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Email re: ADHD

Dear Carrie:

As an avid reader and fan of Stay Free!, and as someone who works directly of parents and teachers of kids with ADHD on a daily basis, I was really disheartened and disappointed by your ADHD piece in the newest issue.  It is clear from the article that you are deeply (and I expect willfully) uninformed with regard to the fundamental nature of the disorder, which is definitely something that does not characterize your writing and thinking on most other topics.

You cite Russell Barkley in your Real ADHD Screening Test, but there is no way that you could have actually read his work (or anyone else in what your anthro student termed the "ADHD establishment"- at least he's smart enough not to want to debate them) and still be trotting out old chestnuts like "They can play video games for hours, so how can they have ADHD?"  As Barkley and others state again and again, ADHD is fundamentally a problem of disinhibition,NOT attention.  Provide a kid or and adult with ADHD with a stimulating environment where gratification, consequences for actions, etc are immediate, where long-term goals and planning are not necessary, where analysis and reflection are superseded by the demands of the moment (video games are absolutely perfect), and of course they can "concentrate" for hours.  Please read something--Barkley's ADHD and the nature of self-control, or if he's too "establishment", Bob Seay's website--and disabuse yourself of these core misunderstandings.

Ritalin is a different issue entirely, and you'll be happy to know that your arguments against it are exactly those of vaunted consumer advocates George Will and the Church of Scientology.  Sure, it's a scam foisted on us by drug companies- and for the peddlers of bullshit "herbal ADHD remedies", like the billionaires you site earlier in the mag, "it's not about the money", right?  Where is your screed against these greedy scumbags, who litter the Web with their high-priced nonsense?

Of course, giving drugs like Ritalin to kids is an extremely serious matter, and I hope that Ritalin does not turn out to be the be-all and end-all in terms of ADHD treatment (just like I wish my wife did not have to have chemotherapy treatments for treatment of her leukemia).  But again, the primary argument against medication for ADHD is that ADHD either really isn't a disorder at all, or it's just a "problem paying attention" and all kids are hyper-- and as I pointed out above, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the disorder.   And if your feelings about medical research are really as cynical as what your mock "studies" suggest, than what can one really say?  Salk was a pawn of drug companies?  "I'm an Asshole!" stickers for doctors' cars?

To me, Stay Free! addresses serious issues in our culture, and does so in a smart, thought-provoking way.  If you are determined to venture into issues like ADHD, please do us the favor of thoroughly reading and understanding what "the enemy" (i.e. the true experts) have to say on the subject.

Derek Monypeny
Oakland, CA

Carrie responds: Many thanks for writing. And, yes, Stay Free! addresses what I think are serious social issues....but, for me, that includes ADHD. Diagnosing people as ADHD strikes me as a bit like saying people who get headaches from consuming Nutrasweet have "chemical sensitivities." It's true in a sense (only a fraction of people get headaches or tumors from drinking diet soda) but that truth only hides a much larger one....which, when it comes to ADHD, is that the environment kids are growing up in is working against them. Some kids do fine in this sort of environment than other ones; they're the "normal" ones.

I'm sorry if the screening text pissed you off; it by no means intended to make fun of anyone with learning problems... and probably would have come off less like a sideswipe had the interview with Jane Healy come through and there was more discussion.