That is the question! Personally I wish we did not have to label anyone with a disability or disorder. We are all given strengths and weaknesses. Some of us just process information differently than others. It seems we don’t really have a way of avoiding the labels at this point in time.
I was diagnosed with AD/HD a little over a year ago. Our 16 year old daughter was diagnosed this year. Neither of us use medication. If it works for you or your child I am not going to tell you not to use it. I’m just going to share with you why I chose not to use it.
I grew up with the label of being a “slow learner” a “daydreamer”. I didn’t feel very smart because I was never told I was. I was made to feel like I would never be an “A” student so I never tried to be. Then ten years after I graduated from college, I enrolled in graduate school. I had to prove I could handle it because my SAT scores were so low. I was put on probation. In proving to them I could handle graduate school I ended up proving to myself I could get “A’s”.
When I was evaluated for the AD/HD and found out I was above average in intelligence my whole self image changed. I began to feel good about myself instead of feeling like I wasn’t very smart.
I became a librarian long before I knew I had AD/HD. I haven’t read many books from cover to cover. I kept that a secret for many years because I thought everyone expected librarians to be avid readers. I do like to read nonfiction books, but in bits and pieces instead of from cover to cover.
The only reason I had our daughter evaluated was because I knew she would have trouble completing the ACT test in the time they allow. She does not do as well on tests as she does in regular classroom assignments. Basically I taught her what it took me many years to find out.
Goal setting is what helped me cope. Rather than having a deficit of attention I find my attention is highly focused when I make up my mind to do something. I set my own deadlines before the actual deadline so if I don’t make my deadline I still have time to complete the task.
Our daughter ended up lettering in academics her sophomore year in high school because she decided she was going to get straight “A’s”. She figured out how to do this on her own. She took the classes she knew she could do well in that year. It worked. She tried to do it again this year, but the classes were more difficult for her. We encouraged her to go for it again, but what we realized was that she was learning something from her classes even though she was not getting straight “A’s”.
She had already met her goal and instead of stressing over grades she ended up bringing her grades up from D’s and C’s to A’s and B’s. She had a rough start, but she managed to figure out how to improve her grades on her own. This was all done before she had the label of AD/HD. She had been teased by friends that she should take some Ritalin because she was so hyper. Her reply to that was she likes being a “kid”. She has a friend that takes Ritalin because he wants to “fit” in. She said he’s more fun to be around when he’s not taking it because he’s more like she is and not so lethargic.
For me it was a relief to find a name for my behavior. Once I found out I just didn’t feel like there was anything wrong with me anymore. It’s almost as if I didn’t need the label because now I understood why I did things the way I did.
I tried the generic brand of Ritalin because my family doctor said I wouldn’t know if it worked or not unless I tried it. I found it slowed my thinking process down and I didn’t like that. After it wore off I felt twice as hyper. For those who choose to use medication I will not argue with them. I just didn’t want to depend on a pill when I knew I could learn to cope by focusing on my strengths instead of my weaknesses like I had done in the past.
I am now the CHADD site faciliator for Des Moines. I am also on the Board of our local community theatre and I’m in the process of writing a book with a man from Texas that has dyslexia and is an Electrical Engineer without a college degree. There are many books out there by professionals in the field of AD/HD and LD, but we wanted to write a book about the success stories of people with so called Learning Disabilities such as dyslexia and disorders such as AD/HD.
We hope to write this in a format that is easy for anyone to read. Mainly for parents, students, and teachers that are trying to understand how these minds work. We are both about the same age and discovered these labels late in life. We managed to succeed, not in spite of our disorder or disabilitiy, but rather inspite of what we were told by others was “wrong” with us. We have found it is more important to focus on our abilities than our disabilities. Having AD/HD was not an excuse for me, but rather an explanation.
I found a site that has been very helpful to many people with dyslexia and AD/HD. It is www.dyslexiatalk.com. We are people of all ages and from all over the world that have come toghether to share our thoughts and feelings. We have formed what we call the Board Hoggs because we are people that have believed we couldn’t write because we had trouble with spelling. You will find some very creative spellers on this site, but what we say is more important than how we spell the words. We are supporting each other through our every day challenges. We even had a site set up for people that need something edited. We help each other. It has been a very positive experience for all of us.
The reason I am sharing this with you is because someone on that Board suggested we let the people on LDOnline know about what we have been doing. Anyone is welcome to check this site out and participate. We are a very friendly group and have been growing in numbers. We are getting people who have just been reading the site to finially start writing. We are learing to focus more on what we can do than what we can’t do.
Unfortunately I don’t have an answer to the above question. It seems for now we need a label, and at the same time we should be looking for ways to turn the labeling into enabling and the power over these individuals into
empowerment. If we see these individuals as what they can become rather than what they are now, it will be easier to encourage them to achieve their fullest potential. Think how you would feel if you were them and how would you want someone to treat you. The good old “Golden Rule”: “Do unto others as you’d have others do unto you.”
Laura