ITT: Nagah RantingsFollow

I am so extremely pissed off at the way our society has chosen to dissect everything that's wrong with everyone. From the time that you are born til you die, you have to either fit into this perfect mold or else be classified "disabled."

20-30 years ago this didn't happen. If you were a little energetic, people called you high-strung or hyper, now you're ADHD. If you don't feel comfortable around certain people, you must have social anxiety. And the real kicker, if you don't respond to people just because you don't want to, you have a form of autism.

Give me a break. You know why you don't hear about adults with these childhood mental/behavioral health coniditions? Because they didn't get diagnosed because the government didn't tell school systems you only get $X for each child unless you have a special needs child. They didn't get diagnosed, because it was okay that they weren't cookie cutter to all of their peers. They didn't get diagnosed because criteria to "have" said disorder wasn't so large you could drive a Mac truck through it.

I'm sick and tired of people telling me something is "wrong" with my children. I'm sick and tired of people telling me that I need to "fix" what's "wrong." There are hundreds if not thousands of people that were just like my children when they were little. Guess what! They are happy normal functioning adults that we go to work with every day. They go home to their wife and kids everyday. They do everything that the rest of us do. Yeah, they may be a little "quirky," or they may have really intense pre-occupations with certain subjects. But who cares about that.. They are still happy.. They are still productive.. GODDAMMIT!!! People need to stop making children have something just because they aren't doing everything perfect by some damn guidelines that keep ******* changing every 5 years!!!

I want to hug Nagah because she's right.

I will say this, first person that decides to tell me something is wrong with my daughter is going to get a punch in the nose. I hate perfectionists, especially when there is nothing wrong to begin with. Hyperactivity? Yeah DUH! Kids are going to be hyper, but parents are to lazy to deal with it so they just stick em on drugs and call it good.

Seriously, Some Parents **** me the **** off

Charles Manson was "quirky".

To a degree it is the fault of marketing, especially by drug manufacturers. There is a pill for every inconvenience.

But to a greater extent I think we really do just understand the human condition more. Not too long ago anyone struggling in school would just be called slow and that would be that. Now we know about specific learning disabilities and are better able to help students deal with them.

In many situations it isn't a gross exaggeration. being perfectly happy and healthy is not the same as seeming as such. Not vomiting all over the place is not necessarily an indication of perfect physical health. Not attempting suicide is not necessarily a sign that a person does not have depression issues. There is a difference between "getting by," and "living well." I know plenty of people who never perform any maintenance on their vehicle until it starts directly hindering them.

Also in many situations it isn't that there is necessarily a problem with the kid, but that there is the probability of a problem. A kid drawing pictures of tanks crushing people and stick figures killing each other is still probably perfectly healthy, but there is a chance of a serious issue.



I would rather see more into an issue then there is than ignore it entirely. After all, why do you think so many people on the news say "And he seemed like such a nice person too?"

My third-grade teacher sent a note home with me telling my mother she suspected I was borderline retarded because I didn't write the way she wanted me to write. I read it to my mom at the kitchen table.

I've never been whisked back to school so fast in my life. Nor did I ever hear such language from my mother again.

Oh God, that's hilarious.

Sadly I only have one school note story to share, and it isn't on topic and it isn't even mine. When she was very very young, my sister came home home with a note that said "We just thought you should know that ***** came to school today without any underpants on."

Well. Maybe it is on topic.

Edited, Nov 2nd 2007 8:05pm by Aripyanfar

And in a perfect world, we wouldn't litter.


Doesn't turn out that way though.

Now while these disorders are over-diagnosed, that doesn't mean that they don't exist, or are just created by the pharmacology industry. I was diagnosed with ADD when I was in elementary school, and it's a legitimate diagnosis. Now, I have understanding parents, and I had been with medication and without medication, and in my case the medication certainly helped. I've been on Ritalin, Adderall, and Concerta. Currently, I don't take medication because I decided I'd rather deal with it than be medicated, but it's hard and I can definitely see a difference in my ability to focus and actually retain information from classes when I'm on medication.

I personally don't want to have to rely on a drug in order to be able to function in society, but I can accept that there are people out there who may have a more severe disability than I do who do in fact need medication in order to function close to their potential.

I deal with the symptoms of ADD (though I think they did away with "ADD" and it's just "ADHD" nowadays) every day, and sometimes it's a struggle. I've been taught to not treat it as a crutch, to not use it as an excuse. There most certainly is an issue with over-medicating. It seems that all too often parents will opt to have their child medicated and leave it at that, and allow them to use the medication as their crutch. I think that to just dismiss these disorders because they are so widely over-diagnosed is fallacious. Just because many people are over-treated doesn't mean that there are people who have a legitimate disability.

I hope your mother went back later to apologise.

If I were to ask you for a reputed study supporting your claim would you be able to provide one?

However I am going to assume for now that you are correct. In this case there are numerous reasons for an increase. The most logical being that reported cases are up (while actual case may be down) due to our better understanding of symptoms and the classifications of newly appearing disorders. Another reason could be the population increase, as the world population in 1950 was 2.5 billion (compared to 6.5 billion in 2007), so assuming percentage of disorders remained constant, we would have see an increase. Another reason could be the changes of living in a more modern world and the new stresses it may bring. Another possibility is that media and the internet mean we see more cases of such behaviors. I now get news from all over the world, not just my own little suburb.

As a whole though I really do think we are better off than we were fifty years ago, so I do doubt that there is really an increase in extreme behaviors, unless you are speaking from a Christian conservative view point.

Somewhat of a logical fallacy. You and I both agree that more people are being diagnosed with conditions now than in the past, so wouldn't it make sense that more people committing violent acts would thus have been labeled? There is no basis to assume that labels influenced the two incidents.

This is also anecdotal evidence. I'm mostly certain there are cases where labels have been an influencing factor, but I'm also pretty sure they are not incredibly prominent either. There will always be failed cases, we can't save everyone, but we can increase the percentage of people saved.


Because we label everything. We name everything. And we categorize everything.

I believe the problem is mostly in the perspective of a few people. Labels are not bad, but it seems a few people hear the term and feel like it is supposed to define who they are entirely. Orange is a label, tall is a label, and the price sticker on a bottle of shampoo is a label. It does not define something; it is simply a descriptor. If I were diagnosed with ADHD it does not mean I am a bad person, or am incapable of being an accoutant. It means I have a condition referred to as ADHD. That is all.

Just because your sister may have been misdiagnosed doesn't mean ADD/ADHD isn't a real learning disability.

She certainly should have! Poor teacher, she was probably right all along.