Everyone it’s been a long time since my last post but I actually been really busy doing some good work for the cause of ADHD. Sept 17 was international day of awareness of ADHD which was last week and it would be usually inexcusable for any ADHD blog to miss it and anyone who does should be feathered, tarred and laughed at. But you see actually I purposely forgotten it because I am celebrating our Saudi Arabia Awareness week for ADHD. It runs from today to the end of the week which will culminate in the ADHD festival from September 29th to 30th at Cave Park at King Faisal Hospital hosted by ADHD Support Group & Society in which yours truly will have his own booth. You will have pictures of it to look forward to hopefully at the end of this week. Today I will be talking about problems of recognition of ADHD.
Before it was difficult for ADHD to get recognition as a disorder until the 90’s due to different interpretations of its treatments as well as prevalent idea that children behaviour is mainly caused by poor parenting and environment. When organizations such as The American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, National Institute of Mental Health, American Psychiatric Association, , and the U.S. Department of Education, among others, recognized ADHD as a legitimate disorder it began to be widely accepted. It got so popular that it began to be absorbed by U.S.A pop culture. Pop culture is a double edged sword in that it can spread awareness as quickly possible by distillation of the depth and complexity of the idea for the mainstream.
An example of this is found in the the Oscar nominated movie Juno, the main character a high school girl named Juno becomes pregnant and has to deal with the consequences. The character displays impulsive symptoms of ADHD such as hilarious way she gets herself pregnant and in one instance isn’t able to pay attention in class and asks her friend if she can borrow some Ritalin. Interacting with my friends we laugh at any of us being overtly hyperactive or being impulsive and say that they totally have ADHD even though this is a gross misdiagnosis. I must admit even I am prone to do this in some of my fun articles.
Its not bad thing as it would be really dull if we thought of ADHD in only the most pessimistic and serious terms but one shouldn’t forget that it is a serious disorder. The acceptance of ADHD in popular culture has lead to people to accept it but has also exposed it to critical disdain due to mainstream interpretation of it. These days ADHD has been labelled as way for medical corporations to pump schools with medication or worse a idotic conspiracy by governments of the world to control our kids. The cartoonish diagnosis of ADHD both by the public and medical professional has led to increase of naysayers of ADHD. So to everyone out who thinks they have ADHD here what you should know. You probably have ADHD if symptoms of hyperactivity, inattention and impulsivity impact you negatively in three separate areas of your public life i.e. school household and social relationships if you don’t display this then you most likely don’t have ADHD you’re just scatter brained =p.
These are the statistics of ADHD in adolescent in the U.S
As we can see from the chart, adolescents with high hyperactivity due to ADHD are prone to reckless behaviour. But since ADHD has now become a fake or overrated behaviour according to critics this is attributed simply to bad parenting. This for me one of the problem with current ADHD awareness is that the disorder negative presence in society is subtle. It doesn’t have the recognisability of autisms in that that autistic individual behaviour are so different from the norm that society can identify the behaviour coming from a disorder while the ability of ADHD individuals to be more successful to blend into society due to the subtler symptoms will be seen as normal no matter how reckless their behaviour.
So while it’s good for all of us to laugh at ADHD sometimes we shouldn’t forget that its disorder with serious consequences for those who aren’t treated or supported. The problems caused by ADHD in society are far reaching that awareness of the disorder is akin to people knowing that bacteria existed before the microscope. Just because you can’t see the serious consequences of ADHD immediately doesn’t mean it’s not there. This is proven by those are suffering in their daily lives because of the disorder. Well hope to see you guys tomorrow with special article I been cooking up for awhile coming your way see you then.