Self Diagnosis Talk: Raise your had if you've got ADD or Dyslexia

[Razor]

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i was not very clear in my thoughts, and i apologize for that. I feel there are a few different categories of people in the whole "add" thing. there are those who have it very severely and need medication to function. i believe this to be the minority of people. There are those who may have a mild form of it but choose to medicate themselves instead of deal with one extra hurdle they have to jump over. then there are those who don't want to do things, decide they have add, or go to a doctor and confirm this, but do nothing about it, and use this as an excuse for not excelling.

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While there is no doubt plenty of truth to this, I think that this line of thinking can be too dismissive of people that fall between these the extremes, where it seems likely most people with some level of ADD would fit. I think it's difficult to really come to terms with how significant this 'extra hurdle' can be for people. We tend to have difficulty viewing thing from a perspective other than are own. This is why people that don't struggle with ADD type symptoms can be quick to label people as lazy and unmotivated.

What the general discussion in this thread has done is suggest there are a few people with serious ADD issues and that the rest with minor ADD type symptoms should just suck it up. I think that trivializes the problem.

[Razor]

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I the point I am trying to make is that I don't think that drugging people to help them achieve in a certain "acceptable" manner is always the right path to take.

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With this I agree.

[durron597]

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Part 1- ADD:

ADD Wiki Page

I've got an (adopted) cousin who has been diagnosed with ADHD. It's unlike anything I've ever seen. Flying around the yard, talking a mile a minute, bizzare changes in topic of conversation without reason. Spend 5 minutes around him and it becomes clear that most folks you've met who self identify as having ADD have nothing close.

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My mom does a lot of work in the "gifted children" field, and I've met tons of kids, many of whom have been diagnosed with ADD. I've been diagnosed with it myself. Once you meet enough people who've been diagnosed with ADD, it becomes really clear which ones have it and which are just bored. Most people don't, and they use it as an excuse for bad behavior because it's convenient. It's especially convenient for parents who didn't raise their kids to have discipline to pay attention anything for longer than 15 seconds, mostly from feeding them too much sugar.

[NorCalJosh]

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i was not very clear in my thoughts, and i apologize for that. I feel there are a few different categories of people in the whole "add" thing. there are those who have it very severely and need medication to function. i believe this to be the minority of people. There are those who may have a mild form of it but choose to medicate themselves instead of deal with one extra hurdle they have to jump over. then there are those who don't want to do things, decide they have add, or go to a doctor and confirm this, but do nothing about it, and use this as an excuse for not excelling.

[/ QUOTE ]

While there is no doubt plenty of truth to this, I think that this line of thinking can be too dismissive of people that fall between these the extremes, where it seems likely most people with some level of ADD would fit. I think it's difficult to really come to terms with how significant this 'extra hurdle' can be for people. We tend to have difficulty viewing thing from a perspective other than are own. This is why people that don't struggle with ADD type symptoms can be quick to label people as lazy and unmotivated.

What the general discussion in this thread has done is suggest there are a few people with serious ADD issues and that the rest with minor ADD type symptoms should just suck it up. I think that trivializes the problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

Razor-

I agree that it is difficult to see other perspectives other than my own. But my perspective is that of one person who was diagnosed by 2 doctors as being one of those people in the middle you are talking about, so i do believe that i have a good grasp on exactly how significant this hurdle is. Like i said before, i am not saying that i am right, or that everyone who falls in the middle has had the exact same difficulties i have. It's just something that i have worked hard to overcome without medication, and i am happier with who i am today as a result of that.

[durron597]

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i was not very clear in my thoughts, and i apologize for that. I feel there are a few different categories of people in the whole "add" thing. there are those who have it very severely and need medication to function. i believe this to be the minority of people. There are those who may have a mild form of it but choose to medicate themselves instead of deal with one extra hurdle they have to jump over. then there are those who don't want to do things, decide they have add, or go to a doctor and confirm this, but do nothing about it, and use this as an excuse for not excelling.

[/ QUOTE ]

While there is no doubt plenty of truth to this, I think that this line of thinking can be too dismissive of people that fall between these the extremes, where it seems likely most people with some level of ADD would fit. I think it's difficult to really come to terms with how significant this 'extra hurdle' can be for people. We tend to have difficulty viewing thing from a perspective other than are own. This is why people that don't struggle with ADD type symptoms can be quick to label people as lazy and unmotivated.

What the general discussion in this thread has done is suggest there are a few people with serious ADD issues and that the rest with minor ADD type symptoms should just suck it up. I think that trivializes the problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

Razor-

I agree that it is difficult to see other perspectives other than my own. But my perspective is that of one person who was diagnosed by 2 doctors as being one of those people in the middle you are talking about, so i do believe that i have a good grasp on exactly how significant this hurdle is. Like i said before, i am not saying that i am right, or that everyone who falls in the middle has had the exact same difficulties i have. It's just something that i have worked hard to overcome without medication, and i am happier with who i am today as a result of that.

[/ QUOTE ]

if you can "work hard" to "overcome" ADD without medication, then it's most likely you probably weren't raised in such a way to learn how to focus yourself. it's almost impossible to "work hard" to "overcome" anything if you have real ADD.

[Fabian]

My sister has self-diagnozed "minor" dyslexia. I've always thought she was completely insane to blame her shortcomings on something like that, when she shows no symptoms of dyslexia at all and refuses to go to a doctor. I didn't know this was a relatively common thing to do though, interesting.

[NorCalJosh]

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i was not very clear in my thoughts, and i apologize for that. I feel there are a few different categories of people in the whole "add" thing. there are those who have it very severely and need medication to function. i believe this to be the minority of people. There are those who may have a mild form of it but choose to medicate themselves instead of deal with one extra hurdle they have to jump over. then there are those who don't want to do things, decide they have add, or go to a doctor and confirm this, but do nothing about it, and use this as an excuse for not excelling.

[/ QUOTE ]

While there is no doubt plenty of truth to this, I think that this line of thinking can be too dismissive of people that fall between these the extremes, where it seems likely most people with some level of ADD would fit. I think it's difficult to really come to terms with how significant this 'extra hurdle' can be for people. We tend to have difficulty viewing thing from a perspective other than are own. This is why people that don't struggle with ADD type symptoms can be quick to label people as lazy and unmotivated.

What the general discussion in this thread has done is suggest there are a few people with serious ADD issues and that the rest with minor ADD type symptoms should just suck it up. I think that trivializes the problem.

[/ QUOTE ]

Razor-

I agree that it is difficult to see other perspectives other than my own. But my perspective is that of one person who was diagnosed by 2 doctors as being one of those people in the middle you are talking about, so i do believe that i have a good grasp on exactly how significant this hurdle is. Like i said before, i am not saying that i am right, or that everyone who falls in the middle has had the exact same difficulties i have. It's just something that i have worked hard to overcome without medication, and i am happier with who i am today as a result of that.

[/ QUOTE ]

if you can "work hard" to "overcome" ADD without medication, then it's most likely you probably weren't raised in such a way to learn how to focus yourself. it's almost impossible to "work hard" to "overcome" anything if you have real ADD.

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ok. if i use lots of " " does that make me know lots and lots also?

i shared my story. two doctors believed that i had "real add". and perhaps "overcome" was the wrong word. i deal with it and am managing to successfuly managed to make my way through life. neither of my sisters who were undoubtedly raised in a very similar way to me had any problem learning how to focus.

but i don't think we're really disagreeing at all. maybe i don't have "real add". but i DO have what doctors today are diagnosing as "real add". so apply what i said originally. "there are those who have it very severely and need medication to function. i believe this to be the minority of people. There are those who may have a mild form of it but choose to medicate themselves instead of deal with one extra hurdle they have to jump over. then there are those who don't want to do things, decide they have add, or go to a doctor and confirm this, but do nothing about it, and use this as an excuse for not excelling", except edit the last two groups of people to people who do not have "real add" but have been diagnosed by a doctor as having such, or have seen friends similar to them diagnosed by a doctor as having such, and diagnosed themselves as such.

then we're all happy and such.

[Razor]

[ QUOTE ]
if you can "work hard" to "overcome" ADD without medication, then it's most likely you probably weren't raised in such a way to learn how to focus yourself. it's almost impossible to "work hard" to "overcome" anything if you have real ADD.

[/ QUOTE ]

A couple issues I have with this line of thinking.

One, it tends to dismiss the notion of the possibility of varying degrees of ADD. Kinda like either you have the flu or you don't, or you have a broken leg or you don't. I don't think it's quite that simple.

Two, I find it hard to believe that NorCalJosh or anyone else's apparent inability to focus can attributed to how they were or weren't raised.

Now, maybe we can say that what these people have isn't ADD but I believe there is something they experience that is different than what the majority of the population experiences. And while some of it may be attributable to mtv culture and/or diet, it does seem that some people experience these hurdles to a greater degree than most.

Of course it is a whole lot easier to blame laziness or willpower rather than accept the notion that maybe some people's brains work a little differently which may make it difficult to cope with the 'real world' to varying degrees.

[nation]

I have a very mild case of ADD. I've never taken medication from it, but it's certainly held me back in the past. Recently I've managed to become more focused just by willpower, but it's still tough.

I think it also manifests itself a bit in the form of OCD. In the past few years, I've started to do OCD stuff, like read something more than once even though I know what it means until I read it the "right" way. Very bizarre, I know, but I always thought it was just a bad habit until I saw an episode of Scrubs where a character had OCD. I found myself doing similar stuff on a smaller scale.

-nation

[Aloysius]

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My mom does a lot of work in the "gifted children" field, and I've met tons of kids, many of whom have been diagnosed with ADD. I've been diagnosed with it myself. Once you meet enough people who've been diagnosed with ADD, it becomes really clear which ones have it and which are just bored. Most people don't, and they use it as an excuse for bad behavior because it's convenient. It's especially convenient for parents who didn't raise their kids to have discipline to pay attention anything for longer than 15 seconds, mostly from feeding them too much sugar.

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This was always my sense of the ADHD diagnosis in the past 10 years in this country. It seems the medical community is split on the issue of whether or not it's overdiagnosed, but what you're saying seems like common sense to me.

This reminds me of the Prozac Nation phenomenon - my father, who's a psychiatrist, has often told me that he feels anti-depressants are way over-prescribed in US (which makes sense if you consider the psychiatric community's goals as both doctors and businessman, and their ties to big pharma).

Slightly off-topic, but bearing the above in mind (and believing it to be true on some level) I'd be very leery of putting my children (if I had any) on medication for ADHD.

-Al