Inventor of ADHD: “ADHD is a fictitious disease”

[reeay]

In order to have a diagnosis of ADHD, symptoms are interrupting your life to a degree that it causes great distress and disability. There are those who take tests and who would meet criteria for diagnosis but do not have the key component of distress/interference with doing things one wants in life/disability. So technically someone with mild or even moderate severity of 'ADHD' may have symptoms but they may very well be fine with lifestyle adjustments and no long-term treatment. Plus, (for example) ADHD base rate is 6% meaning 6% of children in US may have this diagnoses. Yet, in some states, up to 15% of children are diagnosed with ADHD. There is possibility for misdiagnoses. In adults, I believe the rate is about 5%.

I do not know if you have ever met people with severe conditions where having meaningful long-term relationships is difficult, children having 'tantrums' that may be risk to safety of child & others, keeping up with school is difficult, dropped out of school, can't find job, unemployed, homeless, alone etc. I've met some people who have this experience say they do wish they were 'normal'.. have stable relationships, be able to learn things etc. So please don't assume that conformity/normality is something undesirable because from a perspective of someone going thru such distress anything other than their experience is really desirable for them.

I do agree Pickle that many are trapped in the system or game with small 'g'. That's why there is a movement within mental health field to minimize the use of pathology labels. It's totally not widespread bc my colleagues look at me funny when I say treating symptoms is superficial and labeling causes more distress and conflict than helps people to go thru their healing/adjustment process. But if you look at a whole system (individual level, community level, mental health/medical community, social institutions, culture, social mores, value systems, laws, regulations, policies etc) we are influenced by this vast spider-web that influence us in our lives. Even when parents become more enlightened about this issue and find ways to protect their children from being labeled or treated with unnecessary medications, they still have to contend with demands of social institutions like school systems (e.g., teachers who think their kids are difficult to handle) and legal systems or child welfare. This is a social problem where all parts of the system has to upgrade. It takes a village.