"ADHD Isn't A Real Disorder"???

Post Reply New Topic

Even with my stimulant meds, it can talk a lot of time before I can summon the mental stamina needed just to function...What is supposed to give a person energy when amphetamines make you tired, but going without them seems nearly impossible??

I take a huge plethora of herbal supplements, and I have also found that getting out of the dark cave where i live and work makes things a whole lot easier..

ColdBlooded posted: That's what someone i work with said today. I'm diagnosed with Inattentive ADHD along with AS, and i don't think i understand this idea he has that it's not "real." He said something about it just being a group of people who think similarly but not anything medical or a disability. I think i can agree with some of that, because i don't really like the word "disorder" applied to a way of thinking that i don't see anything wrong with.. I don't necessarily see it as a completely bad thing or a defect.. It's a difference. But it certainly can be disabling in many ways, so it definitely is a very real condition. It's similar to how i think of autism. I actually feel a little insulted that someone is acting like something is just another personality trait when i know that it's caused real issues for me.
---

There are a number of (often subtle) neurological challenges such as ADHD Inattentive (which sometimes responds a little to the right central nervous system stimulant - alerting agent - like caffeine, Ritalin, Dexedrine, Adderall and so on) and Petit mal (absence epilepsy/TLE/complex partial - which sometimes responds to an epilepsy med). It's clear that whomever you were talking with at work has zero understanding of the ADHDs and the many epilepsies.

Wow, that's a really good point.

Regarding people being dismissive of it, meh, what can you do. There are still plenty of people who think the moon landing was staged. I know it's real because it's wrecked my career and left me at a loss.

A few years ago, when I almost lost my job I was diagnosed with ADHD and had CBT for it. Pre-therapy and diagnosis, my statistics for processing books at the library I worked in were around 200 a month. With CBT, my numbers tripled to more than 600 a month. Though there maybe be doctors out there who are trigger happy about diagnosing it, there are actually real cases of it and the results of treatment are quantifiable.

This is the very core of the problem that leads into people being over-diagnosed with those so-called disorders.

ADHD is as 'real' as any other properly diagnosed condition. In the 1.5 million years of human evolution being distracted and alert to changes in your environment made you a good hunter. Now it just makes you a liabilty to the monkish life forced upon every child to get an 'education'. That 'education' allows you to sit even more still in a cubicle while you churn out cerebral only output for your daily meals and the roof over your head.

The 'treatment' is to allow your body/mind to become more malleable to becoming their standard, the dutiful student to be made into the dependable cog in modern society. I know, I, too am a legal speed freak these last couple of years solely to facilitate my behavior and keep my job. The Dextromethamphetamine just calms me down. I daresay if I were 'mis diagnosed' I would not have that reaction to the drug.

I would have been a good hunter, though. (ooh! a squirrel!) Damn good!

Merle

I think the main reason because many people denies the existence of ADHD and AS is because both are very easily to confuse with social eccentricity, then these diagnosis provoke a reaction of the type "this is like they did to the dissidents in Russia - if you are different from some established standard, you are labeled as disabled/disordered and subjected to forced treatment".

Imagine a disordered called "Melanin Deficit Disorder" - it is very usual people with MDD to have pale skin, blue eyes and/or blond hair; one of the problems caused by MDD is that people with MDD are much more at risk to sun burns than "DermoTypical" people. Some studies show that MDD is very prevalent in regions like Scandinavia, Germany or Russia.

Some people can argue "MDD is not a real disorder; it is simply a normal variation in human phenotype - typical of the nordic coutries - that was construed as a disorder by the medical establishment".

Then, if someone reply that "melanin levels of people with MDD are different from the melanin levels for normal people" do you think that this prove that "MDD" is real?

I think that there is some misunderstanding of what people who says that "ADHD (or AS...) is not real" are saying - most of these people don't deny that the human phenotype described by the diagnostic criteria of ADHD exists - what they deny is that these phenotype is a distinct disorder instead of simply a point in the normal variation of personality.



Many people in this forum say that, even if they don't acknowledge that - yes, almost nobody at WP write in their posts that "Asperger's syndrome isn't real", but many write things like "I consider Asperger's syndrome as a difference, with advantages and disadvantages, not as a disorder or a disability", who is exactly the same thing as denying the existence of AS.

As I mentioned before I've been diagnosed as having ADHD sense I started school & most docs/psychs I've seen think I could have it but one psych I saw said he did not think I have it. He told me that most docs/psychs who diagnoses that are not properly testing for it. Lots of times the symptoms could be caused by other things & the docs don't want to take the time to investigate. It's a lot easier for en to sign a prescription. Also ADHD meds are more apt to be covered by health insurance than the testing. There's also a lot of misinformation about it out there & lots of times when people to go docs about it; they tell the doc that's what they think is going on & the doc doesn't bother to try to explorer other things. This causes ADHD to be extremely over diagnosed & medicated. Also ADHD mite could help a kid qualify for state Medicaid or special accommodation with school or work. Some people use the label as a crutch so they can avoid responsibility or avoid having to do certain things.

If they weren't using "ADHD" as a crutch, they'd be using the weather or their upbringing or their colleagues. People who are looking for crutches to use won't be stopped just because they have or don't have an ADHD diagnosis.

It sounds like the doctor you were talking to is one of the group of doctors who believes ADHD is actually a symptom with multiple causes; for example, it could be caused by a frontal lobe brain injury, by underdevelopment of the frontal lobe during the prenatal period (similar to the way cerebral palsy originates), by extreme phenotype variants of typical, by high stress and lack of sleep triggering underlying problems, by immaturity of the brain... etc., etc. These doctors often want to call it many different things, by cause; the only problem is that we don't have the technology to detect all those things; we can really only detect the result--the classic constellation of ADHD symptoms.

In many cases, it is simply cheaper, easier, and less time-consuming to make a trial of medication and see if it works than to run multiple thousands of dollars worth of tests; testing medication is a a workable way to find out if you have ADHD, because if you don't, the pills won't work for you. Of course, if you do have ADHD, there's no guarantee meds will work, especially for the inattentive subtype; and in that case there can be further testing.

^^^ That psych made a lot of sense to me & I kind of agree with him. I tried a couple meds for it before & they did not help. He seemed to think some of my childhood issues that were termed ADHD were because I was dyslexic, had an undiagnosed vision disorder & was under a lot of stress because of bullying, If I cant see what the teacher is writing on the board; I'm not going to pay attention to what she's doing there. I never studied at home because I was so stressed out from school that I needed to relax & reading books actually gave me a head-ache sometimes because of my vision issues. I'm an auditory leaner. I did not have problems playing video-games or watching TV for hours & I remembered everything that happened & was said. I wasn't keeping still in class because people kept poking me & doing other things to bully me. I also think some of my issues were because of my AS. Most of the psychs/docs I saw as an adult thought I had ADHD, 4 personality disorders & least 4 other mental disorders all coexisting instead of AS. I was close to a girl years ago who was on Ritalin for ADHD. Her doc insisted she needed it. She only took it when her family was watching & I could tell when she took it before she told me because she was more hyper & had more problems paying attention when she was on it. I know ADHD is a real thing but my point is that lots of the so-called experts who diagnose & treat it can be extremely wrong sometimes.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GWEZbo2UiM[/youtube]

That, too. I've met people with the best intentions saying to me that they felt that the diagnosis of autism or adhd was just like a ball and chain to people given that diagnosis for that reason. That was until I explained that there is a BIG difference between being eccentric and being DISABLED.

+1

great song. just change it to dextromethamphetimine and that is what they have been pumping thorugh me for over a year now, that and all the Celexa (well, if you can take a half tab more, why don't you just try it for a week or two, dear?) I can eat. I do this to just get through the next 6 months at work, but I don't think I am going to be able to hold out before my big mouth gets me in trouble.

Merle

ADHD is real but its cause has been linked to pesticides and hormones in food.
A study was done in a NY alternative school and they had ADHD run rampant at this school...nearly half the kids were in some sort of disiplinary program...ISS, detention etc
and the pricipal who was also a psychologist ordered that the school lunches be 100 percent organic. Within a week, disiplinary actions decreased dramaticly and the whole school improved. Not only that grades went up 1-2 letter grades by the next report card.

The hormones and chemicals in our food is toxic to a developing brain.
In fact, most of europe has strict labeling of GMO and a handful of brave european scientists have found that GMO causes damage to every organ in the bodies of lab mice compaired to the organs of mice that were fed organic food.

you dont have to eat all organic that is too exspensive
but avoid
all non organic:
corn and corn products
soy and soy products
tomatoes
potatoes
dairy
beef
fruits and vegtables that you eat the skin
canola oil
papaya
and soon...Samon
and read labels: if you cant pronounce it...and your mama never used it in her cooking...more than likely it is some chemical or hormone

Not going to bother with reading this whole thread. I have ADHD.

ADHD is a neurological disorder. Just because someone says it isn't doesn't make it so. Evidence has been found to prove that it is. And no it's not pesticides. You're born with ADHD, symptoms take a bit of time to show. Oh and Jojo, not every kid with ADHD is a bad kid. I eat really healthy and exercise but I still have ADHD.

My inattentive ADHD symptoms are impairing. If I didn't have my meds I'd be sitting on couch all day and hating everyone. I'm just really moody and lack motivation. It's easy for me to become depressed too. Even the hyperactive symptoms are hard to deal with because I'm impulsive, forgetful, get angry quickly and I'm not able to concentrate.

If ADHD isn't a disorder then why did I get diagnosed and why do I need to take medication to spend a few hours reading a book, studying physics or cleaning my bedroom?

Oh and I love my Ritalin. I'd still be the fogged up brain lethargic person I used to be. Stimulants don't always work for the inattentive kind but mine work for me. That song is BS. Ritalin changed my life. It gives me a reason to keep going.

Sorry, can't buy the first half of that. I wish we lived in a world where people didn't get diagnosed with things that aren't disorders. People used to get diagnosed with homosexuality. That didn't make it a disorder. Just because someone makes a diagnostic label and thinks something is a disorder doesn't make it so.

(Yes, folks, I'm answering a question like it's a statement. I'm pretty sure from reading it in the context of her whole post that it was a rhetorical question, and I answered it as such.)

Well, as I said before, It certainly disorders me. Perhaps because I have the inattentive type and don't have the benefit of quick thought processes.