When people think they know
When people have a lot to say about nothing they know nothing about ...
Warning this is a very personal and strongly opinionated article - I tell it how I see it and how I experienced it within the past 41 years!!
How many times have I heard people voice their opinion on ADHD or the medication for it, when in reality they actually don't have a clue...
Its become just as ridiculous and over marketed (incorrectly) as the so-called weight loss programmes out there!
In the coming weeks I will be voicing and telling ADHD as it is - WHY because I know, I have lived, suffered and triumphed it every day for the past 41 years.
Ritalin, its habit forming? - I wish it was, but then why would my mother, family members, friends, teachers and the like have had to remind me over and over again to take your pills (when my mother wasn't around to give them to me).
For the past 5 years or so, I have changed to Concerta and Neucon only because you drink it once and I don't need to set reminders all over the place or ask my family to remind me to drink my pills.
Ritalin stunts your growth - well thank heavens for that I am 1.85 metres tall.
Too many pills (in their view more than one 10mg pill at a time is seen as an overdose). Really then why was I not coping and eventually had a season where I was drinking 6 - 8 pills every 3 hours, 3 to even 5 times a day when I was very young.
IF the dose isn't right, you will not get the desired effect - and you wasting your time, the doctors time and your money too.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) I was Dr Levins worst case scenario - never before or after me did he have a patient who had the challenges my level of ADHD presented. I am blessed that I had the best doctor, he specialized in the field of ADHD but remained a normal MD so that everyone could afford to see him - together we all (Him, my mother and myself) learned a lot along the way.
There were times when he would up and cut my dose - just as I started to level out and shine, and I can remember my mother refusing to leave his rooms and arguing with him until he gave me the right dose. This happened in Gr 7 and towards my Gr 11 and 12 school years.
I fully understand that not everyone is the same, but Ritalin is not bad for you, it doesn't turn you into a Zombie nor does it make you have hallucinations, mood swings etc. If this is the case then get a second opinion, or re-check your diagnosis. Even if you not fully ADHD it has no negative or bad effect and it doesn't stay in your system longer than the specified time - which as I have said in my case was 3 hours at most. IF anything it will calm you down - almost like a natural anti-depressant.
There are a lot of contributing factors that enhance ADHD, and one is that it is, in fact, genetic - we picked up later on that I had gotten if from my father. Because of my high level of ADHD, both my children also inherited it to a degree, thankfully not as bad as mine but they have it.
I sometimes think we all have it - some are just more noticeable but that, of course, is debatable and just a personal view of mine - not up for debate.
It is not environmental or what you eat or don't eat.
If you going to supply and feed your children sweets and colouring etc you must expect to have an energiser bunny on your hand - don't blame ADHD. How many parents and even grandparents, aunts and uncles think they so nice to the new baby by feeding them sweets etc from 3,6,9 months? What is that tiny body supposed to do with all that sugar?
Take a walk through your local school and see what children take to school for lunch - its scary - but they expect the teachers to deal with a child high on sugar?
What makes me sad especially with regards to my children is that because I have no medical degree when I speak to doctors and the like they don't take me seriously until they later realise "she actually knows".
I know the signs, I know the distraction points, the weaknesses and I will sit and watch children as young as 3 and see it straight away, then the poor mother is clueless or totally blind and the times I have reached out they withdraw, (very few have listened) and later you hear how that child failed, or ended up in a special school, or with no friends or labelled as being "stupid"...
How many less teenage suicides would there be?
Why are people blind to something that there is help for - if you don't have medical aid, the state pays for it - there is no real excuse other than. Why struggle through a school career when there is help?
I have been on treatment and I have tried to get off my pills, many times in my life and each time I first had to get or be hurt before acknowledging that without my medication my life wasnt what it was meant to be ...
What is your life worth?
