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This is an unfortunate point of view and is damaging to those legitimately suffering with issues related to ADHD and similar diagnoses. As a child I struggled

This is an unfortunate point of view and is damaging to those legitimately suffering with issues related to ADHD and similar diagnoses. As a child I struggled with ADHD, it’s not a state of mind. It’s not a decision. It’s a chemical imbalance that make a child’s innate lack of self control, and poor ability to self regulate something as simple as idle movements, orders of magnitude more difficult. I’m not commenting on over/under diagnosing of ADHD, I’m commenting on a condition that some individuals legitimately deal with. Some find themselves unable to focus on tasks, or get labeled the weird kid in their peer group because of behaviors they don’t even realize they’re doing. Now I am older, I’ve learned strategies to self regulate. I’ve learned how to turn that energy into a strength. Often times I can channel that energy into my work, but I’ve also learned when I need to seek assistance either through medication, or taking some time away from work, or using my partner as a sounding board. I have 3 kids of my own now, and I see the same struggles in one of my sons. I see it now from the perspective my parent saw it from. As a parent I didn’t want to medicate my child if it wasn’t necessary, I wanted to help him develop his own strategies to deal with his condition. But he lacks the insight and self-awareness that I developed with age and with the help of the medication. Medication that helped me to see what was possible, helped me to slow down, and helped me to understand myself and how my behaviors were affecting the world around me. Medication that I’ve seen change my sons life at school, how he interacts with his peers, his ability to constructively participate in Boy Scouts, his ability to be more patient with his older sister and younger brother. He still struggles, the medication isn’t a panacea, but it has given him the ability to improve himself. Hopefully, one day he won’t need the medication regularly. He will make that decision when the time comes. But right now, nobody needs people like you saying “ADHD is a fictional illness”. Your opinion does not convey any value to those who have to deal with it in their daily lives. Just because it isn’t your reality does not make it a non-real issue.

voidwtf 4y ago
p.s. for people who have a hard time understanding how an amphetamine can help someone with this type of condition. Everyone is different, and most people experience a stimulant effect from amphetamines. I do not, my son does not, amphetamines significantly calm and slow us down. With the correct time delayed dosage, the world feels less “exciting” and things that were distractions or often stole my focus just become background noise. It’s not a feeling I particularly like, but the best thing I can compare it to is like a washing machine getting off balance and knocking around, sometimes you just need to slow it down and let it settle for a little bit.
34679 4y ago
> I’m not commenting on over/under diagnosing of ADHD, I’m commenting on a condition that some individuals legitimately deal with. Some find themselves unable to focus on tasks, or get labeled the weird kid in their peer group because of behaviors they don’t even realize they’re doing. I'm of the opinion that there's nothing wrong with that. I lean more towards the acceptance side of things. Humans are diverse in many ways. I don't believe we should be attempting to stifle that with drugs. Maybe there's value in your inability to sit still and flaws in the paradigm that asks you to? >Medication that I’ve seen change my sons life at school, how he interacts with his peers, his ability to constructively participate in Boy Scouts, his ability to be more patient with his older sister and younger brother. He still struggles, the medication isn’t a panacea, but it has given him the ability to improve himself. Is it not possible that your son would have developed these skills with age, without the aid of amphetamine? Kids are kids. They have a lot to learn. We shouldn't expect, or desire, every child to develop in the same ways at the same time. What would be left to celebrate? Normies don't change the world.
- voidwtf 4y ago
  One could say the same about many conditions or qualities one might be born with, in fact many deaf people don’t consider their inability to hear as an impairment. There is a rich deaf culture and entire schools dedicated to deaf students. However, that’s where you have to meet reality where it is, not where you want it to be. Mental illness typically begins not with the condition but when that condition impairs the individuals ability to operate within the parameters of the society they are a member of. When the condition impairs their ability to meet their own definition of success or happiness. My son was not happy with the way other kids treated him, it hurt me to see him hurt. My son was not happy in school, he thought the teacher was mean and didn’t like him because she wouldn’t give him enough time to finish his school work, and would force him to switch tasks with the rest of the class. My son was not happy that his older sister often didn’t want to play with him. Was my son doing something wrong? He just wanted to play, he wanted to run the fastest, bounce the ball the most, just go crazy. But sometimes the other kids wanted a break, sometimes they wanted rules to the game, sometimes they wanted him to stop. He could get so worked up he couldn’t just “stop”. In school he understood all the material, it was easy for him, he could read better than most of his peers, critical thinking tasks were easy for him. However, focus and time management were completely out of his grasp. The teacher wasn’t mean, she just had more material to teach him, they had to move in to the next topic. When he would get excited, that excitement would become intensity, that intensity would alienate him from his peers and sometimes from his older sister. His biggest advocate and ardent defender would want space away from him. Maybe the paradigm is flawed, but sometimes a train without brakes is just a train without brakes.
faeriechangling 4y ago
As time has gone on the less sympathetic I've gotten to labels like "ADHD" and the more I've thought we should just make amphetamines not require a dx, although they should probably still require a doctors supervision. The whole concept that a doctor has to say there's something wrong with you to get drugs I find to be very patronising. If somebody has trouble focusing, they can just take some drugs and fill out some planners, they don't need to be labelled using an acronym. I'm not convinced ADHD is an illness either, but this isn't really specific to ADHD, I'm pretty sceptical of the entire DSM model and our need to give people a label or a combination of labels. I was diagnosed with ADHD in the aftermath of the most extreme abuse of my life because I didn't focus in class. I think a lot of the point of the label was making the adults feel like they were "helping me with an illness" rather than making an abused kid swallow strong drugs in order to keep up in this unforgiving world. In the entire diagnostic process nobody so much as asked me what had happened in the previous year. Even when I hear arguments like this, it's pleading practicality and nessecity. We need the label so he can get these drugs. We need the label so we can do X and Y. Only the label can give me true understanding of who I really am. But the label is incidental to all of this stuff, there's no reason you actually need this specific label. I'm almost certain the main reason we have these labels at all is so present the labelled as pathetic enough to be worthy of insurance coverage.
- buffington 4y ago
  > I'm not convinced ADHD is an illness either Do you believe you have ADHD now? I was fortunate to have some FMRI (I believe that's the tech) work done years ago, shortly after I was diagnosed with ADHD. The imagining made it so blatantly obvious that my brain was different than normal brains. Where a normal brain would light up like crazy for a given stimulus, mine looked like a black hole. There are certainly bio/physical differences. That said, I came into this comment thinking I'd take the stance of "of course it's a disease," but I think I've warmed up somewhat to what I think is your argument: lets stop with the labels. What holds me back from getting on board is that it's not like a headache. I can't just be like "oh, I'm feeling scattered" and take a pill when I need to. That "I'm feeling scattered" is 100% of the time. So I'm still in the "it's for sure a disease" camp. But I really don't care all that much in the end - I just want to make sure people stop hogging what allows me to even have a job and family.

voidwtf 4y ago

p.s. for people who have a hard time understanding how an amphetamine can help someone with this type of condition. Everyone is different, and most people experience a stimulant effect from amphetamines. I do not, my son does not, amphetamines significantly calm and slow us down. With the correct time delayed dosage, the world feels less “exciting” and things that were distractions or often stole my focus just become background noise. It’s not a feeling I particularly like, but the best thing I can compare it to is like a washing machine getting off balance and knocking around, sometimes you just need to slow it down and let it settle for a little bit.

34679 4y ago

> I’m not commenting on over/under diagnosing of ADHD, I’m commenting on a condition that some individuals legitimately deal with. Some find themselves unable to focus on tasks, or get labeled the weird kid in their peer group because of behaviors they don’t even realize they’re doing. I'm of the opinion that there's nothing wrong with that. I lean more towards the acceptance side of things. Humans are diverse in many ways. I don't believe we should be attempting to stifle that with drugs. Maybe there's value in your inability to sit still and flaws in the paradigm that asks you to? >Medication that I’ve seen change my sons life at school, how he interacts with his peers, his ability to constructively participate in Boy Scouts, his ability to be more patient with his older sister and younger brother. He still struggles, the medication isn’t a panacea, but it has given him the ability to improve himself. Is it not possible that your son would have developed these skills with age, without the aid of amphetamine? Kids are kids. They have a lot to learn. We shouldn't expect, or desire, every child to develop in the same ways at the same time. What would be left to celebrate? Normies don't change the world.

voidwtf 4y ago
One could say the same about many conditions or qualities one might be born with, in fact many deaf people don’t consider their inability to hear as an impairment. There is a rich deaf culture and entire schools dedicated to deaf students. However, that’s where you have to meet reality where it is, not where you want it to be. Mental illness typically begins not with the condition but when that condition impairs the individuals ability to operate within the parameters of the society they are a member of. When the condition impairs their ability to meet their own definition of success or happiness. My son was not happy with the way other kids treated him, it hurt me to see him hurt. My son was not happy in school, he thought the teacher was mean and didn’t like him because she wouldn’t give him enough time to finish his school work, and would force him to switch tasks with the rest of the class. My son was not happy that his older sister often didn’t want to play with him. Was my son doing something wrong? He just wanted to play, he wanted to run the fastest, bounce the ball the most, just go crazy. But sometimes the other kids wanted a break, sometimes they wanted rules to the game, sometimes they wanted him to stop. He could get so worked up he couldn’t just “stop”. In school he understood all the material, it was easy for him, he could read better than most of his peers, critical thinking tasks were easy for him. However, focus and time management were completely out of his grasp. The teacher wasn’t mean, she just had more material to teach him, they had to move in to the next topic. When he would get excited, that excitement would become intensity, that intensity would alienate him from his peers and sometimes from his older sister. His biggest advocate and ardent defender would want space away from him. Maybe the paradigm is flawed, but sometimes a train without brakes is just a train without brakes.

faeriechangling 4y ago

As time has gone on the less sympathetic I've gotten to labels like "ADHD" and the more I've thought we should just make amphetamines not require a dx, although they should probably still require a doctors supervision. The whole concept that a doctor has to say there's something wrong with you to get drugs I find to be very patronising. If somebody has trouble focusing, they can just take some drugs and fill out some planners, they don't need to be labelled using an acronym. I'm not convinced ADHD is an illness either, but this isn't really specific to ADHD, I'm pretty sceptical of the entire DSM model and our need to give people a label or a combination of labels. I was diagnosed with ADHD in the aftermath of the most extreme abuse of my life because I didn't focus in class. I think a lot of the point of the label was making the adults feel like they were "helping me with an illness" rather than making an abused kid swallow strong drugs in order to keep up in this unforgiving world. In the entire diagnostic process nobody so much as asked me what had happened in the previous year. Even when I hear arguments like this, it's pleading practicality and nessecity. We need the label so he can get these drugs. We need the label so we can do X and Y. Only the label can give me true understanding of who I really am. But the label is incidental to all of this stuff, there's no reason you actually need this specific label. I'm almost certain the main reason we have these labels at all is so present the labelled as pathetic enough to be worthy of insurance coverage.

buffington 4y ago
> I'm not convinced ADHD is an illness either Do you believe you have ADHD now? I was fortunate to have some FMRI (I believe that's the tech) work done years ago, shortly after I was diagnosed with ADHD. The imagining made it so blatantly obvious that my brain was different than normal brains. Where a normal brain would light up like crazy for a given stimulus, mine looked like a black hole. There are certainly bio/physical differences. That said, I came into this comment thinking I'd take the stance of "of course it's a disease," but I think I've warmed up somewhat to what I think is your argument: lets stop with the labels. What holds me back from getting on board is that it's not like a headache. I can't just be like "oh, I'm feeling scattered" and take a pill when I need to. That "I'm feeling scattered" is 100% of the time. So I'm still in the "it's for sure a disease" camp. But I really don't care all that much in the end - I just want to make sure people stop hogging what allows me to even have a job and family.