As a recovering person I am all too familiar with a person new in recovery being diagnosed with depression, or ADHD and put on 2 kinds of medications. One for the day, and one to sleep at night. Then 5 years later to find, whoops, it was a wrong diagnosis. So a new one is proposed, and new medication is prescribed. Over time it appears this one does not alleviate the person's problems. Recovery does more for the persons life that the medications.
Now I know there are truly people who need medication, I have known some. This blog is not to negate the entire use of medication. However it is this bloggers opinion that people and especially children are really over diagnosed. When you prescribe antidepressants to an adolescent that has been proven to cause feelings of suicide, and then want schools to require it as a necessity of attending, our society has a problem. When a disruptive child is diagnosed with a disease like ADHD, that the founder considers "not a real disease", our society has a problem.
“ADHD is a prime example of a fictitious disease.” These were the words of Leon Eisenberg, the “scientific father of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder),” in his last interview he gave before his death at age 87 in 2009.
(While some have described Dr. Eisenberg’s statement as an “exaggeration,” many doctors are coming to the belated conclusion that ADHD is often “over diagnosed” by the use of “fuzzy diagnostic practices.” Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan, who is one of the world’s leading experts in child development, states:
“Let’s go back 50 years. We have a 7-year-old child who is bored in school and disrupts classes. Back then, he was called lazy. Today, he is said to suffer from ADHD (AttentionDeficit Hyperactivity Disorder). . . . Every child who’s not doing well in school is sent to see a pediatrician, and the pediatrician says: “It’s ADHD; here’s Ritalin.” In fact, 90 percent of these 5.4 million kids don’t have an abnormal dopamine metabolism. (1)
When intellectuals go on about the difficulties of ADHD and use drugs like Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta and Vyvanse to help increase neurotransmitters in parts of the brain that help people focus and control impulses, according to the father of the original diagnosis, they are using drugs on a non-existent disease. It is a way to control what our culture considers unacceptable or bothersome behavior in children and adults. We label it, and provide a drug to fix it. Yet is unfixed. The problem is a spiritual one. Our world has changed so much in the last 50 years, and we are not coping well.
Many want religion and our traditions left out of schools for the greater good. God has gotten a bad rap the last few years. Is it helping the greater good? Where do we draw the line between discipline and abuse in children? When I was young you were swatted on the behind. I am not advocating hitting as discipline, I don't like it myself. However, it is not just one issue that is causing the change in people, it is several. The lack of spirituality I believe is at the root of a lot of our emotional problems.
There is a human need to know we are not alone. That there is someone greater than ourselves that watches out over us. That we are loved. There is a need to develop responsiblity for ourselves, our actions. There is an innate compassion that resides in most of us that when we see suffering we want to alleviate it. Humans have an enormous capacity to love, and care for each other. So instead of drugs, basic discipline, understanding and compassion for each other will go a long way to relieving pressure. A faith that there is someone looking over us goes a long way to coping with life.
It is this bloggers opinion that love, compassion, discipline and a faith in a God of your understanding will work more wonders than pharmacueticals in most cases. Use drugs when needed, but facing things head on, and being kind to yourself and others will help heal anxiety and build better citizens. It is time to put the drugs away.
1. Dean, Bradlee, Father of ADHD admitted it was a fictitious disease before his death in 2009, The Child Mind Institute, June 25, 2013