ADD is hysterical parents and the health industry in resonance.

(Actual quote from a friend's parent on Facebook responding to something Philip said about ADD.)

It is never wise to use the word "hysterical" in addressing the issues that anyone has.  It is a word that attempts to discredit and marginalize.  It implies a very gothic view of the world, back when women who had opinions about things and spoke up were labeled "hysterical".  Real hysteria is very rarely observed by any of us.  Though it does happen. 

Why do people have a such hard time accepting the concept that the brain is an organ and is responsible for how we function, behave, think, move, interpret, and connect all the dots in our body in order that we can live?  Without the brain we need machines to keep us alive.  Our brain is connected to every other part of our physiognomy.  Our brains communicate things like pain, fear, love, euphoria, sleepiness, and every other thing we "feel" through different chemicals sent through our nervous system. 

I was thinking about why it is still such dark territory to discuss mental disorders and I wonder if it's because so many people find it impossible to believe that the brain may be responsible for their emotions...that everything they feel, like love for a spouse, could be nothing more than a chemical response in our brain to stimuli.  It makes us have to re-evaluate the notion that we have a separate spirit.  Because, what if our spirit is not responsible for our will?  What if everything we are, everything we are capable of can be narrowed down, can be read right there in our brain function?

What does that say about higher powers?  What does it say about autonomy?  There is nothing that worries or upsets humans more than imagining that they might be no more exalted a being than a specific collection of cells and matter brought together to work in a grossly scientific and fully explicable manner and that there is no special spirit pulling the strings of our bodies.  Just a brain sending messages to all parts of our body all day long.  Just another organ.

We pride ourselves so much on our "free will" which is supposedly, in addition to the use of tools*, the thing that sets us above other animals.

People have come to appreciate and understand scientific advances that make it possible to keep a person alive long after their bodies have been riddled with cancerous cells.  I don't hear anyone asking if cancer is really "real".  People have come to fully accept fertility drugs that can help infertile bodies produce babies.  They don't wonder if maybe they shouldn't mess with meds because maybe they weren't meant to have babies.  And for those religious people I find it ever so curious that if their bodies naturally can't have babies they don't say to themselves "It is not God's plan to bless us with babies.", they go ahead and do what pleases them and accept the advances of science that might fix the problem their bodies are having.

I'm betting that anyone who has experienced the frustration and heartbreak of infertility doesn't appreciate those comments about how maybe they're just stressing about it too much and if they were to just relax, they'd get pregnant.  As though infertility were just in their minds.  Yet, I notice that there is far less judging going on when it comes to couples opting for fertility treatments.  We've come far enough to recognize that the whole body is a collection of organs that work together in specific ways to do what it does and science has figured out why some people's bodies don't operate as well as others.  It has come up with lots of answers and lots of options.

Still, when it comes to mental illnesses and mental development problems, there are a tremendous number of people still living with Gothic beliefs that mental illnesses are just weak people not trying hard enough to help themselves. 

Parents who have children with cancer generally don't hesitate to pump their babies full of chemicals that are sometimes more damaging than the cancer and will, at best, only prolong their child's life by a fraction.  Still, they'll try, because if there's a chance it might help- it's what any loving parent will want to do.  How many of us would feel justified in saying that these parents are just hysterical and are simply lining the pockets of the medical industry with cash?  Well, maybe they are, but I have yet to hear of a parent not willing to try what measures they may to help their suffering child. 

The reason the medical industry exists in the way it does is because people demand cures and medicines to help themselves and their loved ones' health issues.  We demand it.  A child dies of some rare undefined disease and we, as a public, cry out to send money for research so that no one else has to suffer the same!  We cry out how unjust it is that anyone suffer from illnesses and diseases and we demand answers of scientists.

But why do so many people feel more reluctant to treat the child who is suffering from brain issues than the child who has some issues in his intestine?  Why do so many people feel it's wrong to medicate a child for mental illness but not wrong to slice a child open to attempt to fix their heart?

It's because most people still believe that everyone ultimately has autonomy over their brain.  That how we behave is simply a matter of will power.  Therefore, if you are depressed, it's because you aren't trying hard enough to get over it.  If you can't concentrate it is because you are lazy and don't want to.  Because if you wanted to: you would do it.  That's what the majority of people still believe.  That we have a will that is completely independent from the brain.

That's the answer.  But we can't have it both ways.  We can't demand that science fix our bodies and then ignore what scientists have found out about the brain.  We asked for the studies, we asked for the help, we asked for answers.  The answer is that the emotions we feel come from chemicals our body creates that are used as messages between the brain and the nervous system. 

Yes, you may thank chemicals for who you are. 

And it doesn't bother me at all if my spirit, as I like to call it, is actually just my brain doing its thing.  And it doesn't shame me in the least to need chemical help to achieve the kind of brain function I need in order to live a reasonably happy healthy life.

I also don't see why anyone should feel shame seeking fertility help when they have no children and would like their chance to have one.

Here is the last thing the quoted person above has to say about giving children medication to help with ADD:

"Yes, I have read studies. Yes, I have known the kids. No I am not convinced that they have been helped by the drugs as much or more than if they had simply been dealt with as human beings."

That leaves me wondering what the hell I've been dealing with my kid as- a fork? An ape?  A worm?  What does he suppose we've been doing?  It's such a breathtakingly simple answer.  Just as child-like and wonderful as expecting that Jesus, if only you love him enough, will never let harm come to you.** Just like how if you treat your body like a temple you will never get sick. 






*Which, in fact, is not exclusive to humans.

**Except for during times of war, famine, drought, bad economy, poor church attendance.