For weeks now I've been reviewing things and discussing politics, but, honestly, my life doesn't really revolve around politics. I hardly ever talk politics outside of this blog, so it works as a good way for me to express that portion of my personality, but it's not the main thing I spend my time thinking about. Therefore, today I'm going to take a break from politics and spend time talking about something a bit more personal.
I'd like to talk about something that's a still about society in general, but more about personal choices. You see, when I was young, I was diagnosed with ADHD, and that has really shaped a large portion of my life. I want to talk about how my mother and I handled this because it doesn't really fit with about 2/3 of the people who are diagnosed with ADHD. I am in no way an expert on this, and frankly, I'm going to spend a whole lot more time talking about me than about ADHD in general, but it's something I've been studying to help with my own difficulties and something I think is important to share.
I'll start by saying that, while most of my political views are shaped by my father, most of my life views were shaped by my mother. When I was ten my mother and father split up, and it took years for my father to find a stable place to live and make a stable arrangement with my mother, so for 3-4 years after the split I hardly ever saw him. This was around the time when we were just learning of my ADHD and my mother mostly determined my coarse of treatment. I don't really know her motives, but my mother has always been reticent to turn to medication, and this was no exception. She absolutely refused to have me medicated, and because of that decision the two of us really spent a lot of time learning together how to handle my behavior.
I'm not sure my exact diagnosis, but I believe I'm of the combined hyperactive and inattentive, as with most people diagnosed with ADHD. I have a very difficult time sitting still, and, even to this day, find myself overly hyper and out of control from time to time. From my understanding, it was much worse when I was younger, but the hyperactive behaviors tend to lessen with age and I've also learned how to control those urges most of the time. Without medication, I had to learn what it meant to be out of control and I spent a lot of time learning what helped bring me back into control.
For example, while I tend to zone out and day dream during a class that I find boring, I can hyper-focus on something that catches my interest. I can't watch TV these days without something in my hands to occupy a bit of my attention, but I can sit down with a book for 6 hours without so much as getting up to use the restroom. I was very lucky in that, early on, my teachers worked with me and didn't push my mother to medicate me. In third grade my teacher would allow me to leave my desk after a lecture to play on the math game machines so long as I knew that I had to complete all my work. I would often rush through any assignments he passed out just to run over and see how quickly I could answer math problems on the games or to see if I could complete harder and harder questions. In fourth grade, my teacher would allow me to wander the room and help other students if I was finished with my work. Not long after that I began to learn that what I needed was something to focus on if I was unable to focus on the task at hand.
I started reading at a fairly regular rate because a book was a quiet, acceptable form of activity that I could take with my anywhere. If things became boring in class, I would read. As the years progressed and the teachers became less understanding, I would often get scolded for reading in class and not focusing on their lessons or the assigned work. I tried doodling in a few of those classes, but I was never very good at it, so instead I would zone out and focus on a game that I had come up with in my head. Sometimes I would try to challenge myself to come up with some incredible math problem that I would then have to solve. At least then it would look like I was taking notes even though I wasn't really paying any attention at all.
The point I'm making here is that, when I find something that's actually interesting to me, focus isn't a problem. The hyperactivity goes away and I can sit still. This is something that's been noted for most children with ADHD, at least according to a the National Institute of Mental Health. Thus, one way I learned to cope was to find something enjoyable that could fill my time when I was bored but was also constructive and acceptable behavior. This one is the tough one for many children as most kids with ADHD don't find difficult math problems or reading a book to be quite as enjoyable as I do, but I'm sure something can be found for everyone.
The other thing that's been much more helpful since I've reached adulthood has been exercise. Now, don't get me wrong, my mother may have known this when I was a child as she was fairly strict about spending time indoors. As far back as I can remember, my parents restricted the amount of time my siblings and I could spend watching TV or on the computer, and would generally prefer that we spent as much time as possible outside. I have really learned to appreciate that as I've aged. I joined the Boy Scouts around the time my parents split as a way to spend more time with my father, and I found that being physically active kept me more level. These days I'm a fairly avid jogger, and I've been attempting to work out a routine so I can jog every day. This morning I awoke early enough to go jogging before the heat became too oppressive, and that is helping me to be level and focused enough to write this post. It's been noted in a number of studies that exercise helps with attention, and it's a great way for me to manage my ADHD without medication.
This brings me to my final point, and probably the reason I am writing this post. Prescriptions for ADHD medication continue to rise, and, frankly, I don't think it's a good idea to medicate children when alternatives exist. Medications only treat the major symptom of ADHD, namely the inability to focus, and neither cure the disease, nor treat the other problems that are present in children with ADHD. Medications can cause social stigma, which can exacerbate socializing problems that many children with ADHD have. There is almost no information on the long term effects of taking these medications. Finally, and this is the really personal one for me, I can't stand the idea that we're teaching children that if they have any kind of trouble with the attitudes or behaviors that they should just take medication to fix it. A few months back, one of my coworkers almost lost her grandson to an overdose of, you guessed it, medication designed to control his behavior. He was feeling out of control and he was scolded for being out of control, so he broke into the locked cabinet where his father kept his medication (children are very resourceful), and took the remaining medication in the bottle. His father noticed him acting funny soon after, found the empty bottle, and rushed him to the hospital. Thankfully, the medication was the slow release kind, so he didn't receive the full affect at once, but it was a very scary situation for my coworker and her family. When asked later why he had taken the pills, the boy told his doctor that, "He was bad, and he wanted to be good, and the pills make him a good boy." That's not the kind of attitude I think we should be promoting in children, and apparently in this case the doctor agreed with me because he immediately stopped the prescription. Beyond that, I've heard of cases where children become shells of their former selves due to the medication they're taking, along with plenty of other horror stories. Besides, I can't stop coming back to how little is known about long term effects.
So my advice is to study the problem, talk to your child's doctor, and come up with a plan for dealing with ADHD that doesn't require medication. I'm twenty five years old and have been dealing with ADHD as long as I can remember. I have never taken medication to treat my symptoms, but I am able to lead what I consider a relatively productive and successful life. Let's focus on the best outcomes and stop wasting time and money on medicating our children just because dealing with them is difficult.
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