today i listened to a radio interview with lisa marie presley (yes, elvis’ daughter) on alice 97.3 and she was talking about how she spoke to congress about the willingness, or should i say zeal, of teachers to recommend that kids be put on ritalin or lithium or whatever a.d.d. drug is popular at the time if they are too active. then she went into a line of reasoning that i thought about, saying that it is the school’s place to educate, not diagnose medical problems.
my two younger brothers both were diagnosed with a.d.d. when they were about 12 or so. they were both having a hard time with school, concentrating, all the ‘usual’ signs. bear in mind that this was 10 years ago and the perscribing of long term drugs wasn’t as prevalent as it is now. after a battery of exams, blood tests and meetings with doctors, it was determined that they should try a mild dose of a medicine, under tight control. this meant the same time every day, blood tests and exams every 3 months to determine it’s effect, etc. the point i’m trying to make is that it wasn’t something that was jumped into without a lot of thought, nor was it treated lightly. it seems to me that today any kid who is deemed to be too high maintenance is written off as being a.d.d or a.d.h.d and medicated back to what is considered ‘normal’.
this appalls and disturbs me. my mother is a teacher, has been all my life, and i can count of the number of times that she has seriously thought that a kid should be on medication on one hand. it’s a rare occurance, and becoming rarer. what teacher wants to deal with 30 high strung, undisciplined, untractable 8 year olds when they could all be calm, high-attention and easily moulded by medication? it makes the teachers job easier, no doubt, but at what cost???
are we taking the life out of our children in order to make them easier to deal with? i was a scattered, high energy child (at least until puberty), and i am thankful that my parents didn’t medicate me. if a child is high energy and more difficult to teach, why is the first answer a pharmaceutical one? and that brings me to an even more difficult question, one that i may have an even harder time with.
when a teen or adult is having difficulty such as depression or anxiety and it is determined to be serious enough that medical treatment is necessary, where does that leave the person? if the person is able to reach some semblance of a ‘normal’ life (more about this another time) with the help of one or more drugs, does that solve the problem? is the person being the person they really are, or are meant to be with a little help? or are they only who they are because of the medication? sadly i don’t know the answer to this either, but then again, in my vast 28 years on this earth i’ve finally come to realize that i have a lot more questions than answers, and the seeking is more important than the finding.
usually i’d like to tie this up with some kind of pithy message, but i’m kinda depressed now too, thinking about this. here’s some links for a.d.d. and a.d.h.d. hope they help someone.
attention deficit disorder organization
these links are only for your guidance, don’t diagnose or try to figure this stuff out alone. get a doctor that you trust. tell your mom, sister, brother, dad, best friend. frankie says: “relax.”
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