There seems to be no effective way to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. As I sat in the doctor’s office with my mother, the nice doctor looked over my ADHD test. With a concerned look on her face, she looked up at me and said: “Oh yeah, you got it bad.”
Trying to keep her client positive, she rebounded: “Most people with ADHD are extremely intelligent, they just don’t have the focus needed to express it.”
My adolescent mind immediately drew the obvious conclusion, “Adam Kirk: Super Genius!” Then she said some other stuff but I wasn’t paying attention.
Luckily, there was a wonderful solution to the problem at that time: a little capsule of happy balls. Every day I would take a happiness pill (amphetamines or, in other words, fake adrenaline) and by about 10 a.m. I was sitting in math class hunched over my desk solving a differential equation, feeling like the cops were looking for me, and the only way to get away was to solve this danged problem. If the teacher was lecturing, not only was I absorbing everything that fell from the teachers lips, I was simultaneously plotting how to become a world superpower and bankrupt Bill Gates for making such a stupid operating system.
The reason why there is no effective way to treat ADHD is because while I was getting nearly a 4.0, the optimism wore off around lunch time, and I experienced what I liked to call “the fall of Adam.” Many try to compensate for the depression by taking an antidepressant on top of the ADHD medicine. Eventually, I made the personal decision to stop taking medication altogether, causing me to revert to my primeval state. Once again, instead of functioning as a normal human being, I was either counting my teeth or staring off into space.
Many aspects of the victims’ life are affected by this disorder. While my girlfriend is dropping hints, my imagination is dropping bombs over Baghdad. One thought will inevitably and uncontrollably lead to another. For Example, you might begin reading a story, “Once upon a time?”
“Hmm?I wonder what time it is?”
“Maybe it’s time for lunch, I wonder where we’ll eat.”
“I wonder if I have enough money for lunch?”
“I need that job, I wonder if they’ve looked at my application yet?”
Thoughts of money lead to theorizing about economics and supply and demand?
“I have a feeling Ziploc Bags are about to get huge, I should invest?”
Then you realize that you’re way, way out in left field, so you try it again, “Once upo?”
“No, but seriously, those new refrigerator bags are going to sell like hot cakes?”
The choice that most ADHD victims must make is “Do I want to be oblivious and happy, or effective and miserable?” New solutions are being discovered continually, but for me, an effective solution is yet to be found.
There need to be more tolerance, patience and understanding in this world. Besides, no one has his or her head screwed on perfectly straight. Some suffer from diseases and disorders, others from the horrible debilitating demon of arrogance. So, next time someone you know is flunking all their classes, saying out-of-place comments and constantly making spastic movements, just pat them on the back and tell ’em, “Who needs normal?”
