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Personal Narrative-ADHD Does Not Exist

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ADHD Does Not Exist, the words were written in big red letters against a glowing saffron background. The eye-catching colors and intentionally provocative title did their job in evoking my curiosity enough that I picked up the book. It was a Friday afternoon or more importantly the first inaugural afternoon of spring break and the start of a much needed week long break, and here I was pacing slowly up and down the book racks pointer finger trailing over creaking book binders, hunting for something that would peak my interest. As a child I used to devour multiple books in a day, not to brag but I was a bit of a prodigy. Some of my proudest moments to this day are related to the classroom. I still vividly remember the pride I felt after reading…show more content…
With dust speckled light filtering down on my back I drew the book from the shelf hoping that within the pages there might be some description, some disease that might match with me. As a physically healthy sixteen-year-old girl I hoped and prayed, I might have a serious medical condition. There’s something very eerie and wrong with that I realize, but that is a consequence of constantly being told by society I don’t fit the bill, that even when highly medicated I still didn’t fit that bill. So yes I stood there thumbing through the pages, scanning over medical terms I was both familiar and unfamiliar with praying to God that one of these conditions might be my salvation and my explanation for being so very different, possibly even a cure. This book proposed that ADHD was not a condition on its own but in fact symptoms of other conditions from something as minor as eye sight problems to something more serious like manic bipolar. I snapped the book shut, sighed and slid it back to dusty self to await the next person whose interest the bright colors and shocking title might…show more content…
The DSM 5 criterion for ADHD is “ a persistent pattern of inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity that interferes with functioning or development.” It was at first thought to be a type of mental retardation, until it became clear that those effected by symptoms where not stupid but in fact highly intelligent. However they stubbornly refused to conform to societal rules not due to lack of comprehension but due to what seemed to be a lack of self-control and general disregard for rules. George F. Still did a great amount of work in coming to understand the connection between these behaviors and neurological impulse in the early 19th century. Massive amounts of research was done in an effort for the medical community to explain the bizarre and socially inappropriate behaviors of different individuals.“ the history of compiling these symptoms into a formal diagnose represents an increasing drive to medicalize unconvential childhood behaviors” (Rafalovich) Understanding of ADHD has developed a great deal in the pass 100 years from being thought of as “imbecility”, to “minimal brain damage” to the present diagnosable psychological condition it is today. In fact it was not called Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder until 1980, in DSM-III (a diagnostic reference book for physicians). This is shocking considering the number of people that are diagnosed every year with a disorder that is
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