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ADHD, The Check Out Line, and Me
By Rebecca Walker / December 9, 2008
There is a lot to talk about, like:
What a great job Obama is doing (and how saddened I am by how many are so critical so soon), the auto industry bailout and why it’s not "cost-effective" for the big 3 to go green, the staggering number of people losing jobs, and the theme I’ve hit several times since the Olympics: China’s devastating invasion of parts of Africa.
But right now I want to have a moment about ADHD, Ritalin, and prevailing attitudes about mental health.
Today at the health food store I overheard a conversation between a Dad, the person ringing up his groceries, and a woman on line.
The dad said his daughter was diagnosed with ADHD, and Ritalin was working well. He said she’s been experiencing a lot of success in school and at home and "her turn-around" was "like a miracle." The checker gave an enthusiastic high-five. "Hey man, that’s so great."
Then the woman chimed in with anecdotal information about an Omega-3 supplement that "helped the son of a friend." She tried to remember the name of the supplement, and while reaching for the name, suggested Dad try it.
Dad suddenly looked ashamed and embarrassed. He said he had "read some studies" about the supplement and was hoping to "get some soon." He really wanted to get his daughter off the Ritalin, he said. Because although she was doing better, he "hated being duped by the drug companies," who probably "invented ADHD in the first place."
The woman nodded, and agreed. "It’s worth a shot," she said, offering no further information about her clinical credentials or the supplement she suggested Dad try on the daughter who responded to Ritalin as if it were "a miracle." "The overmedication of children in this country is a crime," she said. "Have you tried taking her off wheat and sugar?"
At which point I had to tune out or risk an intervention.
Listen, I agree big pharma is problematic. I agree all kinds of illnesses are "created" by drug marketers, a lot of kids are overmedicated, and the whole world should be focused on preventive care, and living holistically in organic environments.
But sometimes illness actually responds to Western medicine, and when it does, I for one am happy to have access to it, not just for bone marrow transplants and the shrinking of brain tumors, but for schizophrenia and bi-polar disease, clinical depression and Tourette’s.
I left the store wondering when we as a culture will decide once and for all that mental wellness, like any other kind of health, is worthy of pharmaceutical support. When mental illness, like cancer or lupus or HIV, will finally be deemed legitimate enough to warrant medication.
Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of. Like any other disease, it’s something to treat. Whether it’s with herbs, meds, beets, or yoga doesn’t matter. What matters is that people–regardless of ideology, religion or cultural taboos–get better, feel happier, and are more able to make healthy decisions for themselves and the people they love.
I originally posted a version of this on TheRoot.com, a site with a decidedly African-American take. I’m wondering if the stigma around mental illness in the black community is more intense than in the Jewishy community. I think we Jewishy ones tend to incorporate mental illness into our idea of culture. A little neurotic? That’s called being a Jewish mother. Depressed? Well bubbeleh, what’s not to be depressed about? Life is suffering, you know that.
Plagued by doubt, uncertainty, a constant sense of impending doom and annhiliation? Eh, well, what are you going to do? This is our lot. Even though it all started with Freud, there seems to be a fine line between belief in psychoanalysis, and embracing the need for it as a source of cultural pride.
But is this a coping mechanism left over from a more harrowing time? Looking at emasculated sons and anxiety ridden, hypervigilant mothers, I wonder, does our thinking on this help or hurt? Can we imagine a Jewishy identity not mired in neurotic pathos?
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I’m continually disgusted every time I hear people voice the canard
that ADHD is fake, the figment of an imagination, poor parenting, etc.
Perhaps
for some children, yes. I wouldn’t be too incensed, were it discovered
that ADHD is overdiagnosed. But to deny the illness altogether, this I
find gravely insulting.
I have what the doctors diagnosed as
textbook ADHD, and my brother as well. My mother suspects she has ADD,
because although she lacks the incredible hyperactivity of my brother
and me, she has the astounding extroverted character, and the
proclivity to interrupt herself in mid-thought, and then return to her
previous thought as if she hadn’t left it, as well as other signs.
I
remember being aware of my rambunctiously unacceptable behavior, but
not being able to do anything about it. It’s like you’re looking at
yourself from the outside, realizing that you’re not normal, but being
unable to control yourself. It’s like when you a bit tipsy, almost
drunk, and you know that you’re not being normal, but you cannot manage
enough mental willpower to reign yourself in. That’s what everyday was
like.
What did Ritalin do? It put me in control of my own body.
Suddenly, I was able to summon the mental fortitude to exhibit control
over my own actions, commensurate with what my rational intellect had
been declaring all along. Before being on Ritalin, I was doing
absolutely miserably in school; after Ritalin, I rose to the top of the
class within months.
My brother and I participated in a study at NIH (National Institutes of Health), where were diagnosed as textbook ADHD. I remember hurling toys everywhere with my brother, when were weren’t almost literally jumping off the walls. Finally, my mother was permitted to give us our Ritalin at lunchtime, and she said, she could SEE us gradually calm down within minutes. Within five minutes, we gradually went from being unable to not interrupt each other with raging streams of consciousness, to acting like normal elementary school age children.
It’s been years now since the diagnosis,
and years since I stopped Ritalin. Thanks to the Ritalin, I was able to
learn what it was like to control myself, and I am now, to some extent,
able to control myself without the Ritalin. I still have a
superlatively excitable extrovertedness, not to mention a propensity to
go off onto incredible tangents, with my conversant long lost as to
what I’m talking about, but other than that, I’m in control. But put me
on a bit of alcohol, and the ADHD comes raging back out.
I am three years old. For the first few decades of my life I was profoundly ADHD but smart enough to compensate, at least sort of. When I was finally diagnosed and put on meds it was like I was reborn. Friends and family say I’m like a completely new man. I feel like I’ve been the beneficiary of a 5 dollar a month miracle.
Orthorexia is a disease, not a legitimate system of medical treatment. Of course the helpful idiot in the checkout line recommended getting rid of wheat and sugar. I have no doubt she would have moved on to dairy and meat given another few seconds to wreak more damage. And cleansing enemas would have been next on the list. There’s a pathological fear of mental illness. The quack cures are all about ascetic self-punishment.
Many psychiatric conditions have a physical basis. A growing number of them is susceptible to treatment. The real tragedy is that people are ashamed to seek help out of the legitimate fear that they will be sigmatized.
Rebecca,
I love how you showed us both sides–the big pharma and the anti-meds–and how important it is to let go of ideology for mental health. Â As you said, there are problems with pharmaceutical companies, but if drugs really help, they’re worth it. Â Nice post.Â
Thanks for this well-written article, it’s a subject of particular interest to me, and thanks for introducing me to TheRoot.com.Â
It’s worth noting that the daughter’s "miraculous" success is due to her being, in essence, put on speed. I think parents love the results when their kids get put on Ritalin/Adderal etc (the stimulants), thus fueling the overmedication of children, but it’s dangerous for their kids when they take this easy way out. One reason is the loss of appetite, and growing kids need to be gaining weight.
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