Letters to the Editor
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This is the impact of the "information society"
I'm 32, and recently diagnosed with ADD. It has been interesting to reframe my life with the understanding that my brain has this particular way of functioning.
As I have done so, what I have realized is that many of the discussions about ADD and the skyrocketing rates of diagnosis miss an important connection: the kind of work most adults are required to do has changed dramatically over the past few decades. Yes, our lives are significantly cushier than those of past generations, but it's a pretty obvious fact to me that many of the jobs of the past would have been easier to perform with ADD than the jobs of today are. By easier, I don't mean less strenuous -- I mean that ADD would not have been an impairment. This "condition" wouldn't have been diagnosed because it simply would not have effected people's lives as severely.
I don't think this is a lack of some "grit" or quality that previous generations had... I would wager that the percentage of the population with the characteristics of ADD has remained constant. It's just that there were many more "good" jobs and careers in the past that didn't require being parked in front of a desk all day, looking at a computer screen.
I'm not saying that this is the only cause of the rise in diagnosis- I suspect that other aspects of our modern environment conspire to exacerbate ADD symptoms in childhood. But when it comes to adults I believe strongly that it's a mistake to frame this "problem" of ADD diagnosis as a matter primarily driven by changing societal attitudes towards drugs and achievement. It's important to recognize that more people are being called on to use their brains in fundamentally different ways than in the past, and not all of us are well-suited for it.
-R
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Adult ADD
It may come as surprise to David Amsden, but Adult ADD was discovered long before the so-called ADD kids grew into adulthood. There's a large body of literature out there about it, if he would care to peruse it. Edward Hallowell and Sari Solden were the first in the field to pinpoint and discover solutions for living with Adult ADD. Not everyone chooses to medicate, and I am one of those patients who has learned to manage my life to accommodate ADD. And there's little debate about the reality of Adult ADD. I have two doctors who are fully versed in the literature on this disorder.
Please, no more articles blaming victims for disorders that an unaffected writer has decided is imaginary.
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Touched a nerve?
I'm astonished to read the responses to this article. Most of the letter writers seem as though they're hurt by Amsden's assertions. They say 'I take drugs. They help me.' But the funny thing is, they seem to be responding to allegations that aren't in the article! Amsden says: yes, these drugs work. They make many people feel better. So do lots of other drugs.
Amsden skirts around an important issue without ever addressing it head on. Namely, the tendency in the USA to 'medicalize' issues that are not necessarily medical problems. And you know why? It's because the U.S. medical industry is really good at selling you things. In countries with socialized medicine there is a much greater tendency to accept many conditions (like existential ones, for instance) without the use of prescription drugs.
As a recreational drinker and drug user, the article seemed utterly uncontroversial. The defensive posture assumed by most of your respondents suggests that they may, despite their protests, feel guilty for the drugs they take.
So here's the good news: People of America, the drugs are all right.
And the bad news: feeling crummy isn't necessarily a disease, and it's not always appropriate to try to purchase a cure.
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Life: The Disorder
What a bunch of whiners! David Amsden wasn't talking about those with legitimate medical problems. He was talking about those that medicate every little problem with prescription drugs in the same way that others medicate with illegal drugs. If you or your child has a serious disorder that requires medication, fine, don't sweat it, Amsden wasn't referring to you. If you took offense to the article, perhaps you should ask yourself why.
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Dealing with problems straight-on
I agree with most of what Amsden has to say, but I think he misinterprets the difference between the 'good old days' and now.
Amsden says:
" The shift is in how we perceive life's trials: Dealing with them head-on used to be virtuous; now chemically vaporizing them is."
Life's trials are often trying because of how you feel about them, and generally older generations don't deal with feelings head-on, especially if they're unpleasant. Instead, they put their feelings to one side and carry on.
Chemically vaporizing feelings and personality traits, on the other hand, is closer to dealing with them head-on, since that involves both acknowledging the problem and doing something about it. The US has always been a can-do culture, and now that we_can_ do something decisive (and easy) to fix things wedon't like about ourselves(or our children or our students), many of us _do_. Whether drugs are the right way to deal with things head-on is another matter, and that's what people tend to debate.
But another thing to debate is whether we need to put our individual selves so much in the center of the universe that we have to confront every little bit of life that makes us uncomfortable and do something about it. (I'm of course not talking about serious chemically-induced depressions here, and the letter-writers who make that the issue are introducing a red herring.) It's one thing to feel malaise. It's another to spend your energy worrying about your malaise, and another still to spend your energy doing things about your malaise that treat the symptom rather than the cause. (Yes, there are chemicals causing your malaise, but there's probably something else causing your body to make those chemicals. Except in truly genetic/pathological cases, the chemicals--your feelings--are reactions to something. An interpersonal trauma, lack of sunshine and exercise, something.) Not only do we need to learn how best to deal with our feelings, we also need to learn when not to spend our energy on them and just get on with life, like our grandparents did and like people in other parts of the world do. And when we look for solutions to our problems or to our feelings about those problems, we need to ask ourselves: Does this solution make me a better person, or does it just make me feel better?