Is ADHD real and is there an alternative to drugs?

You see, I have ADHD. However, I didn’t know that I had ADHD until my son’s Pediatrician told me so. True story. I just thought I was weird. I knew growing up that I was different. It was difficult. I wanted to fit in and I wanted to be normal but, no matter how hard I tried, I just wasn’t. And I didn’t know why. – ADHD Ninja

This in an all too familiar story for many people today.  It’s unfortunate that people feel they need to all be “normal”.  I’m certainly not normal and neither is my son.  You see back in 1997 my wife and I split up.  She moved out west and I stayed here in Ontario.  She also took my children with her and I was blessed with the opportunity to see my children for one month of the summer and every second Christmas for several years.

Shortly after my wife and children moved my now ex-wife informed me that my son was diagnosed with ADHD and placed on a psychotropic drug to control him.  I was dumbfounded.  It was like I was just kicked in the ‘nads with a frozen muck-luck.  I argued with her that there was nothing wrong with my son he is just a typical 6 year old boy who likes to investigate things and learn.  I  was told that he wasn’t paying “proper” attention in school and the medication was needed so he could be normal and get educated.

Since I was thousands of kilometers away there was little I could do about the situation so I waited until he came to visit me the following summer to talk with him.  I asked him what he thought about the medication and why he was on it.  All he did was shrug his shoulders and mumble.  This was no longer my energetic and fun loving son.  This was an empty shell of a human being.  I immediately stopped giving him the drug he was prescribed to see what would happen.  Sure enough after a few days to a week my son that I loved returned.

The three of us started playing and having fun again.  We went fishing off the dock and had water fights.  It was what having and being a child is supposed to be like again.  We had a most excellent visit and I looked forward to when I would see him again.

Sure enough when he got home to his mother she immediately called me to complain that he was hyper and having too much “fun” in life and that she now had to deal with him until the drugs kicked in again.  I didn’t care what she thought.  She was obviously not interested in actually knowing and spending time with our son nor was she interested in teaching him things he was interested in.  She only wanted a “normal” and docile child so her life would be easier.

This routine went on for years until, at the age of 13, he and his sister decided to live with me and moved in permanently.  I enrolled them in school and they began their new life with myself and my now common-law partner and the two of her children that lived with us.  After a few months my son began getting into trouble in school and was smoking marijuana.  I was getting calls from the principle and he was suspended for a short bit as punishment.

I spoke with my son to see what was going on and find out why he was acting as he was.  My largest concern, although almost everyone does it at some time in their young life, was why he had started smoking dope.  Like most children diagnosed with ADHD, he was bored at school and felt he was wasting his time and learning nothing.  I explained to him that I understood as I hated school as a child myself and that admittedly he would actually use very little of the “education” that he receives.  I also advised him of the fact that without at least a grade 12 diploma it would be very difficult for him to find employment and unless he has a great business idea that can generate income he would be screwed without the diploma.  I asked him if he felt he needed to go back on the psychotropic drugs and he informed me that he hated them and would not take them again.  He said they made him feel “empty inside” and “like he wasn’t himself” and it seriously bothered him to even think of the idea of using them again.

So after some time we established a plan and sorted out how he could get back on track and finish his schooling.  I wasn’t overly concerned about the marijuana use so long as he was responsible about it all as pretty much all of the youth in the area used it.  As time went on he decided to move back with his mother as his associates at school were preventing him from meeting his personal objectives.  He cut back and stopped the use of weed and finished his schooling about 6 months late but he finished.  He is now working on his apprenticeship as an HVAC technician and doing well on his own.

When I ask him about his “ADHD” he reminds me that he doesn’t have ADHD and that he is completely capable of having fun any time he wants so long as it’s appropriate.  He is drug free and loving life and as I look back on the time we had together I can’t help but wonder if he would have been able to even finish school if I put him back on the psychotropic drug.  I mean the “medication” stripped him of his soul.  It made him something he’s not and blocked his desires to grow and develop.  So before you place or continue to give your children psycho drugs think about what the long term effects will be and ask yourself if they are truly worthwhile.  My experience with them is that they are NOT worth the risks just to better control an energetic and interesting youth’s development into being all that they can become.

Rob