So where was I…I seem to remember a diatribe regarding ADHD – but perhaps because I have each-and-every symptom of the “disease” – I won’t be able to hook back into my earlier train-of-thought (Hansel and Gretel I need you now!). But wait! The new ADHD studies – which I mentioned in last week’s “Doctor’s Inn” — have suggested that ADHD may only be a TEMPORARY affliction! So perhaps I am cured! Perhaps I can carry on and shed more light on this bullshit diagnosis that the APA created for the DSM IV to yield millions of medical insurance dollars for the mental health cause. Hell! I remember how we used to try and stay one step ahead of the medical insurance companies: with adjustment disorders; or borderline schizophrenia or…I can’t even remember what I left off with…damn this ADHD!
Fact of the matter is: medical insurance companies would not reimburse for A.D.D. – but they WOULD for ADHD. Please don’t make the mistake of using these two conditions as if they co-exist — because they can’t! When ADHD was born – A.D.D. had to die! One gains medical insurance reimbursement – the other does not.
I believe it was Fritz Perls (a Freud contemporary) who suggested that “behind every f***ed up kid is not one, but two f***ed up parents” (again, I beg that those wiser and better read than myself – correct me if I’m wrong).
How much simpler can it be?!! How can so many children be born into this brand new disease?! Why can’t the simple explanation be that most American parents could care less about parenting?! And, instead of stepping-to-the-plate and ACTUALLY parenting a child – such American parents would much rather their child had a chemical lobotomy through the wondrous “Ritalin.”
Now here’s the goddamned rub to-all-of-this: the recent study quoted in “ADHD may be temporary, study suggests” suggest that Ritalin may actually CURE ADHD by stimulating an increase in cortical thickening that allows ADHD diagnosed children to “catch up” to their peers. This is a tad disconcerting to me – because I have been pontificating to my college students that the majority of my A.D.D., and later, ADHD-diagnosed child patients — would tell me that instead of paying attention to a teacher’s directives – they were wondering…”Will my parents ever get back together?”…“Would my parent’s still be together if I hadn’t been born?”…”Perhaps I shouldn’t have been born.”…”Why does my father/mother hate my mother/father so much?”…”Was I born of love?”…”Why does Daddy hate Mommy’s boyfriend?”…”Why does Mommy hate Daddy’s girlfriend?”…”This man/woman will NOT replace my father/mother no matter how hard he/she tries!”
And so, I had it all worked out: A.D.D., and then ADHD, was NOT a disease – it was a “tearing of the heart.” These kids weren’t incapable of listening to teachers – they simply had far more important matters to think about in class than whatever the teachers were talking about. Yep…I had it all worked out until these brilliant psychologists, psychiatrists and medical doctors showed that me that they had the cure all along: Ritalin!
Ritalin cures ADHD. Damn! And here I wanted the people who brought life into this world to begin acting responsibly with those lives. F*** that – just medicate ‘em!