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“ADHD is not a disorder, disease, syndrome or chemical imbalance of the brain. It is not over-diagnosed, under-diagnosed, or mis-diagnosed. It doesn’t exist. It is a total, 100%, Fraud.” Nowhere in world’s literature is there proof that a single psychiatric diagnosis is an actual disease. “ADHD and all of psychiatry’s “chemical imbalances” are manufactured diseases- invented diseases that results in huge profits for psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies.”

At that point we can safely assume the guy is a doofus. There is a gross and ligitimately disgusting over-prescriptioning of children, but clearly ADHD exists, and Ritalin is helpful for some of them.

Ritalin and many other psychoactive drugs can be used to manage the behavior of any child. The fact that it makes ADD children more manageable does not prove there is a disease involved.

I don't deny some children are harder to manage than others. I don't deny that Ritalin and related drugs make them easier to manage. I deny that they have a disease.

A reason to call the ocndition a disease is to make the negative effects of medication will be deemed acceptable. But the effects of long-term psychiatric medication during childhood are horrendous.

I have no objection to adults taking any drug they like to manage their own behavior.

It may exist but more like one case in every ten that is diagnosed. You ignore the totally artificial enviroment of the elementary classroom. Boys are naturally more active than girls; they are taught by women who expect boys to behave like girls. In many schools, even recess has been abolished. This used to let high energy kids—and there are always some girls who fit this description also—throw off the excess energy. Add to this the change in the psychiatric industry, where psycholoanalysis has been abandoned in favor of the new drugs. Clinical depression is something real, but often patients are simply a matter of people who are unhappy and neurotic simply because they feel they ought to be happy all the time and, like being what it really is, they are not. So billions of upper and billions of downers. Many of these hyper kids would be better off have some wine coolers in their lunch than taken the R. medicine.

From the time my son was three until he was nine, he did have problems. Even I had to admit that there was something really *off* with the boy's brain. My relatives insisted that he had ADD and I didn't buy it. Several doctors insisted he had ADD. (I got new doctors.) His teachers wanted him on meds. (I began to homeschool.)

I just knew, in my gut, that this was a symptom of a problem, not the problem itself.

At age 9 he began to have symptoms of autism and we ended up at a neurologist. Turns out that the kid is a Celiac and can't eat gluten-containing foods.

He's almost 14 now, 4 years gluten-free, and he's a normal, healthy kid.

Now that's ONE. One kid with a stubborn mom who wouldn't quit until we found the problem. How many other parents are railroaded into the ADD diagnosis when there's another, serious problem out there? I'd bet my life (and I do mean that) that most of the kids diagnosed with ADD are normal kids who aren't doing well in a sick society and that a large portion of the rest of those diagnosed actually have other issues that effect behavior just like my son did.

A kid who's always felt like crap doesn't know that he can feel any other way. They have no way to articulate their discomfort.

As a chronic pain sufferer, I can tell you that one side effect of consistent, low-level pain is little bursts of adrenaline. You're body is uncomfortable and it send out little "zings" of the hormone, telling you to move. (flight or fight) This causes anxiety. If the discomfort is low enough, you will have no idea where the feelings are coming from. Now tell someone who's feeling like that to sit still in a chair for 8 hours without making a fuss. Heck, I can't do it. You end up with very ADD-like symptoms.

But the ADD diagnosis is so easy

It's the equivalent of giving a housewife Valium. Drug 'em enough and they'll shut up and everyone's life will be easier.