Inventor of ADHD says ADHD is a fictitious disease

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droppy
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31 Dec 2013, 7:13 pm

hanyo wrote:
I never thought I could have ADHD because I'm not hyperactive but since I joined this site and learned about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_deficit_hyperactivity_disorder_predominantly_inattentive I thought every symptom listed describes me.

That's the subtype I am diagnosed with.
During elementary school teachers yelled at me and treated me like s**t because they thought that would have been useful to motivate me because they thought that ADD made me a lazy and stupid child... Obtaining the opposite result :lol:
Instead of getting more motivated and "disciplined" I got less and less motivated and disciplined and developed behaviours that made my mother and teachers think I had oppositional defiant disorder. I still struggle with symptoms of it around teachers and peers or adults that make me uncomfortable. Not to mention that those teachers lowered my self-esteem because it happened that whatever I did was not enough to them. Until I stopped caring of course.
In middle school no one did anything about it, except in 8th grade when my mother found Asperger's online, thought I had it and got me diagnosed. And droppy gained one more excuse
:lol:
When I was 14 I was then diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or two as well. I can't exactly remember which.
Now I am in HS and teachers seem to understand. I am in a much nicer school with much nicer classmates.
My mother went to talk to the teacher I hate and she found out she has a son of 13 diagnosed with Asperger's. She told my mother she will "keep an eye on me" now. That makes me freak out. I wish my mother hadn't told her about Asperger's. She could just have told her about ADD and the anxiety issues.



Verdandi
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31 Dec 2013, 9:14 pm

pete1061 wrote:
:lmao:

I knew it!

The really hilarious part is that even with the guy admitting it's made up, people are STILL clutching on.

As for Ritalin: A friend of mine was on Ritalin as a child, he's 31 now and has a permanent jitter in his hands. yeah, good stuff.

Guess what? ALL children have lots of energy and don't pay attention. That's what kids do!
As for adults, a fast paced society forcing people to juggle a million things will have that effect.


Don't listen to this person. He's ignorant and expresses his ignorance as if it were true knowledge.

I mean, look at the way he latches onto the most threadbare reasoning as to ADHD being "made up" and ignoring all of the discussion that follows - or at least describing such discussion as "clutching on."

This sort of thing is one of the reasons Wrong Planet is basically terrible when it comes to disability solidarity. Too many people here are focused too much on their own perspectives and unwilling to accept others might have valid problems. And no, this isn't an autistic thing. Lots of people of all neurologies do this.

Pete1061,

Do us all a favor and just stop.



droppy
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01 Jan 2014, 5:40 am

babybird wrote:
It must be real otherwise the meds wouldn't work. :?

+1
Meds don't work with children that are simply hyper/forgetful but don't have ADHD/ADD. I know because I have heard about some kids that during childhood were wrongly diagnosed with ADHD back when the condition was overdiagnosed simply due to being hyper/forgetful/impulsive and the meds did not work for them but their parents stated that the hyperactivity worsened.
Personally, the med I take works for me and has never given me side-effects or rashes. And I have taken it almost every day for 5 years.
But I heard that psychiatrists think that there is at least a 20% of the people with ADHD/ADD for whom regular ADHD meds don't work.



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01 Jan 2014, 6:07 am

droppy wrote:
But I heard that psychiatrists think that there is at least a 20% of the people with ADHD/ADD for whom regular ADHD meds don't work.


This is especially common in ppl with ADD who are not hyperactive. Somehow ADHD is in average better treatable with meds than ADD.
I'm dx with ADD and I think it's correct because also my brother had ADHD, just that I'm the inatentive type.
I started trying meds two or three months ago and actually they help, but at a lower level than for most ppl who have ADHD. That is also very common in ppl with ADD that the meds start working earlyer than with ppl who have ADHD. Now I'm getting some really nasty side effects since 2 weeks I guess and I hope it helps when I just reduce the dosage. :?


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droppy
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01 Jan 2014, 9:39 am

Raziel wrote:
droppy wrote:
But I heard that psychiatrists think that there is at least a 20% of the people with ADHD/ADD for whom regular ADHD meds don't work.


This is especially common in ppl with ADD who are not hyperactive. Somehow ADHD is in average better treatable with meds than ADD.
I'm dx with ADD and I think it's correct because also my brother had ADHD, just that I'm the inatentive type.
I started trying meds two or three months ago and actually they help, but at a lower level than for most ppl who have ADHD. That is also very common in ppl with ADD that the meds start working earlyer than with ppl who have ADHD. Now I'm getting some really nasty side effects since 2 weeks I guess and I hope it helps when I just reduce the dosage. :?

Well, I have the inattentive subtype as well and it works well for me.
I take my med in the morning (but only if I have to go to school or do homework), before lunch and before dinner. Then I take another med to help me sleep, but the principles on which the two meds work are the same (aka, they contain basically the same substances). Recently I had to very slightly increase the dosage of this second med but I had no side effects. It actually helps me get asleep more easily.



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01 Jan 2014, 10:36 am

Verdandi wrote:
Also, Snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/adhd.asp

I can't copy paste from Snopes for some reason, but read it. It appears that Dr. Leon Eisenberg did not say ADHD is fictitious. He said it is overdiagnosed. Der Spiegel also published an interview Dr. Jerome Kagan, who referred to ADHD as an "invention."


Thank you.



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01 Jan 2014, 12:15 pm

I was medicated for ADD when I was a kid and the pills were the wrong kind for me and didn't really work according to my mother. Why did they keep me on them then? I even wonder if I actually had ADD and she told me me getting treatment for it wasn't working either so she knew I had something else. I was impulsive, hyper, fidgeted, had a short attention span, my mind was disorganized, and I also said things without being aware of it. One doctor said the reason for my "short attention span" was due to one side of my brain going too fast and the other side going too slow so it was affecting how I process the information so that also made me wonder. But I was never forgetful like ADHD kids were and I didn't go losing things I cared about. I do remember getting easily distracted and had a hard time focusing on my school work.


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01 Jan 2014, 12:26 pm

Verdandi wrote:
pete1061 wrote:
:lmao:

I knew it!

The really hilarious part is that even with the guy admitting it's made up, people are STILL clutching on.

As for Ritalin: A friend of mine was on Ritalin as a child, he's 31 now and has a permanent jitter in his hands. yeah, good stuff.

Guess what? ALL children have lots of energy and don't pay attention. That's what kids do!
As for adults, a fast paced society forcing people to juggle a million things will have that effect.


Don't listen to this person. He's ignorant and expresses his ignorance as if it were true knowledge.

I mean, look at the way he latches onto the most threadbare reasoning as to ADHD being "made up" and ignoring all of the discussion that follows - or at least describing such discussion as "clutching on."

This sort of thing is one of the reasons Wrong Planet is basically terrible when it comes to disability solidarity. Too many people here are focused too much on their own perspectives and unwilling to accept others might have valid problems. And no, this isn't an autistic thing. Lots of people of all neurologies do this.

Pete1061,

Do us all a favor and just stop.


Precisely. I'm amazed when disabled people are unable to comprehend that other people might be disabled as well. 8O

Additionally, I get tired of people who want to look down their noses at psychiatric medication. No, it's hardly a perfect solution, but, for some of us, it's the only solution that works. I have ADHD-I, and, for me, the benefits of meds far outweigh the risks, and anyone who who wants to judge me for it can blow it out their sanctimonious bungholes.


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01 Jan 2014, 11:27 pm

I think the name attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a misnomer. Not every person diagnosed with ADHD is hyperactive. That's why there is an inattentive subtype.

People with ADHD have trouble prioritizing and regulating impulses. It presents in some people as hyperactivity, and in other people as sluggishness, or a person can have a combination of both.

The attention problems are not necessarily a "deficit" of attention, or short attention span. It's a problem of choosing WHAT you pay attention to, and for how long. You can get stuck on one thing and perseverate, or you can flit from one thing to another like a gnat.

I believe ADHD is really a disinhibition disorder, with some sensory processing issues (mostly hearing related). Inhibition is a big part of what enables a person to choose what they pay attention to. It helps you filter out distractions and background noises so you can stay focused on something.

Most of the time when I see people go on about how "it's not real," they have a lot of misunderstandings about what ADHD really is to begin with. Some people read a list of symptoms and they think, everyone has those problems sometimes, but if you try harder you can just get over it. Or they think it's just kids being kids and they will grow out of it. It's not like that. It's a pervasive disorder that affects every aspect of a person's life.



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02 Jan 2014, 6:39 pm

It is true everyone experiences those things sometimes. The distinction people fail to grasp is that with ADHD these problems are intense enough to cause serious difficulties in multiple areas of one's life.

I am not sure where most people fall in terms of these symptoms, but the people diagnosed with ADHD tend to be in the top 10% for severity.



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02 Jan 2014, 6:44 pm

My guess is that the "inventor of ADHD" realized that ADHD was growing beyond them, was getting to be defined by other people; they're no longer able to prescribe what ADHD is and who has it and doesn't. So they're a bit annoyed and start saying, "Everybody else who's saying stuff about ADHD, they're all wrong. It's not like that. My definition's the one that's right." No longer able to call the shots, they lash out at the people who are redefining ADHD into a useful construct that applies to more people than the original description refers to, by saying that ADHD is "fictitious".

It's a bit petty, but that's scientists for you.


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