Attention what?

I don't think I believe that ADHD exists. I don't know anything, mind, I'm hardly a qualified professional and I've only done the barest amount of reading on the subject. But what I have found makes me think it's another case of self-overmedication that our society is so fond of. The 'symptoms' don't seem to be anything more than a lack of self-control or discipline, which most kids have naturally and will retain unless self-control and discipline are instilled in them by adults. That being the case, it wouldn't surprise me if more kids lacked necessary self-control because many parents can not or will not discipline their children, and 'finding' a new disease lets us medicate our children into a docile, managable state.

That's the theory i'm working on at the moment? any of you out there want to help do some of the foot work and point me toward articles et cetera that might support or contradict such a theory?

ADHD Again

Ok, there's so much to reply to in the last post that I'm not going to bother with comments -- I'll just make a new post! I can do that 'cause it's my journal. You guys will have to stick to comments (unless you'd like to take pot-shots at me from your own journals. ;-p ).

So, speaking firstly to Nick but also to everyone else, I actually didn't think much at all when I posted that. For the first time in a very long while I have an actual office job, and I've already gotten into the habit of reading news headlines at msn.com and the like when I login in the morning. And for the last three or so (work)days, MSN has had an new article about ADHD in their medical section. And this really just got under my skin because, as might be guessed, I'm biased. My brother was mis-diagnosed with ADD and the schools wanted to drug him; my cousin was (mis)diagnosed with ADD and has since been marked as a 'problem-child' in the "oh, we know how to handle his sort" kind of way -- and the way they treat him causes him to act in ways that reinforce what they already think of him! And when I was in middle school, I had friends who were diagnosed and subsequently became drug-bound zombies. So I read the articles and it occurred to me that I don't really believe that ADHD exists*.

(* What I mean by this is in dispute as noted by Nick, and I hope to at least try to unpack that a bit in this post.)

( Cut 'cause it got long... I do that... )