Stigmatizing Adderall is Bad. Scratch the Surface, and it Gets So Much Worse.

Let’s talk about disinformation and a few other topics, shall we? I’ll aim to touch on medication, ADHD, public school and homeschool, the culture wars, youth rights, and the “naturalist” movement (as I’m calling it).

Over the years, I’ve seen lots of posts attacking things like ADHD medication and anti-depressants because of a moral crusade against pharmaceuticals. I’m here to say that is completely misguided, and in fact, is especially detrimental when talking about things like ADHD. I can’t speak on behalf of every drug or every issue, so I’m gonna focus on what I DO know a little bit about.

Firstly, ADHD is an executive functioning disorder. The name “Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder” was coined during a time where we didn’t have as much knowledge about the disorder as we do today. ADHD is a neurological issue, and can manifest in different ways. The image and stereotype of little boys unable to sit still in class is how people often define it, and is why boys are diagnosed earlier and more frequently than girls, but this is not the only way ADHD presents. ADHD is not merely about being physically hyper, and while many kids grow out of the hyperactivity, they do NOT outgrow the ADHD. The symptoms may change in adulthood.

Quick ADHD Facts:

- ADHD is highly genetic and inheritable. There is a strong correlation between parents and children having ADHD. The majority of ADHD caused by being passed down through parents’ genes, risks during pregnancy, head trauma after birth, etc. ADHD is NOT caused by the home environment - there is no evidence to suggest that social factors play any role, and this has been tested with identifical twins studies upon being raised in different households.

- There is NO evidence to suggest that ADHD is being over diagnosed, and in fact, is severely under diagnosed. Of course it is possible for misdiagnosis to happen, as is the case with anything, but many of these misdiagnoses come from kids who DO present with the symptoms, and even people WITH adhd do not necessarily always meet all the DSM criteria for a diagnosis.

- It is a myth that ADHD can be *treated* without medication. Symptoms can be *managed* without medication by diet and vitamins, structure, cognitive behavioral therapy, and other external factors, but these things cannot and do not solve the underlying issue which is dysregulation in the brain. The BRAINS of people with ADHD function differently than people without ADHD. 4 major areas are impaired: the frontal cortex, limbic system, basal ganglia, and the recticular activating symptom. The strongest success for managing ADHD comes from a combination of medication and behavioral management. Nothing involving the absence of medication even comes close.

- There are inherent risks associated with unmedicated ADHD. People with ADHD are statistically more likely to experience financial issues, peer relationship problems, are more accident prone, etc (see image). ADHD isn’t just about being hyper - it’s about being IMPULSIVE.

- “Within the first month of driving, teens with ADHD are 62% more likely than their non-ADHD peers to be involved in an automobile crash. Over the first four years of having a license, drivers with ADHD are 37% more likely to get into a crash, twice as likely to drive while intoxicated, and 150% more likely to receive an alcohol, drug, or moving violation compared to their non-ADHD peers.”

- Greater risk for earlier mortality and reduced life expectancy: “Children with ADHD are nearly twice as likely to die in childhood and adults with ADHD are 3 to 5 times more likely to die in midlife compared to typical people.”

Okay, now back to my rant. Stigmatizing ADHD medication is detrimental to the health of people with ADHD. Now, medication doesn’t affect everyone the same way, and these medications do not all work the same way, either. The only way to know whether or not a particular prescription will work is through trial and error. For some people, adderall might be the way to go but for others, it’s Ritalin. Doseages matter too. But this anti-medication stigma peddled by unscientific fear mongering causes people to be apprehensive to even take the steps to try seeking a diagnosis or mitigating their symptoms. Because of the nature of ADHD itself, the symptoms return 24 hours after you stop taking medication. There is no actual cure or long-term management for these symptoms (as of right now).

I wanted to talk a bit about the dangers of living with unmedicated ADHD before addressing the post directly, because I think a lot of people need to have this issue put into perspective before anything else. If you simply think ADHD medication is used to stop kids from being energetic and distractible, it’s understandable that you might think it’s natural and schools faults for not being more accommodating (and that’s true to a point.)

But it’s incredibly frustrating to ME, after learning about the STUDIES that show all of these concerning correlations, when I see parents have knee-jerk reactions to the idea of medicating their children with ADHD. Refusing to do so puts their children at risk, and is a great disservice to them. Sometimes it’s hard to discern whether a parent is well meaning or malicious, and quite frankly I can only be so sympathetic to ignorance.

There are SO many situations where the interests of parents and children do not align. Often, this comes at the expense of the child and their health. This is one of many such cases. The stigma around ADHD medication, and the amount of disinformation about ADHD enables parents to harm their children by working against the recommendations made my professionals. In fact, I’ve seen many parents even boast about pulling their kids out of public school because they don’t want them to be medicated (or vaccinated, at times!)

As we’ve seen with the growing anti-vaxx movement, childhood vaccinations are down - measles outbreaks are happening once again. It’s no coincidence that these things are connected to the broader culture war and American politics. I mean, we all saw how people reacted to Covid, despite the millions of lives it took. We see this not only with healthcare, but with science denial in general. (Climate change is a hoax and the earth is flat, am I right?) With more and more people expressing disdain for doctors, educators, academics, and experts across virtually every field, every profession - it’s deeply concerning.

We see a similar ideological perspective come from folks who are against a globalized economy, who are against urbanization and development, who are against innovations such as GMOs and cultivated (lab grown) meat. This incessant idea that the “elites” are trying to poison us and dumb us down should be treated like the laughing stock it truly is.

Thousands of young people have to live with the unfortunate reality that their parents might be conspiracy theorists and not be operating in their best interest. Everyone wants to assume that parents do what’s best for their kids, but I hardly believe that is always the case. One of the greatest threats to the safety and stability of LGBTQ kids and teens, for example, is unaccepting families. The majority of child abuse or child sexual assault cases happen from within the family. And yet for some reason, we have so-called “parental rights” advocates who think that teachers and doctors are “groomers.” I’ve straight up seen people say that they will never take their child to a doctor out of fear that a doctor will try to give them gender transitioning hormones. This type of parenting should be seen rightfully for what it is - abuse.

This is why, for years, I have advocated for increased medical autonomy for teens. In some states, there are mature minor doctrines and in other states, teenagers have a right to seek certain types of medical care confidentially. That could mean vaccinations, birth control, abortion, etc. Let’s be honest here, there is an alarming number of parents who refuse to vaccinate their kids, who refuse to diagnose or treat their issues and illnesses, who refuse to affirm their gender identity, and some parents would even go so far as to FORCE their daughters to give birth, if given the legal right to do so. It should not at all be controversial to say that this is lunacy, and it is not their RIGHT to make these decisions that come into direct conflict with the wellbeing of their children.

This is why institutions and the presence of dedicated professionals is VITAL to securing the rights and wellbeing of minors. Teachers, doctors, social workers, etc have been at the forefront of this fight. But sometimes it’s the neighborhood librarian, a nonprofit staffer, another family member, or a friend. Good parents understand this. Good parents respect their children as human beings and have no issues with them SEEING DOCTORS. There was a lot of outrage several months ago from a UK letter sent to a parent that said that their teenage child would be able to schedule their own healthcare appointments and such. A fairly normal thing. But thanks to the times we are currently in, this was seen as some kind of malicious attempt at “grooming.” Let me assure you, the real threat is lurking behind any parent who refuses to allow their child to be spoken to by doctors, teachers, social workers, etc. To me, THAT is a massive red flag.

Circling back to what I said earlier: there are indeed many parents who have decided to homeschool for concerning reasons. Not because they want their child to be more academically successful or to be safe, but because they don’t want their children to learn about racial issues or LGBTQ people. Or critical thinking in general. It seems to me like the increase in homeschooling is directly correlated to the culture wars and the perceived threat of things like “critical race theory” and “pornography being shown to elementary schoolers.” Not to mention the fact that these homeschool parents typically have zero qualifications to teach, I worry that the hostility towards any type of oversight is just covering up all sorts of awful things.

Many of these parents are not only engaging in intellectual abuse, but are using homeschool as a shield for other types of abuse. Sometimes it’s emotional, sometimes it’s about isolation. Sometimes it is quite literally physical. The homeschool lobby fought against a bipartisan bill known as “Raylee’s Law,” named after an 8 year old girl who died from abuse after being pulled out of school to be “homeschooled.” The bill would pause or deny a parent’s request to homeschool if a teacher had reported suspected child abuse. And yet… conservatives railed against this for being an attack on homeschool! Absolutely vile. Don’t even get me started on religious indoctrination and the literal neo-Nazi curriculums. (Don’t believe me? Look it up. “Dissident Homeschool” was one such example of this, a neo-Nazi program with THOUSANDS of members was uncovered last year.)

It’s true that public schools were not designed for neurodivergent children, or children with disabilities. That doesn’t mean that things haven’t improved significantly over time. There is now so much more education and resources about things like autism and ADHD (which are comorbidities, by the way) than there were 20-50 years ago. It’s such a GOOD thing that schools have faculty that can suggest that children be evaluated for learning disabilities so that they can receive proper attention and support. So that they can receive accommodations that meet their needs. (This could be especially important regarding testing for children with ADHD.)

So when I see some people say that schools shouldn’t be “pushing” for a diagnosis, I have to wonder: Is it really the children you care about, or do you have some kind of ideological bias here? Let me go back to the original post and topic at hand: medicating children.

Research has shown there to be SIGNIFICANT positive effects for medicating adolescents. In fact, newer research might even demonstrate that medicating in childhood can help the development rate of the pre-frontal cortex “catch up” (which is on average, 4 years behind the development for someone without ADHD). This could possibly give them a chance at living a more normal life with reduced ADHD symptoms than someone who did not medicate until adulthood. So when I see all these parents saying they refuse to medicate their kids with ADHD, I think about this. I think about how much of an injustice it is for them to make uninformed decisions that will have detrimental consequences for the futures of their children. And that really is unfortunate.

Some concerns that parents may have is that they don’t want their children to be addicted to drugs. It should be relieving for them to know that proper stimulant use has a low risk of addiction, and can actually help decrease substance abuse in regards to other drugs and alcohol. (People with ADHD are more likely to have substance abuse problems.) I’ve also seen people complain about how stimulants “changed” their personality. Example: A kid being less hyper when medicated. Kids should be hyper, right? But how is their focus? It sounds like the medication is working exactly as intended, and that sounds like a silly thing to be angry about. And again, these could be issues with the wrong type of medication or an improper doseage, but no, medication is not going to “permanently alter” your kid, so it’s important that we recognize and dispel these talking points.

Okay, so you’re probably thinking, why the hell did I bother typing all of this? There’s a few reasons, actually. For starters, I was an obvious case of ADHD throughout my entire childhood and was never diagnosed. I was finally diagnosed last year. Upon receiving my diagnosis, I found out the darnedest thing. My father told me he was diagnosed as a kid and prescribed Ritalin but it “didn’t work”. Not once was this ever mentioned to a single doctor in my entire life despite the fact that ADHD is MASSIVELY HEREDITARY.

I won’t get into the whole “Wow this put my entire life into perspective” thing, but let me say this: I might not have dropped out of high school if I was diagnosed sooner. Even just KNOWING I had ADHD would have allowed me to learn about how my brain works and it might have prevented me from doing impulsive things that have lost me friendships, opportunities, etc. Maybe I wouldn’t have been bullied so much or been “the weird kid” if I had been medicated. Maybe I wouldn’t have been so depressed or struggled to make friends. Maybe this, maybe that - it doesn’t matter for me now. But it’s not too late for the millions of kids with ADHD. Over 9.4% of kids in the US have ADHD, by the way.

I never suspected it because I genuinely did not have the knowledge that I do now. It wasn’t until I struggled for years and years of my life and had others point it out that I was finally able to do something about it. And this is an ongoing struggle, by the way. But knowing is the first step.

Outside of ADHD specifically, I am deeply concerned by many of the things happening in this country, especially with the amount of Americans who are deliberately choosing to reject the consensus of experts, or to outright claim that statistics and data are being falsified, etc. These narratives that attack education, science, technology, and progress are not only a threat to democracy and innovation, but to the betterment of society as a whole. The moral crusades against scientists, doctors, teachers, the arts, the LGBTQ community, even Taylor Swift - all of these seemingly different things, they’re all related right now. Right wing propaganda spreads quickly through susceptible masses of folks who are angry and uneducated. It is SO important to spread awareness and dispel misinformation. Sometimes it has to come from a friend or family member, and not just a random person in a Facebook comment section.

Unlike some people, I will never tell anyone to inherently believe what I say and use my experiences to claim I’m some sort of expert. If anything I say IS disproven by experts, I will always appreciate to be shown the truth. If anything, I share things like this because I WANT to share the information I know so that more people can become better acquainted with actual research as opposed to simply my own opinions. I am not an authorative voice on any subject that requires extensive scientific study because that is not my field. That is why I will always point people to professionals whose credibility cannot be denied by any sane or rational people.

Determining fact from fiction isn’t about doing your own research and coming to your own conclusions based on what you read in a blog or watched in a YouTube video. It’s about properly vetting your sources. What are the qualifications of the blog writer or the person speaking in the YouTube video? THAT is what matters. What is their BACKGROUND? A distinguished professor with countless publications and research papers should not have the same social standing as an influencer when it comes to discerning true or false information. This shouldn’t even be remotely controversial, but in this day and age, unfortunately it is.