The prescription of drugs to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder has increased by more than 50 per cent in the past six years.
Mostly for having been born boys rather than the girls wanted and expected
by their mothers (more and more of whom in any case know little or
nothing about men or boys), half a million or more British children are now
drugged up to their eyeballs with Ritalin and such like as "treatment"
for ADHD and various other nonexistent conditions.
Having long since decided that femaleness, simply in itself, was a medicable condition requiring the pumping of women's and girls' bodies full of highly poisonous substances in order to stop those bodies from doing what they do naturally, we now seem to have decided to treat maleness in the same way, and to get in even younger than we did with femaleness.
Meanwhile, prisoners are to be tested routinely for ADHD, if that is not already happening. Criminal behaviour is to be, or is being, defined as a manifestation of ADHD. Why else bother testing prisoners, in particular and as such, for it? So they will all be found to have it. But they don't have it. No one has it. It does not exist.
Having long since decided that femaleness, simply in itself, was a medicable condition requiring the pumping of women's and girls' bodies full of highly poisonous substances in order to stop those bodies from doing what they do naturally, we now seem to have decided to treat maleness in the same way, and to get in even younger than we did with femaleness.
Meanwhile, prisoners are to be tested routinely for ADHD, if that is not already happening. Criminal behaviour is to be, or is being, defined as a manifestation of ADHD. Why else bother testing prisoners, in particular and as such, for it? So they will all be found to have it. But they don't have it. No one has it. It does not exist.
I'm not sure it does not exist (although it's certainly massively over-diagnosed)-my mum taught at a special needs school, as well as two inner-city schools with special needs units, and some of those kids displayed extreme hyperactivity, restlessness, inability to concentrate and behavioural problems that were inexplicable considering the happy, well-adjusted families they came from.
ReplyDeleteThese problems affected their lives in myriad ways-I'm not sure we can put it all down to some invention of 20th-century psychiatry.
My mother also works in Special Needs, and I have briefly done it myself. These problems exist. But ADHD doesn't. And Ritalin is a scandal. One of the greatest scandals of our age.
ReplyDeleteI sometimes wonder if the symptoms of ADHD are the result of inadequate physical activity during non-school hours. There are too many children spending their free time in front of a television or computer screen and not enough time playing outside. It is not surprising that many of them go on to “act out” during school hours. Children, boys especially, can be rambunctious. That is why I firmly support recess and physical education in schools.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Sorry if this is a double post. Blogger indicated my first attempt to post failed.
My brother has it. I don't. It's nothing to do with my mother not knowing anything about males.
ReplyDeleteRitalin speeds up the brain to allow people to be conscious of and better control their own behaviour when they would otherwise be deficient at this. It doesn't 'dope' them.
Your blog pretty much proves that ADHD exists.
Those who say that ADHD does not exist should be encouraged to disclose the extent of their studies into the very, very thorny area of dopamine dysfunction.
ReplyDelete