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I think this quote sums up the article's heavy handed, decidedly outdated view on mental health. > ADHD drug abuse had become so commonplace on college campus

I think this quote sums up the article's heavy handed, decidedly outdated view on mental health. > ADHD drug abuse had become so commonplace on college campuses that Wesleyan University, among other prominent institutions, has tried to ban it altogether. ADHD is a diagnosed medical disorder that affects millions of people in America. Why do we still stigmatize it in the modern age?

taxicabjesus 10y ago
> ADHD is a diagnosed medical disorder that affects millions of people in America. Why do we still stigmatize it in the modern age? ADHD is a meaningless psychiatric diagnostic [1] of symptoms, not cause. The diagnosis is used to put millions of people in America on maintenance doses of addictive psychotropic drugs. Routine use of amphetamines almost always causes people's mental conditions to worsen, eventually. Tonight one of my regular taxi passengers txt-messaged to ask if I was working. I was exhausted one night, when he was going home from the gay strip club, so I stopped at the coffee shop that was half-way between the strip club and his mother's house. I was like, "so... what's your story?" When the passenger was in high school, he was diagnosed with ADHD. The doctor got him addicted to Ritalin, or one of the other legal prescription amphetamines. At first the amphetamine was great, but then side effects developed. Then he developed some legal troubles, which led to living in a halfway house, with hostile housemates... Anyways... He's a bit of a mess... probably early or mid-30's... his mother pays his taxi fares. He had a job at the baseball stadium, but then he got fired. Last I saw him, he was collecting unemployment insurance. People... people are interesting. This passenger didn't use "ridesharing" because he can't manage his money well enough, iirc. [1] https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-doctor-isnt-in/ https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-doctor-isnt-... and https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/how-psychiatry-lost-its-way/ https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/how-psychiatry-l...
- SolaceQuantum 10y ago
  >Routine use of amphetamines almost always causes people's mental conditions to worsen, eventually. I've not heard this before..do you have a source? Quite interested.
  - taxicabjesus 10y ago
    I don't have a specific source, it's just the impression that I get from having talked to a few people who had trouble with meth amphetamine. One friend's husband brought cocaine home. That was nice, but it got expensive, so they switched to Meth. After a while she realized she didn't like what it was doing to her personality, so she quit. Then the anxiety started. Xanax helped her not care, then she discovered Alcohol... Here's a random quote from a mainstream medical source: "Mood disorders similar to hypomania and mania can be elicited during intoxication with amphetamines. Depression can occur during withdrawal, and repeated use of amphetamines can produce antidepressant-resistant amphetamine-induced depression. ..." - "Amphetamine-Related Psychiatric Disorders" (emphasis added), http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/289973-overview http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/289973-overview Mad in America makes the case that mental health treatment is a make-work endeavor. http://www.madinamerica.com/ http://www.madinamerica.com/
    - tlrobinson 10y ago
      Are you really comparing meth to ADHD drugs?
      - taxicabjesus 10y ago
        Whoever wrote the Wikipedia page on Ritalin [1] conflates Amphatamine and methylphenidate. "Amphetamine" appears on 24 times on Ritalin's page, 5 times as "amphetamine and methylphenidate" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylphenidate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylphenidate Adderall [2] is an amphetamine. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adderall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adderall
        tlrobinson 10y ago
        I know they're amphetamines, but surely there's a big difference between that and smoking street meth (which is what I assume your friend switched to from cocaine)
      - idra 10y ago
- Throwaway23412 10y ago
  First of all, ADHD is hardly the only disease or disorder with an unclear cause. Alzheimer's, autism, and fibromyalgia come to mind. Second of all, here is a comprehensive list of peer-reviewed studies defending the existence of ADHD and the efficacy of amphetamines for ADHD (much better than some random anecdote of an improperly diagnosed taxi passenger): https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/3at2u2/psa_the_existence_of_adhd_has_been_shown_by https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/3at2u2/psa_the_existe... Admittedly, psychologists seem to have a problem properly diagnosing it, but let's not diminish a disorder suffered by millions every day.
  - taxicabjesus 10y ago
    Robert Whitaker makes the case in Anatomy of an Epidemic [1] that psychiatric medications amplify the problems they supposedly treat. [1] http://www.madinamerica.com/product/62043/ http://www.madinamerica.com/product/62043/
- reitanqild 10y ago
  Did you ever stop to think if possibly it could have been worse without R or whatever? Oh, most likely not R, because it doesn't cause addiction if taken according to prescription.
  - teslabox 10y ago
    I wonder how humanity ever got anything done, before we had stimulants to treat our ADHD.
    - reitanqild 10y ago
      Two pointers, assuming good faith: * Many didn't cope. * Also there were more physical work to be done.
      - teslabox 10y ago
        When children are put in unnatural environments that are totally incompatible with the way children's minds actually work, they will not do well. Children should be actively learning, but school puts them in desks. I could have been diagnosed as ADHD in college. This was not a biological problem, but that I didn't care about my classes. Stimulants might have helped me focus better, but ... why? Robert Whitaker [1], author of Mad in America and Anatomy of an Epidemic, has looked into these matters, and concluded that the medications make people's conditions worse. [1] http://www.madinamerica.com/ http://www.madinamerica.com/
        reitanqild 10y ago
        > Robert Whitaker [1], author of Mad in America and Anatomy of an Epidemic, has looked into these matters, and concluded that the medications make people's conditions worse. Sure, I agree that the school isn't making it any better but lashing out against the things that work in lessening the pain given our current theoretical overload? Remember, we don't need to go further back than my childhood before woodworking and sewing was a school subject, as was cooking (yeap, real food: fish, meat and vegs). One generation back and my dad grew up with a work horse, dairy cows, dairy goats and sheep. And so on and so on. Evolution doesn't move that fast. Banning or further restricting (i.e. beyond todays standard where you need something line 7 years of medical scool) the best solutions we have doesn't sound like something I would support.
misja111 10y ago
> ADHD is a diagnosed medical disorder that affects millions of people in America. 4.4% of Americans are supposed to have ADHD (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16585449 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16585449). One starts to wonder if all those people really are suffering from a medical disorder, or if it is just a character trait. I would say a disorder is something which makes it difficult or impossible to function in life. Is that the case for 4.4% of the Americans? How would their ancestors have been surviving for all those thousands of years before Ritalin had been invented? There are more and more people who have a different view on ADHD: that it has both its bad and its good sides, and that focusing on the good sides of ADHD is the way to deal with it, rather than trying to suppress the symptoms with medicine. See for instance http://www.forbes.com/sites/dalearcher/2014/05/14/adhd-the-entrepreneurs-superpower/#170e98917063 http://www.forbes.com/sites/dalearcher/2014/05/14/adhd-the-e...
- rbanffy 10y ago
  > How would their ancestors have been surviving for all those thousands of years before Ritalin had been invented? Different demands. I was diagnosed with ADHD and started medication. At that time, I was an engineer doing the problematic, bleeding-edge R&D-ish stuff pretty much by myself with close support of a small team and needed to focus, something that never came easy to me. The company was acquired, I moved on and accepted a technical management position at a much smaller place. Being constantly interrupted annoyed me and I stopped the medication (my psychiatrist agreeing). Without it, I felt again more at ease spread over more, different tasks. So, to answer your question, people survived by doing jobs that didn't demand the kind of focus that's difficult for people with ADHD. Such jobs, sadly, are not abundant anymore or evenly distributed geographically.

taxicabjesus 10y ago

> ADHD is a diagnosed medical disorder that affects millions of people in America. Why do we still stigmatize it in the modern age? ADHD is a meaningless psychiatric diagnostic [1] of symptoms, not cause. The diagnosis is used to put millions of people in America on maintenance doses of addictive psychotropic drugs. Routine use of amphetamines almost always causes people's mental conditions to worsen, eventually. Tonight one of my regular taxi passengers txt-messaged to ask if I was working. I was exhausted one night, when he was going home from the gay strip club, so I stopped at the coffee shop that was half-way between the strip club and his mother's house. I was like, "so... what's your story?" When the passenger was in high school, he was diagnosed with ADHD. The doctor got him addicted to Ritalin, or one of the other legal prescription amphetamines. At first the amphetamine was great, but then side effects developed. Then he developed some legal troubles, which led to living in a halfway house, with hostile housemates... Anyways... He's a bit of a mess... probably early or mid-30's... his mother pays his taxi fares. He had a job at the baseball stadium, but then he got fired. Last I saw him, he was collecting unemployment insurance. People... people are interesting. This passenger didn't use "ridesharing" because he can't manage his money well enough, iirc. [1] https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-doctor-isnt-in/ https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/the-doctor-isnt-... and https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/how-psychiatry-lost-its-way/ https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/how-psychiatry-l...

SolaceQuantum 10y ago
>Routine use of amphetamines almost always causes people's mental conditions to worsen, eventually. I've not heard this before..do you have a source? Quite interested.
- taxicabjesus 10y ago
  I don't have a specific source, it's just the impression that I get from having talked to a few people who had trouble with meth amphetamine. One friend's husband brought cocaine home. That was nice, but it got expensive, so they switched to Meth. After a while she realized she didn't like what it was doing to her personality, so she quit. Then the anxiety started. Xanax helped her not care, then she discovered Alcohol... Here's a random quote from a mainstream medical source: "Mood disorders similar to hypomania and mania can be elicited during intoxication with amphetamines. Depression can occur during withdrawal, and repeated use of amphetamines can produce antidepressant-resistant amphetamine-induced depression. ..." - "Amphetamine-Related Psychiatric Disorders" (emphasis added), http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/289973-overview http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/289973-overview Mad in America makes the case that mental health treatment is a make-work endeavor. http://www.madinamerica.com/ http://www.madinamerica.com/
  - tlrobinson 10y ago
    Are you really comparing meth to ADHD drugs?
    - taxicabjesus 10y ago
      Whoever wrote the Wikipedia page on Ritalin [1] conflates Amphatamine and methylphenidate. "Amphetamine" appears on 24 times on Ritalin's page, 5 times as "amphetamine and methylphenidate" [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylphenidate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methylphenidate Adderall [2] is an amphetamine. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adderall https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adderall
      - tlrobinson 10y ago
        I know they're amphetamines, but surely there's a big difference between that and smoking street meth (which is what I assume your friend switched to from cocaine)
    - idra 10y ago
Throwaway23412 10y ago
First of all, ADHD is hardly the only disease or disorder with an unclear cause. Alzheimer's, autism, and fibromyalgia come to mind. Second of all, here is a comprehensive list of peer-reviewed studies defending the existence of ADHD and the efficacy of amphetamines for ADHD (much better than some random anecdote of an improperly diagnosed taxi passenger): https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/3at2u2/psa_the_existence_of_adhd_has_been_shown_by https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/comments/3at2u2/psa_the_existe... Admittedly, psychologists seem to have a problem properly diagnosing it, but let's not diminish a disorder suffered by millions every day.
- taxicabjesus 10y ago
  Robert Whitaker makes the case in Anatomy of an Epidemic [1] that psychiatric medications amplify the problems they supposedly treat. [1] http://www.madinamerica.com/product/62043/ http://www.madinamerica.com/product/62043/
reitanqild 10y ago
Did you ever stop to think if possibly it could have been worse without R or whatever? Oh, most likely not R, because it doesn't cause addiction if taken according to prescription.
- teslabox 10y ago
  I wonder how humanity ever got anything done, before we had stimulants to treat our ADHD.
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    Two pointers, assuming good faith: * Many didn't cope. * Also there were more physical work to be done.
    - teslabox 10y ago
      When children are put in unnatural environments that are totally incompatible with the way children's minds actually work, they will not do well. Children should be actively learning, but school puts them in desks. I could have been diagnosed as ADHD in college. This was not a biological problem, but that I didn't care about my classes. Stimulants might have helped me focus better, but ... why? Robert Whitaker [1], author of Mad in America and Anatomy of an Epidemic, has looked into these matters, and concluded that the medications make people's conditions worse. [1] http://www.madinamerica.com/ http://www.madinamerica.com/
      - reitanqild 10y ago
        > Robert Whitaker [1], author of Mad in America and Anatomy of an Epidemic, has looked into these matters, and concluded that the medications make people's conditions worse. Sure, I agree that the school isn't making it any better but lashing out against the things that work in lessening the pain given our current theoretical overload? Remember, we don't need to go further back than my childhood before woodworking and sewing was a school subject, as was cooking (yeap, real food: fish, meat and vegs). One generation back and my dad grew up with a work horse, dairy cows, dairy goats and sheep. And so on and so on. Evolution doesn't move that fast. Banning or further restricting (i.e. beyond todays standard where you need something line 7 years of medical scool) the best solutions we have doesn't sound like something I would support.

misja111 10y ago

> ADHD is a diagnosed medical disorder that affects millions of people in America. 4.4% of Americans are supposed to have ADHD (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16585449 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16585449). One starts to wonder if all those people really are suffering from a medical disorder, or if it is just a character trait. I would say a disorder is something which makes it difficult or impossible to function in life. Is that the case for 4.4% of the Americans? How would their ancestors have been surviving for all those thousands of years before Ritalin had been invented? There are more and more people who have a different view on ADHD: that it has both its bad and its good sides, and that focusing on the good sides of ADHD is the way to deal with it, rather than trying to suppress the symptoms with medicine. See for instance http://www.forbes.com/sites/dalearcher/2014/05/14/adhd-the-entrepreneurs-superpower/#170e98917063 http://www.forbes.com/sites/dalearcher/2014/05/14/adhd-the-e...

rbanffy 10y ago
> How would their ancestors have been surviving for all those thousands of years before Ritalin had been invented? Different demands. I was diagnosed with ADHD and started medication. At that time, I was an engineer doing the problematic, bleeding-edge R&D-ish stuff pretty much by myself with close support of a small team and needed to focus, something that never came easy to me. The company was acquired, I moved on and accepted a technical management position at a much smaller place. Being constantly interrupted annoyed me and I stopped the medication (my psychiatrist agreeing). Without it, I felt again more at ease spread over more, different tasks. So, to answer your question, people survived by doing jobs that didn't demand the kind of focus that's difficult for people with ADHD. Such jobs, sadly, are not abundant anymore or evenly distributed geographically.