Attention what?

[jackofallgeeks]

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?

Comments

more personal stuff

[circuit-four.livejournal.com]

6. I'm pretty biased here, because I've had a very short attention span and bouts of poor memory and concentration all my life, and they got a lot worse when I started having chronic fatigue symptoms. The symptoms come and go, and they almost feel like brain weather; the distinction is so obvious, that I can't help believing something physical is causing it, not just some crazy self-defeating "desire not to concentrate" which doesn't make any sense to me.

7. I know plenty of adults who complain of ADHD-like symptoms, some of whom are in demanding careers. They've developed complicated routines to deal with their limitations, like writing things down; things that themselves require a lot of discipline. So it really doesn't seem plausible to me that lack of discipline is what's behind it.

Re: more personal stuff

[jackofallgeeks.livejournal.com]

I noted Seven in my new post, I think, but I didn't really get into it. I think adult ADHD as such is mostly (though not entirely) a side effect of child-ADHD becoming popularized. "Hey, I think I'm ADHD too!" Not to say it's all in people's heads (heh heh), but that it isn't what it's made out to be, and that it doesn't need the sort of medication it's being given. In fact, here more than anywhere I think Jason's theory of information glut is the most likely; I'm sure these demanding careers have lots of data to analyze, likely in constant streams through email and blackberries. I think there are other ways to cope with this sort of mental overload other than medication, and I guess it's my feeling that labeling it as a "disorder" legitimizes the medication. Or something. See my new post for other (disjointed) thoughts.

Re: more personal stuff

[circuit-four.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think we're definitely on the same page, if that's what you mean by "it doesn't exist." ADHD as this diagnostic category of "you have this; take this to fix it" is kind of faddish, yeah. I thought Jason had a good thought on that, myself.

I suspect that it's one of those "culturally linked syndromes" like anorexia or, um, koro (aka "that delusional Micronesian testicle-shrinking disease"). I suspect what those are is basically the "operating system" of a culture not working so well with the "hardware" of a given set of human brains. Some people have the structure to organize huge amounts of sensory overstimulus without going bonkers mentally and physically, and some of us just don't.

(I wonder how much success people would have with ADHD kids if they tried to teach them in ways that weren't prone to trigger that kind of overload? But I don't know if I'd trust our social instutitions to be that bright. They'd probably end up doing something really DUMB with it, like using it as an excuse to indulge the kids and let 'em learn nothing at all...)