ADD is real—Stop building careers on the backs of the disabled

By Steve Otto

When I was 40 years of age I was told I had ADD, (attention deficit disorder). That was one of the best things that ever happened to me. I was told I was smart as a child, but I never got good grades. My parents took me to doctors and they kept telling me I just don't work hard enough. So I went through grade school, high school, college and several jobs. I did start to get better grades in my late 20s for college. But I was frustrated.

Finding out I had ADD gave me a new opportunity to overcome what ever I had and make something of my life.

So I don't like it when so many so called "experts" try to convince the rest of society that ADD really doesn't exist. What is their explanation for a man who has problems with simple tasks that keep him from getting decent employment. Usually it is "they're just stupid" or "they're just dumb." I heard Bill Maher  say one night that we should all just get used to shoveling sidewalks. Of course that "just do a job for stupid people" is the worst thing we can do. I'm a disaster on an assembly line.

And Bill Maher is the worst of it. But there are plenty of psychiatrists who regularly try to make a name for themselves by claiming that ADHD is just a scam to sell medicines. An example of that is Philip Hickey, PHD, writing "ADHD:  The Hoax Unravels," Mad in America:

"Clearly, this recommendation is pushing the drugs (evidence good), and is downplaying the usefulness of behavioral interventions (evidence fair).  The reference to behavioral interventions "…as an adjunct…" doesn't inspire a great deal of confidence in their use as the primary intervention.  And, indeed, this is how "treatment" of "ADHD" has developed in the intervening years:  pills for all, and occasional behavioral programs, many of which were geared towards accepting one's "illness" and promoting "medication compliance."

And all of this in a context in which ADHD was being fraudulently promoted by psychiatry, and by its pharma partners, as a neurochemical imbalance which was corrected by stimulant drugs.  Here's what the eminent Harvard psychiatrist Timothy Wilens, MD, wrote on the matter in the article Paying Attention to ADHD in Family Circle magazine on November 20, 2011:

"ADHD often runs in families.  Parents of ADHD youth often have ADHD themselves.  The disorder is related to an inadequate supply of chemical messengers of the nerve cells in specific regions of the brain related to attention, activity, inhibitions, and mental operations."

Another similar opinion comes from HealthCentral:

"ADD & ADHD are common diagnosis’ being handed out to children who don’t fall into the category of being ‘normal’ according to society’s standards. Often diagnosed when in school, it is usually the children who are bored, uninterested and don’t want to participate in what school has to offer. Generally these children can function and focus just fine when they are doing something they love, but when it’s boring and monotonous, they are uninterested. Does this sound like a disorder to you? Or is it more likely we don’t want to take the time to understand these children?

By Natural News

If you or someone you know has a child that has been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), chances are the child is actually just fine. At least this is what the “father” of ADHD, Leon Eisenberg, would presumably say if he were still alive.

On his death bed, this psychiatrist pioneer admitted that ADHD is essentially a “fictitious disease,” which means that millions of young children today are being needlessly prescribed severe mind-altering drugs that will set them up for a life of drug addiction and failure."

So they claim that behavioral programs are not used in favor of just using drugs. It should be pointed out that those drugs can be helpful, but our puritan culture encourages all parents to believe that drugs of any kind are evil and the devil will take over their kids if they are allowed to get drugs. Never mind that some students may need them.

There is an automatic biased against using such drugs. But for me the real danger is those who try to claim the disease is made up...it doesn't exist. It's like global warming. It is just a scam to fool unsuspecting parents that something is wrong when there is really nothing wrong.

The worst thing about all of this is that when an expert says "the child is actually just fine" They may be setting that child up for the same kind of frustration and disappointment I had for all of those 40 years.

First of all, when hard work never pays off the fist thing I felt was the need to quit trying. I just often gave up. Hard work didn't do any good. So why try at all. Later in life, I found I had serious problems working on any job were I simply did a repetitious task over and over. Anything that required me to do the same task over and over was an immediate disaster. I had trouble with school. I took to criminal activities because I felt I had what it takes to do most of those things. Crime was less boring than a job. Also I could be my own boss or work with someone I didn't despise. I really think that being a person with ADD made it hard for me to put up with the minds of mediocre bosses who treated me as a dumb shit. So even though I wasn't real good at crime, I felt that it made me feel less like society's loser.

Perhaps my politics were affected by my ADD. The status quo seemed so hostile. And as a person who felt delegated as an outsider, I learned not to trust bosses and as time went on, politicians. I learned to see their faults, crimes, inequities and their hypocrisy as part of the system. Today I am a Marxist. I have looked at society and wondered if my solution to society's problems could be something more simple, less dramatic or jus plain different. But I just keep finding myself believing the same things— that capitalism is unfair, that people run by capitalists are destined to be ripped off. I can't believe in a leadership that believes those of us who make more money are way more important than the rest of us. I can't believe in a system that believes those with more money have the right to use their wealth as a weapon to control the lives of the rest of us.

So the important thing is that people like me need to be appreciated as the people we are.

We are usually intelligent, imaginative, and we learn to think outside of the box. We are needed as part of society and telling us to "shovel driveways for a living" only convinces us that the only real dignity we can get is through crime.

So don't let otherwise honest people move to crime. Support the efforts and needs of those of us who have ADD. It is real. We need that recognition.