Bravo, PL, that you continue to bring awareness and skepticism to this issue. How much of ADHD is a dopamine-deficiency, and how much of ADHD reflects a particular wiring for humans which just happens to not compute with our modern way of life? The "Hunter-Farmer" theory even suggests that ADHD-ish-brains, far from pathological, were an adaptive trait that allowed our hunter ancestors to hyper-focus on the task at hand ("I'm gonna get that bear") and disregard all the boring stuff. Where would all the historical artists, intellectual, poets, inventors who clearly had an ADHD-ish brain be if they had medicated their brains into the neurotypical range? Props also for citing the danger of drugging our children at younger and younger ages and consigning them to a lifetime of medication dependency.
While it's hard out there for those of us who don't fit that neurological mold- this does not mean our wiring is 'pathological' nor does it mean stimulant medication is an appropriate response or long term solution.
AND YET, on a 3-D level here, ADHD-ish symptoms are REAL and they present REAL problems. Ask a young person with scatter-brain tendencies who is struggling to finish school, hold her job, pay bills, and ultimately navigate our our sensory-processing-labor market, and, odds are, she'd be pressed to call their ADHD-brain a gift. Sadly our global economy is such that we don't have the capacity to tailor-mold everyone a customized, personalized job that matches their distinct neurobiology and optimizes their gifts. Indeed, we live in a one-size-fits-all, information processing age, where prolonged executive functions in our prefrontal cortex is the goldstandard of professional competence. Likewise, many people do not have access to ADHD coaches, neurofeedback practitioners, naturopaths, or the myriad of other healers who are working outside of big Pharma. Those of us that do have that access been truly fortunate. Thanks again for your post! (In true ADHD fashion, I posted this twice :P Please delete the prior post!)
A2Person
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