Ranty rant rant...
About once a year this topic comes up SOMEWHERE, provoking me once again to rant my little heart out. The offender in this round is this post in bipolypagangeek. Note PLEASE that I don't have any issues with the OP -- s/he seems relatively well-adjusted. However the post still touched on my personal hot-button topic
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Perfect case in point: ADHD. The disorder actually exists, it is basically the result of a certain pattern of brain formation and neuro-transmitter balance that makes a person largely incapable of focusing their minds on a singular task or stimulus for extended periods of time. It can be clinically diagnosed (by which I mean, of course, actual tests and analyses and not some half-wit shrink or GP guessing as is more common now) and is easily treatable. The drugs are intended as a temporary stopgap at best, to help you cope while you undergo the sessions of therapy and counseling that are basically meant to help you re-train your brain to think in a way it can manage. But nobody bothers with that part, or even the actual diagnosis, anymore. Kid won't behave, pump him full of drugs so he will and so he can use it as an excuse for the rest of his life. Such bullshit... And to top it all off it was conclusively PROVEN in the early 90's that for true ADHD medication has ZERO effect in combatting the disorder after the onset of puberty. All it does is serve as a crutch, a psychological placebo, because by that point you should have already been through the appropriate therapies to deal on your own.
This is why I always scoff at the ever-increasing number of people our bloody age STILL on fucking ritalin.
But I digress... I fully agree that we should be stomping down the excuses and entitlements people come up with to avoid doing their fair share of work in society. There was once a time when such people were shunned by society and allowed to starve to death. Oh the good old days.
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Ah, a man after my own heart. Refreshing.
Honestly, prove to me through some objective critera (brain waves, neurotransmitter levels, ANYTHING) that is exists as a disease and not a cluster of symptoms and I'll be more than happy to write a retraction. Until then...
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After I wrote my reply I did a little digging and while I've found a great deal of literature on it I can't find any evidence pointing to a definitive clinical diagnosis for the condition as a seperate entity. If anyone has any, please prove me wrong. This whole thing has got me curious and I wanna know ;p
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Dude, you wanna pay for the high-end testing, and I'll drag the Boychilde through it. In the meantime, I will always be glad his diagnosis spared my son the status of "weird kid everybody hates and picks on" and instead lets him be the "funny, smart sped kid doing his best to get over it."
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