> The DSM-5 defines a mental disorder as a syndrome that causes significant disturbance in behavior, emotion, and cognition. These disorders are also usually accompanied by significant distress that affects a person's work, school, and social relationships.
I'm not sure there's a contradiction here. Tourette's seems like a clear example of a disorder that both represents an obvious disturbance in behavior and matters primarily because of how others react.
> causes significant disturbance in behavior, emotion, and cognition
According to other people.
What if I think my behavior or emotions are appropriate or justified? The people that are not like me get to tell me how I should be? Seems kind of sick to me. What about the opposite? Are the people that lack disturbances in behavior, emotion, and cognition really that much better off? Regardless, they are definitely accepted easier (assuming they have no other divergent issues causing them to not fit the mold).
To me, it seems like ADHD is basically a diagnosis in which one lacks the proper neurological components of being a good little worker-drone in a capitalistic machine.
Can't focus? Can't sit still for 8 hours straight? Take longer to complete tasks? That's no good. Take these pills, shut up, sit still, and produce! Who cares about the longterm effects of taking amphetamines everyday. It's not /their/ problem, it's /my problem/. I mean, that is all us dairy cows are good for right? And what good is a dairy cow that produces no milk?
So that might be the cynical motivation that some people have to care, but at its core ADHD makes it harder for someone to choose what to focus on, and that's quite objectively a bad feature.
> To me, it seems like ADHD is basically a diagnosis in which one lacks the proper neurological components of being a good little worker-drone in a capitalistic machine.
No, this is dumb. ADHD doesn't affect work exclusively, it affects your entire life equally and prevents you from having fun, starting a family, cleaning your house. Actually, your work is probably the last to go as you spend the most effort on it.
> Who cares about the longterm effects of taking amphetamines everyday.
We know them; they're positive. It's neuroprotective and it reduces the chance of abusing other drugs (like alcohol) quite a lot. At most you want to make sure to get magnesium in your diet to prevent tolerance.
I'll never know, but I have always been of the mentality that everyone has "something." Whether it has a diagnostic label or not. I guess, in a more terse sense -- life ain't easy for anyone.
"life is hard for everyone" for you means that we shouldn't give people mental health? if people have recognised diagnoses they are entirely entitled to treatment. whether it's "i can't sleep enough" to "i'm gay and feel like my relationship with my family has struggled" to "i have a fear of airplanes" to "i can't focus and sit still".
even if there is no true neurotypical brain, the fact is that an overwhelming number (hundreds of millions of people) don't ever question their mental state or life and have no problem doing ANYTHING they want. and then there are people who struggle and ask for help.
it's pretty demeaning to belittle mental conditions as "just something everyone has" tbh
By "something" I meant everyone has /something/ wrong with them to some degree i.e. no one is perfect and there is no such thing as normal. That 'something' could be mental or physical. If a person does not have something wrong at the moment, then time will eventually catch up.
Not to mention there are people that can have conditions to sub-clinical levels. One could technically have some of the criteria of a mental disorder without fully qualifying for a diagnosis. That doesn't mean they live life on easy mode just because they do not carry a diagnosis. Sure, they might have a /easier/ time in life, but I have never been one to think of suffering as some competition amongst others.
I would gladly trade places with if you you honestly think this. I am homeless living with a mood disorder caused by an Autoimmune condition (Neuropsychiatric Lupus) that was misdiagnosed as Schizoaffective Bipolar Disorder for the last 30 years of my life. I cannot work.
So I kind of understand how you came to have this point of view. Since anyone on the internet, and usually some of the most successful people, can put up a blog and complain about their very common phenotype to moan about how losing their gloves amounts to a disorder.
And any short amount of research on nutrition could probably fix their issue but instead they go to pharmaceuticals.
I am sorry to read about your situation and truly hope you are able to be in a better place as soon as possible.
I think being healthy in both mind and body is obviously advantageous compared to the alternatives, but I still don't think that life is easy for said people. Though, I suppose it would have to be looked at on an individual basis and not as a group.
One can be physically and mentally health and still be in abject poverty with no hope or way of getting out. One can also be healthy and on the lower distribution of intelligence. Having low enough intelligence is commonly coupled with certain disorders, but there is still a grey-area where you are still below average intelligence, but above any diagnostic criteria. I would argue that level of intelligence could cause many issues and disorder in one's life, and that their suffering isn't fake because there is no formal pathology to describe it.
Do said people suffer less than those with disorders? Perhaps, but I do not wish to view human suffering as some sort of competition. I think we should strive to help and to support all people when possible.
there are no longterm effects of amphetamine use at therapeutic dosages, that's fake news.
i hate capitalism as much as the next guy (i'm literally a socialist) but i still want to be successful, have healthy relationships, plan events in my life appropriately, and not let people down by inaction, forgetfulness, or social outbursts.
fwiw i'm hugely successful and was even without medication excelling in my field and have contributed to world-changing projects. but i still was frustrated about my utility, my actions in social situations, and the issues i had with executive dysfunction.
i don't fit any mold, and could give less than two shits about "fitting in" in the general sense, but i still want to create good works, build a career, and especially do things like raise a family and enjoy my time with others. and all of those things are domains where ADHD has an effect, and where medication helps.
i've been on-and-off medicated, and there is 100% a utility in it for some.
> there are no longterm effects of amphetamine use at therapeutic dosages, that's fake news.
Sure, I would agree they are not common, but that doesn't mean they do not exist. Not to mention we only know what we know, and we do not know what we do not know.
Other than potential cardiac and vascular issues, albeit rare, researchers are still debating whether the stimulant medications cause an increase in Parkinson's and Parkinson's-like disorders.
> there is 100% a utility in it for some.
Sure, I won't disagree. I still take mine, but it's more of a "it's better than nothing" but I question if the efficacy is as strong as many anecdotes report. Especially after longterm usage. I'll see if I can find the study, but it was some sort of meta-analysis and tracked various children-aged students across a 7 years or so long timespan. Based on the researchers' observations, the medications greatly improved the symptoms of the youth for the first year or so, but around the 7 year mark, the students were back to baseline levels symptoms.
I'm not sharing this to be the 'come all, end all' of the debate of medication intervention. I just remember being told and having read on numerous occasions that, "you gain a tolerance to the feeling of the medication, but not to the therapeutic effects" but I do not believe it. Tolerance is tolerance at least in my experience.
