The Myth of ADHD

What is it about adhd that threatens so many people? A random google search on the topic will bring up a countless number of people dismissing it as a myth, or some grand pharmaceutical grand conspiracy. It’s ridiculous!

As someone with adhd, I’d like to address some of their concerns directly. Before I do, I’d like to note that most of the anti-adhd screeds concern kids. I respect and appreciate people’s desire to protect children. Quite frankly, I’m glad they’re out there! But the idea that adhd is a myth does nothing but cloud their message, and in my opinion, discredit the authors.

I will be using myself as an example of a person with adhd. It’s true! My diagnosis and treatment has been a very positive life-changing event, just as taking penicillin when I had the flu was life-changing. In essence, from sick and miserable to alive and well. My risk in using myself as the example is that it can be labeled anecdotal and dismissed. That’s fine, because any person with adhd can read my blog and know it’s not anecdotal. It’s real.

For the purpose of this post, I chose an article written by Joel Turtel, a syndicated columnist and education policy analyst, who wrote an article titled “The Myth of ADHD“. The following is my response to his idea of THE MYTH.

Attention deficit disorder is real. Is it possible that children and adults get misdiagnosed as having adhd? Certainly. Does that make it a myth? No. There are people in the best hospitals in the world who get the diagnosis wrong. The human body, and especially the brain, is still a mystery to us all. ADHD is not new, nor was it created by conspiring pharmaceutical executives trying to line their pockets with gold.

The first physician to describe adhd in its commonly accepted sense was Dr. Heinrich Hoffman – in 1845! In 1902, Sir George F. Still created and published a series of lectures about a group of children who were noticeably defiant and impulsive, yet raised by good parents . The issues were thought to be genetic, and labeled “Morbid Defect of Moral Control”. Still’s observations supported the theory of William James, who saw the deficits in what he called inhibitory volition, moral control, and sustained attention as being causally related to each other through some type of neurological defect. He speculated on the possibility of either a decreased threshold in the brain for inhibition, or a disconnection within the cortex of the brain in which intellect was dissociated from “will,” or social conduct. In 1937, Dr. Charles Bradley found success in treating “behaviorally disordered” children with a very counter-intuitive therapy – stimulants. While it’s true that Bradley couldn’t explain his discovery, he could certainly report its accuracy.

In the 1960′s adhd became much more widely researched and given the new label “minimal brain dysfunction” as it became more apparent that it was somehow due to a malfunctioning of biological systems rather than to bad parenting and/or behavior. It came to be known as “Attention Deficit Disorder” in the 1980′s, and the research continues to grow today.

New research believes it may be related to a reduction in cortical volume attributed to decreased folding in the cortex. Studies involving brain imaging show noticeable differences among those with adhd and control groups. There are literally thousands upon thousands of scientific, medical, and academic studies and papers on adhd. It’s neither new, a FAD, nor a MYTH.

For elementary, I attended a parochial school. My grades were decent, but teachers and my parents constantly told me to work harder because I “wasn’t living up to my potential”. My parents took good care of me, attended all (and extra) parent/teacher conferences, and helped me with my homework. I was loved.

My school was also the church we attended. As my parents went to the church service, I would attend “Sunday school”. After church, my parents would come find me and 9 out of 10 times would have me take them to my classroom to “see” my desk. ALWAYS, the inside of my desk was a mess. They would help me re-organize it with a little lecture on putting in more effort. Even worse, all too many times, my desk would be up next to the teachers desk, because I had been “misbehaving”. My parents would promptly schedule an appointment with the teacher, which in turn would get me another lecture, grounded, or something along those lines so I could”learn to behave properly”.

In elementary, I excelled at reading, math, and drawing. Being at a parochial school, sometimes we had to help raise money. In both 4th and 5th grade I single-handedly won the magazine sales contest and got to choose the field trip our class would go as a reward. We had a book writing contest in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade. All 3 years I was pulled aside and praised for my story-telling and imagination. But never did I win, or even get a good grade, on those books. The extra parent/teacher conferences kept up, and everyone was constantly on me for my behavior, not getting my homework complete, and/or not “applying myself”. The beat goes on …

In the sixth grade, I took up playing trombone. I REALLY excelled at trombone. Music is, and always has been, a passion of mine. I got my first real record, Kiss’s “Rock n’ Roll Over” in the second grade. Anyways, I got to junior high and things got worse. For example, more than anything, I HATED carrying that trombone on the bus. HATED IT! To help me, my dad would come pick me up at school so I wouldn’t have to carry it on the bus … but I got on the bus anyways. Not just once, but dozens and dozens of times! I WANTED to ride home with my dad more than anything, yet still I got on the bus.

Earlier I had stated how I excelled at math. Here’s the interesting part: In high school, I had tutors for many subjects, however, I was taking advanced trigonometry and getting A’s with ease! There were only like 20 of us out of an available 560+ kids in my senior class. I didn’t do a lot of my homework. What has always bothered me, is that I’m incredibly lousy at doing math in my head. I made the dean’s list in college earning a bachelor’s in finance, yet I still use my fingers to count today! Another strange quirk is that my entire life I’ve had the most frustrating keeping left and right from getting reversed. I have to picture myself saying the Pledge of Alligiance – a trick I taught myself and still use today. I digress.

On through junior high and high school my grades continued to be average. I still excelled at math, and could read very well, but the speed at which I read kind of leveled off around the fifth or sixth grade. The older I got, the more my mishaps and differing ways of going about things had me in and out of “trouble”, accused of being on drugs, therapy with psychologists both alone, and with my parents. On and on … it was horrible!

My complete inability of picking up normal social cues lent to a childhood were I had little to no friends. I went through summers with no one to play and/or hang out with. I ate lunch alone all through my school years. From my perspective, I’ve always been on my own. I never got into any REAL trouble, but yet, all those WISE adults kept pursuing what they viewed as my lack of will, and/or my “interest in nothing”. And of course, that I needed to “listen better”, “do my homework”, and the same old blah, blah, blah … “are you on drugs?”

NO!

As I got older, I started pursuing my own answers. Despite all their best efforts, my parents, counselors, pastors, psychologists, teachers, and every other caring adult who tried to get me “to live up to my potential”, things deteriorated. They had no idea how hard I was actually trying, AND how badly I WANTED IT MYSELF! I’d see shrinks, but it would quickly go down the same old path. I saw a hypnotist. He was weird. I saw more shrinks, was diagnosed and treated for everything from bi-polar disorder, depression, social anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder, to one doctor wanting to pursue schizophrenia!

I’d take the drugs they prescribed for more than a reasonable time, but nothing would come of it. I’d struggle to use my will with no more success than if I was trying to use yours. Most of the treatments in fact, made my life worse! I’d drop both the drugs and the doctors when they couldn’t grasp the fact the treatments weren’t working and the diagnosis was wrong. I eventually gave up. That was at least a decade ago.

Early last year (2007) I started seeing a shrink. She is very good. The talk therapy has been nothing short of amazing. After months of talking about many of the same problems and solutions over and over again, she was puzzled as to why they would continue. She had me take a number of intelligence tests in which I consistently scored high. She said there is no reason I should have such difficulty in the areas of my life that I do based on both getting to know me, and examining my intelligence. She thought it possible that I could have adhd. She recommended a psychiatrist. More tests and what not were done, he agreed and wanted to start me on stimulants. I was hesitant, because after all, I didn’t need to rev myself up. He explained that they would actually help me calm down, focus on what I want to get done, and think clearer. The doctor was right! I’ve never been more calm. Not even in my youngest of years.

I’m a grown adult. Nobody forced me into anything. No teachers, administrators, or parents. It was not my inability to do things, or act as other people desired, but my inability to do and act as I desired that troubled me. I’m not lazy. I’ve never been fired from a job. But staying on task, focused, following-through, etc. have been demons haunting me forever! Thirty-nine years to be exact. It’s also created unintentional conflicts in my relationships too. Having adhd is not an excuse nor a handicap, it’s just thinking in a different manner. It’s ok if we need some help to get through the daily things we all must do today. We don’t have to let go of our uniqueness either. If a stimulant turns your kid into a zombie, you’re right! You’ve got the wrong drug! But if it helps …

The past six or seven months has been a new lease on life for me. The treatment works. People shouldn’t sit so high on their JUDGMENT CHAIRS and condemn others by relishing their struggles to mere myth. I’m happy with who I am, however, I must wonder how much better it would have been if I had been diagnosed as a child instead of as a middle-aged adult. Instead of LEARNING more, and CONCENTRATING, and BEHAVING as all those wise adults (with the best intentions) constantly pushed, being treated for adhd could have opened up a whole new world …

Higher grades? More activities? Greater opportunities? Better relationships?

Most likely.

So don’t be so quick to cast judgment.

“For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” – Jesus

The next post: Things I agree with in Joel Turtel’s article.