This week at the lunch table, I told my friends that I might have ADD. No surprise there, I have memory issues, am distracted by the most negligable of details, stare into space often, and fiddle with my hands constantly. But Anna snapped to attention and said with a tinge of alarm, "Don't get medicine." She's been reading a book called Comfortably Numb, about how wildly over-medicated America is. Of course, you don't have to read a book on it to know that's probably true; just turn on the tv or open a magazine, and someone'll be there, trying to sell you a disease... I mean, a drug. Still, Anna didn't need to worry about me. The last time I took asprin, I had a headache so bad I tossed my cookies. And I latched onto the line on the official ADD website that said the disorder can be treated successfully without medicine. While other Americans are scrambling for drugs, there are plenty of people like me running just as fast in the other direction.
But I'm not sure that's a good thing, either. My dad doesn't take his depression medicine regularly because he says it doesn't work, and any mention of new or combination drugs turns him green. While there are people who are overmedicated for disorders they may not even have, how many people are there like my dad, who insist that drugs won't help them and continue to suffer needlessly? It's hard to deny that drug companies often go too far in marketing their products and harming healthy people in the process, but how many others are left unhelped?
Somewhere in all this mess is a balance. Even when people do take drugs, that doesn't cure them. ADD treatment involves a heavy dose of organizational skills, and depression doesn't go away when you pop a pill. Diet pills don't work if you continue to eat and sit around like you used to, and heartburn is going to hang around if you keep pouring on the hot sauce. But balance isn't comfortable, it's a strain. Being numb is easier. Somehow we need to keep people on their toes when it comes to medicine, before this goes to far and the scales are tipped for good.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
To quote you: "I have memory issues, am distracted by the most negligable of details, stare into space often, and fiddle with my hands constantly." Used to be they called this type of person a daydreamer, and it was a condition that predisposed her/him to creativity (often, but not always, of the written variety). I jest, but only a little. There's a range of human behaviors and conditions that are common and liveable without resorting to pharmaceutical intervention. I'm not anti-meds all the time in all circumstances. But I do think the definition of "normal" is A) becoming narrower and B) more and more defined by people who stand to gain from people deciding that they aren't normal and they need to be.
ReplyDelete