mental health conditions as heavily critiqued and controversial as ADHD, especially when it comes to kids. Today, one in ten children between the ages of 4 and 17 will receive a diagnosis of ADHD, and that number continues to rise. Critics charge that the condition, which is diagnosed in almost three times as many boys as girls, pathologizes normal childhood exuberance. Fidgeting with a pencil? Running around when you're not supposed to? Unable to pay attention? Everyone can relate, especially in our fast-paced, Internet-driven, instant-messaging world. With sensory overload all around us,
who has time to concentrate? Long before ADHD became a go-to diagnosis, critics charge, kids were allowed to be kids. They weren't hauled off to the school psychologist.

The biggest concern is that children are being overmedicated. The condition is most often treated with stimulant drugs, which increase the level of dopamine, a brain chemical that is linked to sleep, mood, attention, and learning. Three and a half million American children now take ADHD medications, up from about 600,000 in 1990. Although the drugs can help some kids focus and excel socially and academically, they don't always work and can have serious side effects, including sleep problems, headaches, and irritability. The most extreme critics assert that ADHD isn't even real but has instead been manufactured by a profit-hungry pharmaceutical industry.

Mental health experts who treat children with ADHD struggle with these perceptions. Hallowell acknowledges that it can be difficult to tease out a true case, given the distracted lives our children lead. “But that doesn't mean ADHD doesn't exist,” he says. “It just means you have to be careful when you make the diagnosis.” This requires taking a meticulous history from parents and teachers and being judicious about prescribing drugs before trying alternative therapies, including behavioral and social skills training, exercise, and meditation.

Although not widely perceived as a debilitating condition, ADHD can in some cases cause severe distress. Children who are the most distractible cannot focus on schoolwork, and are often accused of being lazy, and badgered to shape up. Girls, especially, are often overlooked because their symptoms can make them look spacey or dreamy. Without help, these kids fall behind academically and lose self-esteem. Impulsive and hyperactive students disrupt classrooms and annoy their peers, making it difficult to form friendships. Viewed as troublemakers, they get punished and sent
to the principal. Over time, the failures stack up. Children with ADHD are at risk for developing other mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, and, later, substance use disorders. “It can be utterly crippling,” says Hallowell.

ADHD can vary over a life span. In some cases, symptoms persist; in others, children appear to outgrow the condition by adulthood. Gershwin's early impulsivity receded, but his hyperactivity seems to have endured, says Kogan. Adults with ADHD sometimes discover that the problems they battle—forgetfulness, disorganization, restlessness—also come with favorable attributes: creativity, charisma, quick-wittedness, and abundant enthusiasm. People with ADHD are often risk-takers who think out of the box and burst with ideas. They're athletes, performers, teachers, journalists, Nobel Prize winners, and entrepreneurs. Michael Phelps applied his ADHD jumpiness to swimming and won 18 Olympic gold medals. David Neeleman, a college dropout, credits his ADHD brain with giving him the innovative vision to create JetBlue Airways. Thomas Edison, who had characteristics of ADHD, was pulled out of school for being inattentive. He gave the world light.

Hallowell is leading the charge for a positive conception of the condition. Rather than characterize ADHD solely as a disorder, he views it as the ultimate “American trait,” rooted in the restlessness, originality, and vision of our earliest settlers. Gershwin embodied this vision. His rhythms were fresh and his melodies groundbreaking, meshing classical harmony with blues. Filled with color and humor, Gershwin's music tickled, provoked, and stretched the imagination and ear of its listener. “He broke the rules and created a whole new genre,” says Hallowell. In 1925, when he was just 27 years old, the
New Yorker
pronounced Gershwin “new blood, beyond question.” Four years later, in 1929, the financier Otto Kahn, a friend of Gershwin's, likened the composer
to another trailblazer of his time: “George Gershwin is a leader of young America in music, in the same sense in which Lindbergh is the leader of young America in aviation,” he wrote.

For Gershwin, it
was
all about America—its people, its voices, its cadences, its patchwork of personalities. He captured every morsel of it by embracing the dynamism of the streets while reaching high into the sky. “American music means to me something very specific, something very tangible. It is something indigenous, something autochthonous, something deeply rooted in our soil,” Gershwin wrote in 1929. “In our music we must be able to catch a glimpse of our skyscrapers to feel that overwhelming burst of energy which is bottled in our life, to hear that chaos of noises which suffuses the air of our modern American city.”

B
Y THE END OF HIS SHORT LIFE
, Gershwin had become one of music's most ambitious and admired composers. It was not always easy. Despite seeming effortless, making music was sometimes a nerve-racking affair. “There are times when a phrase of music will cost me many hours of internal sweating,” Gershwin wrote in 1930, when he was 31. “Rhythms romp through my brain, but they're not easy to capture and keep.” Friends later recalled that beneath Gerswhin's luminous joy, a brooding quality lurked, and he suffered from bouts of depression. “George was lonely inside himself,” his sister said.

When he was 35, Gershwin sought out the counsel of a well-known psychoanalyst. For years, he had suffered from “composer's stomach”—indigestion and other intestinal problems—which he linked to the 1922 debut of his opera,
Blue Monday Blues
. And he was struggling with his indecision over whether or not to marry his
great love, Kay Swift. He also hoped to delve deeper into his soul. “I want to know myself so I can know others,” Gershwin said.