ups and downs

A really good book that might help is “Driven to Distraction” by Hallowell and Ratey. These docs/authors both have adhd too. I remember reading in this book that it is common for adults to feel this way on occasion. Also to feel some depression after a success, a feeling that may be related.

You are not a fake, you are not pretending to be a smart guy. The medicine helps you to lower the barriers of inattention, impulsivity so that you can choose to be successful, to show your abilities.

As far as being ‘normal’. Well, we are all different and who is to say what normal actually is? I think normal is a cycle on my washer machine.

I mean really, how far out there are you? You are a student, you are finding success, I am sure that you will graduate and do whatever job you wish to do.
This may not be the job you retire from but you never know.

My own husband (diagnosed adhd at age 38)has been a sheriff’s deputy, a Marine sgt., a vinyl siding delivery man, got his bachelor’s, a 16yr active duty soldier, has gotten his master’s while working. All in the last 20 yrs.

Let me mention, when he turned 21, he told me ‘Amy, I am 21 and I haven’t done anything with my life’. I told him, ‘You are 21, what were you supposed to have done with your life?’

You have a long, bright future ahead of you, embrace it.
Amy

hI KIDO:

I AM SO HAPPY YOU FOUND HELP IN YOUR 20s.

REMEMBER LIFE IS UP AND DOWNS AND IF YOU HAVE THE ada LIKE ME, I KNOW WHAT YOU FEEL LIKE.

HANG IN THERE KIDO. EVERYONE HAS SOMETHING. WE ARE LUCKY IF rITALIN OR OTHER MEDS HELP.

I AM NEW TO THIS TOO.
i JUST STARTED RITALIN AND THINK BETTER. I RAISED MY KIDS AND MY HUBBY GONE NOW, AND
EVEN THOUGH I GOT A 20 YEAR JOB WITH THE GOVERNMENT, BUILT THREE HOMES, AND DID MORE ACCOMPLISHMENTS…
LIFE ISN’T PERFECT.

BUT YES …THE MEDICINE DOES MAKE US THINK BETTER, AT LEAST I DO.

i HAVE A QUESTION FOR YOU….

WERE YOU FATIGUED,….OR TIRED AT AGE TWENTY?

i REMEMBER I HAVE BEEN TIRED LIKE MY BRAIN JUST DOESN’T HAVE ENERGY TO THINK BEFORE THE rITALIN.

IF YOU LET ME KNOW IT WOULD HELP ME…WERE YOU REALLY TIRED LIKE FATIGUED WITH THE DOCTOR TESTING AND SAYING HE THE BLOOD TEST SHOWS NO ANEMIA…

i WONDER IF ADA IS FATIGUE FOR ALL OF US. AND WE PUSH OURSELFS ANYWAY TO MAKE IT IN LIFE.

LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU.

ps. SORRY BUT I HAVE TROUBLE WRITING, BUT IT IS COMING BACK.
THANKS
AND HANG IN THERE!!!!!!

Dear Amy,
Thank you for your response I really didn’t think anyone would reply to it but I am very glad you did :) Your words of kindness and encouragement have help me out more then words can say. It is hard for me to tell my freinds and family how I’m are really feeling becouse I don’t have anyone who knows what I am going through. I should be feeling great and on top of the world becouse I am actouly able to get all my ideas out there and show people the person I realy am. I guess I’m just so used to failure that I almost miss it ( I know that is a very weird thought) I guess I am kinda scared of success becouse I am kinda new to it. Anyway thank you for everything and your Husband seems like a very accomblished person and I hope one day I can be as accomblished as he is. If he could do I can to!!! I hope we keep in touch becouse it is nice to be able to talk to someone who knows what is going on and can give advice. Also I am going to order that book as soon as I can get some cash extra cash in my pocket. I hope you have a great day and God Bless :)
-Dave

Just a quote:
Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much.
~ Blaise Pascal ~

Hey,
Thank you for resonding to my post I really appeicate the encouragement. In response to your question is I do get brain fatigued sometimes when I am not on my medication also at the end of the day. It is kinda like a brain fog over my brain. I have learn that it is due to over stimulis in other words if you think of your brain as a computer it’s kinda like when your computer is trying to take in too much information and it ends up crashing thats what your brain does to. I’ve heard the best way to handle it (brain fog) is to just let it pass that is the only thing you can do really. Watch T.V, take a nap, listen to soft music, soak in a warm bath or something that doesn’t require alot of thinking for instance for me I enjoy just sitting back and playing video games or going out for a light jog or a long walk it realy does help out alot. Agian thanks for your response and anyother question feel free to ask. Well have a good day.
-Dave

Dear David,

If you had an eye condition and could have surgery to restore your sight, would that make you a fake?

The way we are raised is so full of prejudices and negative judgements that we learn not to accept ourselves as we are. Because we have disabilities, we are not less as people. If a disability can be helped, that is wonderful. If it can’t be, that doesn’t make us less valuable. It just makes us less able to do certain things.

I’m frustrated because there’s a lot that I’m not doing because of my problems. Yet there’s a lot that I’ve done in my life that has been of a great deal of value, particularly some of the work that I’ve done to help others and also myself.

I finally had neuropsychological testing this week. When I was younger, the kind of help that is available today wasn’t available.

I’m on valium, but can’t take stimulant medication due to high blood pressure.

I don’t work. I did work for years, but the stress became too much.

I’m 60 years old, but am still trying.

Also, I’m having a really hard time every time there are increased terrorist threats. I keep being afraid that I won’t have the chance to do more with my life. I even experienced the fear that something could happen to the woman who did the neuropsychological testing and I won’t get results. This fear seems so silly, but I do fear that I can’t get the help that I need.

You wrote about how you deal when you feel overstimulated. I’ve only been learning how to help myself relax constructively quite recently. I’m impressed that you’re doing so well.

Hi Arlene,

You said:

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Man, those are my fears exactly. Gosh, two days ago, I was feeling really good and then these threats.

Your fear about not geting the results is not silly at all. Last year, I went for a consult with a neuropsych in NYC during the period there was an heightened alert. I just prayed that I at least got the chance to meet with this person. Obviously, alot more happened than just that but I just wanted to let you know I had had similar thoughts.

Many best wishes.

PT

Case Studies in Violence
Many of the child-killers in the Littleton-style incidents were taking mind-altering psychiatric drugs, which had been prescribed by doctors. T.J. Solomon, the 15-year-old from Conyers, Georgia, who shot six classmates in May 1999, was on Ritalin; Eric Harris, 18, one of the two Columbine killers, was taking the anti-depressant Luvox; and Kip Kinkel, the 15-year-old from Springfield, Oregon, who killed both his parents and two schoolmates, and wounded 20 other students in May 1998, had been prescribed the anti-depressant Prozac, one of the most widely prescribed drugs.

These are not isolated cases. Of more than 6 million kids under 18 years of age in America, who have been prescribed Ritalin, Luvox, Prozac, Paxil, and other anti-depressants and psychiatric drugs, for emotional and behaviorial problems, many have committed violent acts, even killings. Many others are walking time-bombs.

On March 6, U.S. News & World Report documented these less-known cases: In California, 16-year-old Jarred Viktor was convicted of murder for stabbing his grandmother 61 times. Ten days earlier, Jarred had been prescribed the anti-depressant Paxil, for preexisting problems. In Kansas, 13-year-old Matt Miller committed suicide (he was found hanging in his closet) after taking the anti-depressant Zoloft for a week. The Miller family has sued Pfizer, the manufacturer of Zoloft.

But the most horrible revelation to date is the documentation that increasing numbers of infants, toddlers, and pre-school children are being zombified with psychiatric drugs produced for adults, before they can even learn to talk, let alone read.

According to JAMA’s Feb. 23 article, “Trends in the Prescribing of Psychotropic Medications to Pre-Schoolers,” children from poor families, especially African-American children, are diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (AHDH) and prescribed the stimulant Ritalin (methylphenidate) at younger and younger ages, with the number of prescriptions in two study groups having increased more than 300% during 1991-95. The anti-depressant Prozac is just as abused; the article reports that a psychiatric newsletter, citing marketing data compiled by the Food and Drug Administration in 1994, reported some 3,000 prescriptions for fluoxetine hydrochloride (the generic name for Prozac) written for children younger than one year old!

The findings, written by a group of doctors from the University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, and the Center for Health Research, Kaiser Permanente, in Portland, Oregon, were presented in May 1999, at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Washington, D.C. But the dangerous practices haven’t stopped.

The team studied ambulatory care prescription records from 1991 to 1995 from two Medicaid programs (a Midwest state and a Mid-Atlantic state), and from one HMO (health maintenance organization) in the Northwest. Records were checked for enrollees between two and four years old, during those years.

The results should shock the nation: In all three programs, psychotropic medications prescribed for pre-schoolers increased dramatically. The use of methylphenidate increased in all three sites: threefold for the Midwest database, 1.7-fold for the Mid-Atlantic group, and 3.1-fold at the HMO. These records involved over 200,000—more than 158,000 enrolled in the Midwestern state, 54,237 in the Mid-Atlantic state, and 19,322 enrolled in the HMO.

One noticeable pattern is the prevalence of poor children. The Medicaid youth were almost entirely eligible under Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC, the former Federal welfare program), and, within the Medicaid groups, “non-whites were over-represented,” i.e., a greater number than in the general population.

There’s no question that the poorest children are being abused. The article says that in 1998, “Pediatric researchers noted that 57% of 223 Michigan Medicaid enrollees aged younger than four years with a diagnosis of ADHD, received at least one psychotropic medication to treat this condition.” Methylphenidate was one of the two most prescribed.

These results show a pattern of premeditated medical abuse. At a March 3 press conference, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) addressed the concerns posed by the JAMA article. He showed the warnings printed with every bottle of Ritalin. In large type, one says: “Warning: Ritalin should not be used in children under six years, since safety and efficacy in this age group have not been established.” A second warning says: “Precautions: Long-term effects of Ritalin in children have not been well-established.” Sen. Dodd demanded that more tests be conducted to test psychiatric drugs on children before they are given out so widely. But the scope of the problem, and the fact that drugs like Ritalin have already killed children in normal doses, and that Ritalin is one of the top ten most abused drugs in the U.S., shows that Sen. Dodd, and others, though well-meaning, are refusing to go beyond “business as usual,” against a phenomenon that is escalating the occurrence of the new violence.

The HMOs—Nazi Drug Dispensaries
In 1998 and 1999, the United Nations’ report on international drug trends, sounded the warning that 85 to 90% of the MPD (methylphenidate, or Ritalin), produced in the world, is consumed in the United States.

On June 22, Pennsylvania State Rep. LeAnna Washington (D-Phila.), testified at Ad Hoc Democratic Party Platform Hearings, facilitated by Lyndon LaRouche’s Presidential campaign committee, in Washington, D.C. Rep. Washington stated:

“In 1987, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) was literally voted into existence by the American Psychiatric Association. Within one year, 500,000 children in the United States were diagnosed with this affliction.

“In 1990, the lucrative doors were opened to a cash welfare program to low-income parents whose children were diagnosed with ADHD. A family could get more than $450 a month for each child. In 1989, children with ADHD made up 5% of the disabled population. In 1995, it rose to 25%. In 1991, education grants also funded schools an additional $400 in annual grants money for each child. The same year, the Department of Education recognized it as a handicap, providing children with special services. In 1997, some 4.4 million children were diagnosed with ADHD. In 1996, some $15 billion was spent annually on the diagnosis, treatment, and study of these so-called disorders.

“Ritalin and similar drugs are prescribed to an estimated 6 million to 9 million children and adolescents in the United States. This reflects why Ritalin production has increased an incredible 700% since 1990.”

In fact, studies cited in JAMA and the Journal of Public Health, surveying school nurses in two districts of Virginia in 1998, show that among white male students in the fifth grade, 18% and 20%, respectively, were being given Ritalin for “behavioral problems.”

But a major reason for this catastrophic rise in rates of psychiatric drug use is the Nazi policy known as “managed health care,” through the HMOs that have taken over most health plans today, including Medicaid for the poor, according to Family Therapy Networker an on-line magazine.

The runaway prescribing of anti-depressant drugs for children—with almost 3 million prescriptions written in 1999—is due, in large part, to pressure from managed-care companies that will not pay for therapy or other treatments for children, says an article titled “Generation Rx,” by Rob Waters in Family Therapy Networker. This prescribing of drugs as a substitute for therapy, means that children “are being given unproven threatments more haphazardly, and with fewer practical and legal protections, than adults who volunteer to be paid subjects in the clinical trials of new drugs,” the article says. In fact, many of the drugs being given to children have not been approved for use in children, and have severe physical and psychological side effects.

“Some doctors say they are uneasy about prescribing psychoactive drugs to kids,” the article notes, “but they do so because they doubt that the child’s family can get around managed care’s barrier to therapy,” in which a health plan may refuse to pay, or create months of delays. The situation is even worse for children in poor families. Child psychiatrist Joseph Woolston, the medical director of the children’s psychiatric unit at Yale-New Haven Hospital, says the practice of giving psychoactive medication to children has skyrocketed under managed care. “The pressure to medicate children has increased enormously,” Woolston says. “Every single day we have at least one case where the managed-care reviewer says to us, ‘If you don’t start the child on medications within 24 hours after admission, we will not fund another day of hospital.”

Woolston says that even more alarming, is the practice of putting “probably tens of thousands of kids” on random combinations of psychoactive medications. “We’re using them as guinea pigs, and not even keeping track of them,” he says.

Therapists in private practice say that managed-care reviewers almost always suggest referring children for medication after four to six sessions, even when a child’s distress is clearly related to a parental divorce or some other identifiable interpersonal problem. “Managed care sees this as a cheap way to get rid of the problem,” says one child psychologist.

Heart attacks have felled some children on Ritalin, including a 14-year-old boy in Michigan, and an 11-year-old girl from Ohio. The physical side effects are bad enough, but the psychological ramificiations is nothing short of menticide—America’s “opium war” against her own children.