Sunday, August 26, 2012

ADHD Misinformation Abounds

So many voices claiming ADHD is NOT developmental sound just like Big Tobacco to me, so many websites claiming it is genetic, so I sent this response to one:
--------------------------------------


I understand that evidence based medicine is continually contaminated not by bad science but by divergence of opinion based on cultural views.  85 studies prove cows' milk is bad for humans, but half as many show it's good for us (paid for by the industry), so no one on television has to say its bad for you.  Just like Big Tobacco.
Similarly if people really paid attention to the causes of ADHD, it would turn our Criminal Justice system on it's head, and people would see that it accomplishes exactly the opposite of what society would want it to do it they had the right facts and context, or perspective.  But they are denied those narratives by a status quo of police departments and courts trying to justify their pay raises.
ADHD is developed mostly by any human child being deprived of the environment where they learn to develop and control their dopamine circuits.  Without "knowing" how to use them, and without any cultural road-map save religion, they look for ways to use it, and often settle on complex and innappropriate pathways, re-using narratives from the culture that help them focus their attention, and momentarily achieve dopamine "pay-offs" at the back-end or during their addictive endeavors.
Two models currently discussed are of interest to me:  the "Conditioned Attentional Avoidance Loop" (CAAL) response model, and the older genetic argument (which I believe fits, just not as a genetic argument), the "Reward Deficiency Syndrome" model.  The CAAL response model does not take into account the emotional reasons a child clams up to defend themselves against action or emotion they find painful.  When parents are not aware of their Reward System they cannot pass on the skill to their children, not because the children don't have it within them to develop the skill naturally, but because the parent or parents interupt the skill building process by not remaining emotionally calm and emotionally available.  Humans need to learn pathways which have more to do with interaction with others, rather than tying it to specific activities or emotions.
I did not find out about my ADHD until I was 49, and had been watching television for several hours a day, and had suppressed the knowledge that I had form an aversion to reading most types of books, unless it was a topic I was somewhat obsessed with.  I don't believe I am alone in this, and have even come to believe that the television networks count on a percentage of their viewers forming their voting decisions based solely on what they view on television (instead of through personal research).  So, in effect, we allow corporations to buy elections through leveraging our most wretched and imbalanced individuals, those who are limited to taking in new information by television.  I can't prove that last theory, but if you look at the brain studies during the past fifteen years, my other conclusions are not really non-traditional, just obscured by argument around the issue of personal responsibility.  People with ADHD are prone to impulsive behavior, and as already discussed, tend to look in the wrong places for their dopamine.  Instead of helping them gain perspective by exposing them to truthful narratives which would allow them to understand and respond more creatively, we only encourage abstinance, and tell people that drugs are bad, and people who do drugs are just making poor choices.  From our ADHD population we get all of our Gambling addicts, pedophiles (extreme fantasy helps someone with ADHD focus), Hoarders (it's just too hard to concentrate on organizing things long enough and after a while people form defenses for that, and it morphs partially into something that looks different from simple laziness), alcoholics and drug addicts.  Our prisons are filling up, and people are using that fact to justify private prisons, which stop any possitive development from occuring, and actually make the ADHD prisoner worse, not better.  Its a condition brought on during childhood, and often people learn the "knack" by adulthood, so it's not neccessarily permanent, or at least people can get much better once they form the right perspectives and start to destroy the negative pathways through Cognitive Behavior Therapy and behavior modification, and skill building in organization and other areas which were put aside for lack of ability to focus on them earlier in life.  People with ADHD are often underdeveloped socially, and have a hard time developing deep emotional bonds and so they marry assortatively, with others who have the same difficulty accessing their Reward System.
It's all about dopamine, and our ability to use it for focus, feelings of well-being, and as a social tool, since people who can access it can also tell when the person they're communicating with is accessing or expressing it.
It enables a larger amount of "working memory" and some of that is automatically filled with thoughts about the bonds we have to others.  The Human Reward System is supposed to encourage strong maintenance of emotional bonds....Family Values depends on fostering an environment where children may learn this skill, the Family unit is supposed to be a test-tube for experiencing and developing this skill.

You might want to check your facts and stop bowing to the voices of intollerance who have chosen to teach people to see us as we are not.

Q: What do blacks and gays have in common with stoners?
A: Little White Lies about how they live their lives.

We need to protect and help our ADHD population, because the way we are doing things now, leads directly to more felons, more violence, greater recidivism, larger prisons, and a Fascist State where corporations have greater influence on our laws than the people, and cost our communities in buying power.

Teach people about their ADHD and we would probably Unleash America, adding 20% to the brain capacity.  you already know those who are encouraged to channel their coping skills make excellent engineers (engineers with Asperger's).

The neccessary narratives are stripped from our televisions.  I watched TV for 5 hours a day, until getting laid off, and cutting back on television channels to save money...one I was left with was Viewer Supported, and within six months of watching Democracy Now and Dr. Gabor Mate, I knew about my ADHD, how I got it, how to deal with it, so my new friends on The Left had the courtesy to clue-me-in, something corporate television never would have, even though their main product is a television viewership which they probably know is limited to watching their content for any new information in certain domains, like politics.  Not saying only people with ADHD are the only ones watching television, just that we are the captive audience.

Thank you,

No comments:

Post a Comment