Diagnosed at 6 with ADHD in the US by a proper battery of psychiatrists, therapists, etc. Medicated until 17. Still going to therapy regularly in the EU to deal with a myriad of ongoing issues as ADHD has changed how it impacts my life into adulthood. I am a "textbook" case.
So basically the reality of my life is not subject to your opinions. Stop projecting your value system onto other people's lives.
> Stop projecting your value system onto other people's lives.
There really is no need for snarky replies like that, as I haven't even remotely talked about value systems in any conceivable way. Whether someone has a mental disorder or not does not depend on any "value system" -- or, at least, it should not, provided that there is real science behind the diagnosis. I made the remark because my father used to work as a professor of psychology and I had many discussions about such topics in the past, including the complexity of diagnosis in the field and the difficulty of classifying mental disorders, and how these classifications have changed over time and vary from country to country (for example "koro"). So I'm generally interested in the topic and know that many theories in psychology are highly problematic; some of them, such as C.G. Jung's archetypes, are even decidedly unscientific. The aim was certainly not to look down on other people or impose a value system.
Even if I have, in your opinion, indirectly insinuated that you might not have a mental disorder (which wasn't my intention), I really can't see why anyone would be offended by that.
You don't know how hard it is, as a parent, to make the call to medicate your six year old child.
Here are some of the things that went through my own mind:
- Maybe he'll outgrow it (he's fairly severe ADHD, but we went through a long process of hoping that it was just a maturity-level thing)
- Paper after article after paper sent by well-meaning family members about how ADHD is over-diagnosed. Doubt.
- Side-effects (obviously, first thing every parent thinks about)? How severe will they be in my child?
- Ritalin + suicide [0].
- If we medicate him at six, _will he ever learn the tools to manage ADHD without meds_? He'll potentially spend his entire childhood on meds.
- If we don't medicate him, and he's consistently labelled a 'problem child' in his class, how will that affect his self-esteem as he grows up? How will it affect his feelings about school and work?
- If we don't medicate him, and he struggles and falls behind his classmates in his schoolwork (which, even in Grade 1, he was - significantly), are we holding him back? He's a super smart kid, he just can't focus.
- If we medicate him, and it doesn't work (we have to try multiple meds), how will it affect his self-esteem to be constantly visiting psychiatrists, pediatricians, etc. A thing I've noticed: doctors have zero problems talking overly-candidly in front of my kid about his failings, as though he's not there.
- We were literally told by a doctor that once you get on the medication train, 99% of parents don't get off until at least mid-high school. Am I comfortable with that?
After that long thought process (and so much more), we put him on medication. We're going very slowly in ramping up the dosage, but he's already caught up to his classmates in school, and he seems happier. I don't know if we've done the right thing, but I do know: it's not as clear-cut right/wrong as you make it out to be.
Unnecessarily hostile? No. People who have to constantly deal with a difficulty other people don't have, while those people completely unoriginally reflect the same doubt that's been repeated over and over again, can make frustrated comments in a thread on the topic without being characterized as hostile.
Imagine living with a diabetes, or some other invisible issue that affects your life, and having to hear such calm opinions all the time from people around you. Telling you that your issue is not real (so - de facto - you're imagining it).
So basically the reality of my life is not subject to your opinions. Stop projecting your value system onto other people's lives.