My mouth hit the floor when my professor asked me why I would continue to take Ritalin if it does not cure ADHD. This was four months into the 2009 Fall semester and my introduction to the college world.
“Cured?” I thought standing there with a godsmacked expression. There wasn’t any way he could have been serious. Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is not something that can be cured nor would I want it to be. It is a chemical variance in the brain that no amount of medication, caffeine or therapy can fix.
ADHD is just one of the many neurological variances that occur in the population’s gene pool. It is hard to know how many people suffer with it, but it is quite a common illness. According to sites such as https://www.holtorfmed.com, ADHD is said to have increased by 43% over the past decade.
While there are different degrees of the severeness, ADHD affects 6-7% of people under the age of 18 as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). And 30-50% of those with ADHD carry their symptoms into adulthood.
But this only represents those who have been properly diagnosed.
More often than not, ADHD is mistaken with other conditions. Due to varying similarities and certain behavioral patterns, patients are misdiagnosed with anything from depression to bipolar disorder. When it comes to misdiagnoses, there can be many other implications than just misdiagnosing a patient, for instance, it could greatly change a long term disability insurance quote if the patient feels as if the disorder they are coping with, greatly hinders them from employment and a career path. This is just one the many reasons it’s of great importance to ensure you, or your loved has been diagnosed correctly.
As a result, carriers are subjected to a form of ostracization unique to them alone and it can be found in any school from elementary to the university level.
Freak, psychopath, deviant, troubled youth, delinquent, destructive-all of these have been applied to me either by my peers or teachers.
Granted, none of them were board certified biochemists. But it should have been apparent that the traits I exhibited were not malicious or crazed. I was just an inquizitive child that couldn’t sit still and fought back against the playground bullies.
While research on ADHD is relatively new, the condition has been the center of controversy since it was first given its name in the early 1970’s.
Is it genetic? Does societal conditioning trigger ADHD or emotional trauma experienced in the first six years of a child’s life? Is the imbalance brought on by the foods the child eats or is it passed through the mother?
My personal favorite was the “sure reason” my former psychologist gave. It was his belief that mothers who ate any seafood and leafy greens during their pregnancies were at higher risk of having a child with ADHD or some other learning disability.
I didn’t pay his words much heed since he was a shrink and had never study medicine or neurology for that matter.
It is true that those of us with ADHD fidget, daydream and can, on occasion, be forgetful. We are fast talkers and like to work individually which in turn causes some to say we are antisocial.
But there is more than one side to the coin.
ADHD carriers exhibit great creativity and have higher critical thinking skills according to a 2015 CDC survey. They are also more inclined to solving difficult tasks with out-of-the-box thinking.
If more effort was put forth into understanding the variance than there currently is, I feel students carrying this weight would benefit across the board.
In elementary school I was forcefully removed from my standardized class the week after I was diagnosed with ADHD and OCD. Instead of progressing alongside my friends, I was sent to a class of ten children who read kindergarten level material despite being in the third grade.
The school’s reason behind their actions was simple. They were afraid that my behavior would cause other students to deviate from their studies. And so I became a pariah.
This trend continued into high school until I became so frustrated with the system that I challenged my counselor to a game of chicken. If I could pass chemistry with a C or higher she promised to permanently remove me from the resource program.
Needless to say she did not believe I could do it since the odds were not in my favor.
My performance in math and physics left little to be desired and my reputation with the authority figures on campus was, in a word, notorious.
However, this time I was determined to turn my “weakness” into an unwavering pillar of strength.
Pouring all and any energy I had into studying, I memorized lengthily chapters within hours and absorbed information by creating songs to match definitions or formulas. Over the course of seven months, I forced the disconnected train tracks in my brain to connect.
At the end of my sophomore year, I had earned a B+ in chemistry and my freedom.
Two years later on graduation day, my counselor asked me why I wanted out of the resource program so badly. The truth was that if I had stayed in there any longer I would have believed the falsities and misconceptions others have about people like me.
Yet I had realized something years before when I threw down the gauntlet with my counselor. ADHD is not a disability or something that we “cope with.” It is a gift and an extraordinary one at that.
It is a door that opens up hidden channels in the brain the same way wormholes connect different points in the universe.
For me, ADHD and other learning variances are a halfway point in the evolution of the human mind. Somewhere during the brain’s development, the pathway being formed hit a roadblock and had to find an alternate route.
This is not a disease. This is progress. And sometimes, progress is messy and takes you into unfamiliar territory. But this is to be expected if not welcomed.
Teachers and administrators should seek to expand their knowledge of ADHD and similar variances so that they can communicate with their students more effectively.
If a student with ADHD sees that their professor is understanding of their condition and is constructive rather than critical, that student is more likely to reach out for help.
And instead of asking if ADHD is curable or not, faculty members should be taught what these variances are and how to work with the student on building up their studying habits.
Whether it be a long trek to mutual understanding or a shortcut to a harmonious classroom experience, everything begins with that first step. This time, it is the teachers that must make the decision to move forward and allow themselves to be taught.