Trauma and ADHD
I had an interesting experience yesterday. I'm visiting my folks here in green Pennsylvania, and my mom signed us both up for a Psychological First Aid class. It was fascinating stuff, but one thought really stood out to me.
When someone has been traumatized, their body goes into Fight or Flight mode, basically shutting down the higher functions to some degree and increasing their arousal responses. Their body gets flooded with energy, they get irritable, etc. When someone is in this state, it's critical that the arousal gets calmed down so that they can restore the higher cognitive function. This is the core of PFA, to bring the body out of that arousal reaction and back into rational thinking.
Well, the teacher mentioned one case he worked with from Hurricane Katrina, which he nicknamed "Johnny". Johnny was a 10 year old who lost EVERYTHING in the storm. His mom died, his dog died, his entire home and everything in it, gone. He was sent to New Jersey to live with relatives he had never met, so he lost his community, his friends, his sense of belonging and home. Anything that this boy had was gone. Trauma? You bet.
So a few months after his move, he showed great signs of agitation in school - his grades dropped, he squirmed at his desk, he couldn't concentrate, and just generally restless. What does this sound like? ADHD, of course. The reaction to trauma and ADHD symptoms are identical. But the difference? Ritalin, or something similar, is given to ADHD sufferers - the issue is that it's a stimulant, the exact opposite kind of drug that a trauma sufferer needs.
I leaned over to my mom and commented that children who are abused, as trauma victims, display the same symptoms of ADHD and are then misdiagnosed. With abuse so prevalent, how many children are given a drug to combat something that that drug then exacerbates rather than helps? How many children are classified as ADHD and never given the help that they really need because ADHD has become a catch-all diagnosis - easy to label and easy to medicate?
When someone has been traumatized, their body goes into Fight or Flight mode, basically shutting down the higher functions to some degree and increasing their arousal responses. Their body gets flooded with energy, they get irritable, etc. When someone is in this state, it's critical that the arousal gets calmed down so that they can restore the higher cognitive function. This is the core of PFA, to bring the body out of that arousal reaction and back into rational thinking.
Well, the teacher mentioned one case he worked with from Hurricane Katrina, which he nicknamed "Johnny". Johnny was a 10 year old who lost EVERYTHING in the storm. His mom died, his dog died, his entire home and everything in it, gone. He was sent to New Jersey to live with relatives he had never met, so he lost his community, his friends, his sense of belonging and home. Anything that this boy had was gone. Trauma? You bet.
So a few months after his move, he showed great signs of agitation in school - his grades dropped, he squirmed at his desk, he couldn't concentrate, and just generally restless. What does this sound like? ADHD, of course. The reaction to trauma and ADHD symptoms are identical. But the difference? Ritalin, or something similar, is given to ADHD sufferers - the issue is that it's a stimulant, the exact opposite kind of drug that a trauma sufferer needs.
I leaned over to my mom and commented that children who are abused, as trauma victims, display the same symptoms of ADHD and are then misdiagnosed. With abuse so prevalent, how many children are given a drug to combat something that that drug then exacerbates rather than helps? How many children are classified as ADHD and never given the help that they really need because ADHD has become a catch-all diagnosis - easy to label and easy to medicate?