Oh, for fuck's sake.

[rivka]

Ninety-nine percent of the time, when I'm offensive, (a) I know that I'm being offensive, (b) I'm doing it on purpose, and (c) I'm willing to acknowledge it. This may not be much of a virtue, but sometimes it's all I've got.

In another journal to which I shall not link, a commenter presented the opinion that "autism and ADD are 'massively overdiagnosed.' " When I asked if she had any evidence for this claim, she posted a long set of justifications involving lazy teachers, parents with no discipline skills, venal psychologists, and suggestive idiots who see symptom lists on the internet and become convinced that their child is autistic. Here's the money quote:

what is often diagnosed as autism is more likely a lack of parenting skills combined with a therapist's interest in creating a lucrative "treatment" plan - one that involves "specialists" "drugs" and "group therapy" - all of which line someone's pockets.

My response, I acknowledge, was not at all kind or temperate. I regretted, afterwards, not making the same points in slightly more temperate language. But I am not amused, today, to discover that she made a long self-pitying post in her own journal about how victimized she was by my horrible attack. Because she is never one to make a point offensively, herself. She's very gentle.

If the bit I quoted above is not unbelievably offensive to parents of autistic children and to mental health treatment providers, then I need a new definition for the word. Yes, when I fired back, I was harsh. But I'll be damned if I'm going to accept a version of events in which I am supposed to have fired the first shot.

Comments

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I doubt you were more than a trifle over the top.

I also doubt she has any grounds to be more than briefly annoyed, and certainly not offended.

It may be she never expected anything approaching a heated, and reasoned, response to her insulting tone.

TK

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I doubt you were more than a trifle over the top.

Well, the top's pretty high.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

First things first: did you intend for this to be public? 'Cause there's a good chance she's reading this right now. If you did, fine; but I didn't want you to get into trouble if it was an oversight.

And otherwise? I'm sure you were a lot more gentle than I would have been. I would have been tempted to wish an autistic child on her.

-J

[rivka.livejournal.com]

did you intend for this to be public?

I did, actually. I wanted to give her the opportunity, if she in fact is reading my journal, to explain why she doesn't think that what she said was offensive.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

With that attitude, don't you think she'd blame the child? I might wish the child on her, but I'd never wish her on a child. Not that I'm insanely partisan, or anything.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't. Not for her, but for the child's sake.

[abbylee]

Right. 'cause people who get into those jobs are in it for the money and parents would rather blame a disease than have a happy child.

Mistakes are made all the time. But those mistakes are made with the belief that it's best for the child, not because people are lazy or greedy.

[castiron.livejournal.com]

<sarcasm>
Yeah, my son's near-total lack of verbal and social skills is totally due to my and my ex's bad parenting and to the school's wanting to shell out lots of money on special ed teachers for him; it couldn't possibly have anything to do with something actually being wired wrong in his little brain, now, could it?
</sarcasm>

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Irrelevant to the interpersonal issues at hand, I'd be interested to hear from you in a semi-professional sense about diagnosis trends in autism and ADHD. I used to work in an academic field that was trendy as hell, depsite being based in hard facts, so I don't think medicine is necessarily immune to fads, despite all the good will and interest in scientific evidence in the world. As an uninformed observer only of news about health, I do see a trend towards expanding definitions of mental health problems (in children and adults) to define as illness behaviors and personalities that would once have fallen on the quirky/gloomy/antisocial end of normal. And I say this as a woman on anti-depressant meds for 4 years after crippling episodes of depression and anxiety who wonders often enough if I really merit them, so perhaps that gives you a sense of the emotionally ingrained nature of my skepticism.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

More about diagnosis in the next comment, because I'm not sure how much space I get.

I do see a trend towards expanding definitions of mental health problems (in children and adults) to define as illness behaviors and personalities that would once have fallen on the quirky/gloomy/antisocial end of normal.

Another way of looking at that same phenomenon might be that there's an increasing awareness that people don't have to be miserable most of the time, and increasing acceptance of seeking help for emotional problems. I don't see much expansion of diagnoses into areas where people feel perfectly fine about their differences; rather the reverse, really, when you think about things like the de-medicalization of homosexuality.

I'm not sure what historical timescale you're using when you reference this trend, but as an interesting sidenote, last time I visited my parents my mother had found a bunch of 1940s-era Parents magazines. I was shocked at the extent to which almost every article was loaded with psychoanalytic jargon, and how much they brought concepts like "complexes" into everyday child development. You really got the impression that your child had an unbelievably fragile psyche, easily disturbed by even the slightest parental misstep. So probably we've been up and down on this issue, as parents.

I say this as a woman on anti-depressant meds for 4 years after crippling episodes of depression and anxiety who wonders often enough if I really merit them

I felt this way about prescription painkillers right up to, and sometimes after, I started walking with crutches because it hurt too much to just use a cane. So I'm with you.

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Another way of looking at that same phenomenon might be that there's an increasing awareness that people don't have to be miserable most of the time, and increasing acceptance of seeking help for emotional problems.

I love you; please marry me.

MKK

[rivka.livejournal.com]

The short answer: Some of the increase in autism diagnoses is related to increased awareness, especially at the high-functioning end of the spectrum. However, this doesn't seem to be enough to account for all the increase - some of it is genuinely higher frequency. Why, we don't know. (If it was thimerosal, we should be seeing a sharp decline Real Soon Now, because it's been out of childhood vaccines for several years.)

The possible overdiagnosis of ADHD has been studied extensively. I read one very large analysis in grad school. They went into schools and assessed every kid, and then compared the cases they found to the ones who had already been diagnosed. They also compared kids who were just over the diagnostic threshhold to kids who had some symptoms but were under threshhold, to see whether the ones just above had more problems functioning. They came away convinced that overdiagnosis wasn't a problem, and their evidence seems pretty compelling to me.

The long answer: A variety of things contribute to diagnostic trends.

(1) Diagnostic criteria change, hopefully in response to new research data. I would not be surprised to find, in the next edition of the DSM, that ADD-hyperactive subtype and ADD-inattentive subtype have been split off into separate disorders. The more you look at those two subtypes of kids, the less alike they seem. Changes in the diagnostic criteria over time will lead to changes in the prevalence rates.

(2) More subtly, there can be changes in the underlying conception of an illness. When autism was conceptualized not as a brain disorder but as a psychological disorder caused by maternal coldness and rejection (the phrase was "refrigerator parents"), it tended not to be diagnosed in children who were mentally retarded even if the symptoms were all present. Later, when the parental hypothesis was definitively rejected and autism came to be understood as a brain disorder, texts started saying that nearly all autistic children were mentally retarded, and so autistic kids with normal IQs were often given a lesser diagnosis. Now there's more of a shift towards the center, with recognition that both mental retardation and normal IQs are commonly seen in people with autism-spectrum disorders. But you can see how that would make the prevalence rates shift around.

For an ADD example, I'm told that in the UK, children who have both attention-deficit symptoms and conduct problems are usually given a conduct disorder diagnosis. In the US, children with both sets of symptoms are usually given ADD as the primary diagnosis. A difference in the theoretical or philosophical perspective about which symptoms are more central leads to dramatic differences in prevalence rates.

(3) People shy away from giving a diagnosis that's extremely stigmatizing, or for which there is no effective treatment. If autism is supposed to be caused by evil parents, then if you have the slightest sympathy for patients' parents you're not going to give the diagnosis unless you really, really have to. Or you might have qualms about calling a child "autistic" because the connotations are so bad - because it's not really been treatable until very recently, it's implied a horrible prognosis. Conversely, now that there are beginning to be helpful therapies for autism, people are more likely to use the diagnosis because it will lead to children getting the assistance they need.

(4) The recognition that all children have the right to an appropriate education, regardless of disability, is very recent. PL 94-142, the Education For All Handicapped Children Act, was only passed in 1974. There's now more of a push than there was in the past for children with emotional or behavioral problems to be given a diagnosis so they can receive appropriate special education services.

That was probably more than you wanted to know, right?

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

Um, no, it wasn't. I work at a library reference desk - we like to wallow in information.

I wonder what, if any, cross-cultural studies of diagnoses of ADHD and high-functioning autism reveal. Are they as commonly diagnosed in the poor, the non-white, in foreign countries? Because certainly the media picture of these illnesses is that they affect white males of the upper middle class in American suburbs. The biological tendency to affect males seems fairly obvious, but the rest, not so much. Or is there (as is of course likely given our medical system) just massive underdiagnosis in the poor and non-white?

[casperflea.livejournal.com]

I realize you have partly answered this with your UK reference above.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Because certainly the media picture of these illnesses is that they affect white males of the upper middle class in American suburbs.

It's interesting that this is your perception, because I think I'm more likely to hear that poor black kids are being drugged into submission.

I don't know for sure, but in scouting around I found this (http://www.futureofchildren.org/information2827/information_show.htm?doc_id=256825):

According to the hyperactivity subscale of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire of the National Health Interview Survey, 4.19 percent of boys and 1.77 percent of girls have “clinically significant” ADHD symptoms. Among boys, the prevalence is highest among blacks, at 5.65 percent, as against 4.33 percent for whites and 3.06 percent for Hispanics. Prevalence is also higher (6.52 percent) in families with incomes less than $20,000 than in families with higher incomes (3.85 percent). When gender, race, age, income, and parental education are taken into account, the effect of income remains statistically significant, but there is no difference in prevalence between blacks and whites.

But that's survey results, not diagnoses. This review article about epidemiology of ADHD (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12216060&dopt=Citation) concludes, "basic information about how the prevalence of ADHD varies by race/ethnicity, sex, age, and socio-economic status remains poorly described."

[enid-niniane.livejournal.com]

I'm not expert, but I took a course in this a couple of months ago, so I have to add this: "Differing cultural standards might also influence prevalence. Ratings in the United Kingdom and China showed that almost three times as many Chinese boys were identified [as showing symptoms of ADHD]. On closer examination, it was revealed that the Chinese boys were actually more attentive and less active than the U.K. boys." (Behavior Disorders of Childhood, p. 245, 2003)

Speaking entirely anectdotally, I think some of the differences in perception about these disorders may depend on where one lives. I grew up in a small Canadian town, and in a very white/Chinese/Iranian part of Toronto, and the majority of kids I knew who were on Ritalin were white males - because there were perhaps 5 black males at the school. And I did wonder about the diagnoses that led to the prescriptions - it wasn't like this when I was in elementary school, but by the time my brother got there, half the boys in his grade were on Ritalin, along with a few of the girls (that's about 10 of 60 students); if there are a lot of cases like my brother's class, that could certainly make many people wonder whether or not ADHD is overdiagnosed.

That said, blaming parenting when there's no evidence that it has anything to do with ADHD or autism is a horrible thing for anyone to do.

[kiya]

I have a friend who had a tough time getting an ADHD diagnosis and treatment because she's female; I have a cousin who had neither his ADHD nor his dyslexia diagnosed before his late teens because he was categorised as "disruptive black kid" rather than evaluated for medical problems.

That's my anecdotal stuff.

[ckd]

One interesting hypothesis I've heard is that people with mild tendencies toward autism or similar problems are more likely to meet each other, have children, and find that the tendencies reinforce. I have no idea how much evidence, if any, there is for this; I vaguely remember it being suggested because of Silicon Valley's levels of diagnosis.

As for the "overly diagnosed" thing...I'm too angry to go there, and this from your second-hand snippet.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

I was going to write some sarcastic, snarky, pithy comment about her comments, but I'm shaking too much.

The sad thing is, as a parent of a high functioning autistic kid, I've wondered some of those things -- is it something I did? or didn't do? am I just a crappy parent who can't instill discipline that my eleven year old throws tantrums? We work and we work on things getting better, and they do up to a point, and then things go to hell, and I keep wondering.. is it me?

Shit, I'm crying.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

oh, Pat. *hug* You were one of the reasons why I was so furious.

If it's something you did, then you did something unknown to psychological science. I know you're creative, but I doubt that you're that creative.

[patgreene.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry. I shouldn't have bled all over your journal. We're going through a very rough patch right now with my son, so I'm sensitive on the subject. And I know intellectually I did nothing wrong, but as you know, knowing intellectually is not the same as knowing emotionally.

And it's interesting... the poster seems to imply that parents seek out diagnoses to cover thier own inadequacies. I know of at least two cases where parents actively resisted getting help for their kid who might have been autistic. In one case it was a little boy at my son's school who was in the first grade and barely communicative. When I made it a point to talk to the SLT about him, she sighed and said his parents had resisted getting him assessed.

[saoba.livejournal.com]

Wow, I feel like such a dupe! For years I've held K's hand while she waited outside various offices and met with doctors and school admistrators trying to find something that would work for her son. I've listened to her cry about his inablity to resond appropriately to emotional interaction. I've actually admired the people who worked like dogs to get him into the programs that allowed him graduate high school and attend the local community college.

I mean, I even believed that there was something wrong with this kid that the adults around him were struggling to fix.

And it turns out it was all about money and bad parenting. Boy, am I gullible.

But shouldn't some of the blame be on the kid? I mean the shifty little devil was exhibiting symptoms at the tender age of two, just to lure me in to the over-diagnosing festival. He probably did it to get those cool drugs, right?

Bah. Offensive may indeed be the applicable description here, but I think it applies to her. And I'm willing to bet your response was more temperate than mine would have been.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

Ick.

What is her background, that she feels she's such an authority on the subject? What is it she thinks gives her such special insight?

And, yes, she was offensive as hell.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Minor in psych, and she would fight her kid being diagnosed with those disorders.

[brooksmoses]

Well, of course she would. Because she doesn't have a kid with those disorders.

Why she thinks this relates to how people who have kids with these disorders should behave is beyond me.

</snark>

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Well, my gut feeling is that she might be right on the point of ADHD being a 'fashionable' diagnosis, and I can't help but feel that it might be related to kids no longer being allowed - if not _expected_ - to run around and expend a lot of energy. When I was in primary school, if kids - especially boys - were to have difficulties sitting still and concentrating, it was often simply ignored - they had plenty of opportunity to run around and climb trees and play football and get into all kinds of scrapes in their breaks, and they were expected to grow out of it.
As far as I am aware, most of them did.
I am slightly cynical as to whether, almost thirty years later (ugh!) the same standards would be applied, or whether parents and teachers wouldn't actively seek a diagnosis and ways to 'fix' what is so obviously 'wrong' with the child - after all, the child doesn't want to sit quietly in front of the video as my neighbour's kids spend at least half their time.
There also seem to be links between very wired behaviour and sugar highs or certain food additives - and *that* would most certainly make it a modern problem. In such cases, my impulse would be to _first_ see whether the problem cannot be controlled with a better diet and more chances to blow off steam rather than with drugs, but that doesn't seem to be everybody's first point of call.
Which, as I realise, is tremendously unfair on those people who *do* try, and *are* the best parents they or anyone else can be under their circumstances.

As for autism, thankfully I lack direct experience with it. I do, however, own a horse whose behaviour became more understandable - and more controllable - once I started looking into autism (somebody wrote about their kid and I thought 'that sounds just like my horse'), so on that account I have every inch of sympathy for the parents; but again, I wonder how much can be achieved with behavioural therapy and what role drugs can - or should - play.

As I said, these are musings of a laywoman. I do not think that the parents should be blamed, but living next door to a set of bad parents (not ill-meaning, just totally unskilled, which breeds a lot of verbal violence) I wonder whether milder tendencies that another set of parents would have absorbed wouldn't come out full blast when combined with helplessness before even average behaviour.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

You know, it bothers me quite a bit when people who are fully aware that these are topics they haven't studied, and are only musing based on first principles, feel comfortable implying that other people are drugging their kids unnecessarily. Can you explain to me why you think it's appropriate to do so?

As it happens, people have tried experimental educational settings for children diagnosed with ADHD, in which sitting still is not required and there are lots of chances for exercise. It makes school more pleasant, but it doesn't mitigate the disabling effects of the illness. It certainly doesn't result in increased school performance.

Furthermore, untreated ADHD is not benign. It's associated with high risk of school failure, drug and alcohol abuse, serious conduct problems including criminality, social rejection by one's peers, depression, and family conflicts. ADHD is not a problem that vanishes if people wink and say that "boys will be boys." Some kids do grow out of it, true; others experience lifelong failures at work and at home if they don't receive help.

Finally, do you have any idea about how commonly behavioral therapy vs. drugs are used to treat autism, or does it just sound good to you to imply that people use drugs too much?

Man. This is the last thing I expected to see on this thread.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

feel comfortable implying that other people are drugging their kids unnecessarily. Can you explain to me why you think it's appropriate to do so?

I think there is a general tendency in society to look towards drugs as good solutions.

In many cases, they are. In many cases, they are the best solution. But there are probabably equally as many cases (headaches, colds) where popping pills is *not* the best, most efficient, or least problematical solution - yet there is a subtle pressure towards doing so.

I think looking towards a drug - like Ritalin - as the starting point of approaching a problem (confirmed by the article you quoted) is a bad philosophy, and I like to see it questioned. Which does not mean that I reject Ritalin as being inappropriate on principle, only that I want to be reassured that it is not used unquestioningly, just as I want to feel reassured that people do not use antidepressants (another disputed, often highly efficient, frequently necessary, but sometimes too easily prescribed class of drugs) as a first resort. (This, unfortunately, is first hand experience.)

ADHD is not a problem that vanishes if people wink and say that "boys will be boys." Some kids do grow out of it, true; others experience lifelong failures at work and at home if they don't receive help.

Wondering whether there is an overdiagnosis of a certain illness/disorder/problem does not mean denying that it exists or that it is a real problem. Bad diagnostic methods that results in diagnosing people who don't suffer from something will, in the long run, probably prove as damaging as bad diagnostic methods that mean people who are suffering are not diagnosed. In the latter case, the effect is obvious and harming the people directly, in the former, it can mean that nobody takes the diagnosis - and the real sufferers - seriously, because they've come across too many people suffering with colds who "had the flu".

I tried to give you another perspective of why someone might arrive at the conclusions you referred to initially. Wondering what role non-drug treatments can play in the treatment for autism is a far cry from implying that drugs are used too much; attacking me for expressing an interest in the topic was not what _I_ expected.

What explanation would you offer for the sharp increases in diagnosis of ADHD and the corresponding prescriptions? Can you not at least acknowledge that they give the _appearance_ of a 'fashionable' diagnosis?

If sufferers are diagnosed by the virtue of having symptoms like 'having difficulty in playing quietly' and 'talking excessively' - are you *surprised* that people question where the line of diagnosis is drawn? Who decides how much 'playing quietly' is normal, and how quiet children should play? And don't you think that this line will be drawn differently in different societies?

the Feingold hypothesis that ADHD can be cured by a diet avoiding sugar and food additives was conclusively disproved more than twenty years ago

I am not aware that the concept has a name attached to it; but I know several parents who insist that they can see marked differences in their children's behaviour directly related to their diets; I know a couple of adults who will attest the same about themselves, so I think it's at least worth looking at. I know that I have difficulty concentrating if I skip breakfast and load myself with quick carbs...

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

There were two brothers.

One was called "computer" because he was thought to be the smarter one.

He was put on Ritalin. It helped. They took him off of it... hyperactivity is a trendy diagnosis. His parents were having marital problems. That was the only reason he was acting inappropriately.

The other... he just suffered. He didn't know how to deal with the racing thoughts, the overwhelming emotions, and hypersensitity to things.

Twenty odd years later, the other discovered that being half-asleep all the time, being unable to fight though a fog, being unable to bear the pain of being alive, that wasn't *normal*... and eventually discovered he had ADHD.

The other one, the brighter star, had already started killing himself with drugs and alcohol. He died last year. He was still finding a way to deal with his own pain, still trying to understand.

I understand that you hear all the stories, and you might think it's worth worrying about, and you also might think that Rivka is (or I am) being unduly harsh on those who don't understand.

But it can be a matter of life and death, literally.

And sometimes, sometimes you have the time, the strength, and the wisdom to be calm and find comfortable ways to counter the arguments and explain things in a way that gets people to understand.

And sometimes... sometimes you don't.

And it can be hurtful to people when they get snapped at angrily because they didn't understand. I get that. I'd rather (as would Rivka) gently change their minds, because a gently changed mind is more likely to stay changed.

But it's not always possible. People can't say "on" all the time, ready to let the pain and anger and frustration drain away, so that they can gently help another person to understand. So, sometimes the pain and frustration leaks out, and sometimes it's fair, and sometimes it's not, but life's like that, sometimes.

Yeah, I understand that people have misconceptions that can caus a great deal of suffering. I know that they're not evil or malicious for having those misconceptions. But *damn*, it still hurts.

[annafdd.livejournal.com]

Why shouldn't drugs be used for colds or headaches? I usually weather colds pretty well, but I do suffer from disabling migraines. As a matter of fact, it's widely recommended to take painkillers fairly early on in a migraine episode because it's a lot more difficult to defeat pain when it's well established. My direct experience alas confirm this.

Two thoughts, on one piece of this

[redbird]

I am not aware that the concept has a name attached to it; but I know several parents who insist that they can see marked differences in their children's behaviour directly related to their diets; I know a couple of adults who will attest the same about themselves, so I think it's at least worth looking at. I know that I have difficulty concentrating if I skip breakfast and load myself with quick carbs...

First, I know that I get grumpy if I don't have enough protein. That's not ADHD, it's well within "normal" human variation. That people do better with healthy food doesn't mean that improving one's diet will cure ADHD, or any other disease.

Second, it is very hard to sort out random chance and the placebo effect. This is especially true in cases where the evaluation of whether a treatment helps is the same person who has decided to try the treatment, and is administering it, rather than either an outside observer or the patient. I don't know how much variation there is in symptoms from day to day, or week to week, with hyperactivity or ADD. With conditions that do have such variation, almost anything can appear to be a "cure". Hence the belief among some people with multiple sclerosis that removing mercury fillings from their teeth is a cure, or at least a significant treatment: relapses and remissions are part of the normal course of MS, and it's not at all unlikely that a given person will have a remission right after trying any random treatment. Post hoc does not mean propter hoc.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Oh, and also: the Feingold hypothesis that ADHD can be cured by a diet avoiding sugar and food additives was conclusively disproved more than twenty years ago.

[perigee.livejournal.com]

She ended up (whether or not she knew she was doing it personally to you) implying that you had poor professional ethics. In my household, this doesn't even get a shot across the bow. It gets a bitchslap into next Tuesday.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

whether or not she knew she was doing it personally to you

She did, actually. Her comment included an acknowledgment that, from my journal, I appeared to be a psychologist or psychiatrist. So yeah, that'd be another reason for my lack of restraint.

[em-h.livejournal.com]

sigh ... sometimes parents of autistic children just get to the point where we don't have the energy to be offended by these things anymore.

I do lie awake at night going over everything mistake I could possibly have made with my daughter -- did I wait too long to have her assessed, did I miss key windows of possibility, did I make the wrong decision in mainstreaming her at first, or in sending her to a specialized school later, and on and on and on -- but people who are so clearly just whacking away at misinformed agendas don't make me feel any worse; they don't even figure on my radar any more. I can't be bothered.

Plus why does she think that drugs and "group therapy" are standard parts of a treatment plan for autism? Oh, well, forget it.

Look.

[(Anonymous)]

The poster in the original thread on another journal was making some statements about parents, professionals, and teachers being to blame for the over-diagnosis of serious disorders like ADHD and autism. I was happy when you corrected this.

However, you then made a statement blaming "almost all" parents of children disabled with Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder. I rightly called you on this; you rightly apoplogized, and produced more accurate information about the brain differences in children with this disability. Thank you. But, in the interim period, I had a very respected and learned professional...a doctor...writing that I was the exception to the blame rule...that, based upon your training, I was the parent that was most likely to be at fault.

As the loving parent of an ODD child who will never recover, this made me cry.

Just like the original poster that enraged you with her misconceptions about autism made your friend Pat cry.

The original poster was also rightly called on her misconceptions. She rightly apologized, and has removed her statements. She did write about you in her journal, but she deleted that. You have written about her here. People are hurt, and defensive, and sad. Having a disabled child brings out a lot of feelings in professionals, laypeople, and parents, and it isn't easy to wade through, sometimes.

I would just ask, respectfully, that you review the similarities between what the original poster did that enraged you, and what you have done, and then let this matter rest. None of us are perfect, and we all have much to learn from eachother. Thank You for listening.

Re: Look.

[em-h.livejournal.com]

However, you then made a statement blaming "almost all" parents of children disabled with Oppositional Defiant Disorder and Conduct Disorder.

I think you have me confused with someone else.

Re: Look....was meant for Rivka.

[(Anonymous)]

I apologize, em_h. I am not really good with the whole reply/thread thing, here, and just posted my thoughts at the bottom of the page.

My message was in response to things Rivka and another poster wrote during the original discussion on journeywoman's journal, as well as what Rivka has posted here. I am sorry for the confusion.

[xopher-vh.livejournal.com]

Well, my "anecdotal stuff" - or anecdotage, consists of...wait, isn't 'anecdotage' the part of old age where you sit around telling stories? I had a story, didn't I? What was it about? Oh, yeah, ADHD.

I was undiagnosed during my entire childhood. Back then (the 60s) they called it 'hyperactivity'. My teachers saw the fact that I was physically unable (at any rate, so it seemed to me) to stay in my seat and work - my fifth grade teacher finally, at the end of her rope, took a roll of masking tape and went around and around me and my chair one day. I related this story to my Psy.D. friend Susan, and she said I should definitely mention it to the neurologist...because it was 'pathognomonic' - which is now my very favorite word, just because I like the sound of it. Where was I? Oh yeah.

My parents scoffed at the notion that I was hyperactive. At home, I exhibited more of the inattentive ("oblivious!" they called it) behavior, or maybe they just didn't notice me walking around and around and around the dining room table talking to myself - telling myself a story, actually - which was one of my primary amusements. Or the constant leg movements, especially right before sleep.

I was fired from almost every job I ever had (LOTS of jobs) until I went on meds. I haven't been fired since (two quits, one dot-com bust). The Cylert enables me to function in the Farmers' world.

I'd just like to say that ADHD does have a dramatic upside. I was a better poet before I went on meds. I still am hyperaware of people around me...no one's picking MY pocket anytime soon. While I choose being able to work and not get fired, I miss the parts of the upside that are blunted by the meds (mental multitasking, mostly). I wish I could have a job where the Hunter brain is more valued, but those are scarce and they don't pay well.

Btw, the early part of this post wasn't me joking on being ADHD. I just decided to give you my unedited thoughtstream. Normally I go back and fix those things.

And btw Rivka: That stupid bitch can bite my ass. If you got medieval on her, go you!!! Thanks for standing up.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you know *my* opinion on that.

I do understand how it feels, though... it's a rough thing, when someone being that insensitive and unthinking just doesn't realize it. They can't/won't accept that you have a right to be upset, because they can't/won't accept that they made a mistake, so they have to and up jumping on you for being unfair.

And if the world was remotely fair, they'd learn tomorrow that you were right, they were wrong, and they have damn good reason to be horribly embarrassed at how they acted... but the odds are high that they won't have that realization.

Still... you did what you could.

[(Anonymous)]

Some interesting info in October issue of DISCOVER magazine. In Frontiers of Science--Behavior. Some studies seem to suggest that various infections during pregnancy may alter fetal brain chemistry. I won't go into the particulars, suffice it to say that there is a great deal more to learn and to make comments such as "...autism is more likely a lack of parenting skills..." is ignorant and deserved to be rebutted no matter how 'over the top' a fashion.