As someone that was misdiagnosed, yes over diagnosis is horrid and rampant. Especially because treatment usually means Ritalin is Dexatrin. I would argue that these treatments are hardly treatments at all and are really just a pathetic attempt to make kids behave "normally". What's more is that a number of other neurological differences can manifest similar symptoms at a young age.
I will use anecdotal evidence here, but I am a person with high functioning autism that was misdiagnosed as adhd at the age of 5 in 1996. I am still recovering from the detrimental effects of Ritalin treatment that ended when I was 16. I was lucky enough that I was allowed to be normal for the summers but while in school my head was a cloud that led to horrible emotional ups and downs as the drug left my system. Every summer the withdrawal would begin about a few days after school and would last at a week. During this I was would go into a total meltdown and at one point even locked myself in the bathroom at my aunts cabin, screaming, and drew apocalypic symbols on the windows. But after that week I got to be a normal kid.
What people need to understand is that ritalin loses most of it effectiveness on adults with adhd where it often affects adults in way much worse than it does kids. Also people with ADHD tend to statistically skew towards higher intelligence levels. So instead of "treating" them, they need environments where they use their own abilities and flourish.
I will use anecdotal evidence here, but I am a person with high functioning autism that was misdiagnosed as adhd at the age of 5 in 1996. I am still recovering from the detrimental effects of Ritalin treatment that ended when I was 16. I was lucky enough that I was allowed to be normal for the summers but while in school my head was a cloud that led to horrible emotional ups and downs as the drug left my system. Every summer the withdrawal would begin about a few days after school and would last at a week. During this I was would go into a total meltdown and at one point even locked myself in the bathroom at my aunts cabin, screaming, and drew apocalypic symbols on the windows. But after that week I got to be a normal kid.
What people need to understand is that ritalin loses most of it effectiveness on adults with adhd where it often affects adults in way much worse than it does kids. Also people with ADHD tend to statistically skew towards higher intelligence levels. So instead of "treating" them, they need environments where they use their own abilities and flourish.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
