Can we talk about ADHD... and such ?

[High Fidelity]

ADHD is very real, however I think Western society in particular nurtures a lot of the same issues in how we raise children and what we allow them access to.

Nowadays most kids are sat in front of a screen and they develop an understanding and expectation of instant gratification, and if what they're watching doesn't catch their attention, they can swipe to the next thing.

Even in general though, look at how short the American attention span is... I noticed it more recently as I'm a fan of American sports.

It started with the golf tournament at the US Open. The American fans just could not shut up during play, couldn't keep their opinions to themselves etc and were basically completely devoid of class and composure that's synonymous with golf in every other country.

Then I watched one of the baseball playoffs games and it hit me. Any tiny amount of downtime has to be filled with a few chords of a song that then gets cut off, or trying to engage the crowd. It was comical at first and then more annoying.

 

[RamiC]

ADHD is very real, however I think Western society in particular nurtures a lot of the same issues in how we raise children and what we allow them access to.

I would say every experience and way human minds or brains function is utterly real, but should it be fixed with a drug? Should it be seen as part of the natural variety of ways people are, instead of rated as a disabilty? If we are going to look for causes, it is essential that it is not overdiagnosed...the people who have might have something in common that gives us a clue as to why ADHD exists, but if it is significantly over diagnosed the research will not work.

 

[RamiC]

At about 1 hour, Komisar links ADHD to early childhood stressors. According to her, children are supposed to be with their mothers for their first three years of life. Separating them from their mother by putting them in daycare is a stressor that is harmful for them, causing the amygdala to expand to a huge size and shrink, which leaves the child to suffer a lifetime of emotional dysregulation, because their amygdala cannot regulate their stress response, which leads to ADHD symptoms. “It’s like a PTSD response.” Komisar says.

This I can believe. Young human beings need to know there is an adult there for their needs, I am not sure if it really must be their mother, but one consistant person, not group daycare does make sense.

Komisar also links this trauma to poor parenting, lack of mothers and fathers for children, and the key role of the mother in first few years of a child’s life.

I was not conscious much in my first few years, and then my mother was tranquilised, it definitely was not good. People say these things about the first few years of life and I think, er, but I was not at my first few years.

Thank you for the interesting post.

 

[Carl Emerson]

But it is extremely damaging to people who actually have to live with these conditions to trivialize them and add to the stigma by ignoring the physiological element.

Likewise it is extremely damaging to offer lifelong drug dependance at cost, that manage symptoms but in many cases fail to address the real cause. Might sound cynical but we are talking a very big industry.

 

[Carl Emerson]

Personally I think a big part of the problem is that Churches have lost touch with the healing grace available through the Cross and abdicated responsibility for the flock to 'professional services'.

Elders are not seen as the 'go to' source of healing prayer because of poor or little biblical teaching.

The ministry of Jesus cannot operate in fellowships that have lost touch with the reality of the healing power available through the Cross and become a social event commemorating a faith that once was.

 

[RamiC]

Personally I think a big part of the problem is that Churches have lost touch with the healing grace available through the Cross and abdicated responsibility for the flock to 'professional services'.

Elders are not seen as the 'go to' source of healing prayer because of poor or little biblical teaching.

The ministry of Jesus cannot operate in fellowships that have lost touch with the reality of the healing power available through the Cross and become a social event commemorating a faith that once was.

I agree, but there is a safeguarding risk. People can use concepts like prayer for deliverance as a means of abusive control, and people who themselves have an incorrect perspective because of their own battles can be totally wrong about who needs to be healed. Where I live there are regional exorcists availiable, but if someone in the home has a diagnosed mental health problem, it is not permitted to request an exorcism. It is difficult to see a solution, because we do not have any criteria with which to distinguish suffering from the impact of living in a home that requires stronger spiritual protection and things a doctor would call a mental health crisis.

 

[linux.poet]

I feel that I should briefly address the spiritual elements of ADHD stuff. Part of this has to do with damage from those who have wronged us in early childhood. It can help to forgive those people from the heart if they are still in our lives. I also think Satan likes to give us too many things at once to do, and hurry and rush us around using the world to shuffle us like leaves on the wind. I affirm those as valid observations. Praying for healing for us is valid - God could restore our brains if He so desired.

At the same time, I’ve found that sometimes the route to forgiveness, endurance, and love for others is found at the bottom of a glass of chamomile tea. If your brain is filled with so much anger or fear that you’re hopping from one task to another and you can’t think, taking a chemical thwack to the brain’s response can help one move on and do things right. The root cause may be spiritual, but using chemicals to put your thinking brain back in control instead of giving into the reaction can be a good first step to dealing with whatever spiritual cause it has.

 

[Carl Emerson]

wronged us in early childhood

Please elaborate on what you mean.

 

[linux.poet]

Please elaborate on what you mean.

I already described that in this post here:

Recently I watched an episode of The Diary of A CEO (great YouTube channel by the way) with special guest Erica Komisar. The video is entitled Child Attachment Expert: We're Stressing Newborns & It's Causing ADHD! Hidden Dangers Of Daycare!

Unfortunately I can’t link it here because the video contains profanity in the first 3 minutes. But if you’re willing to brave that, it’s worth the watch.

At about 1 hour, Komisar links ADHD to early childhood stressors. According to her, children are supposed to be with their mothers for their first three years of life. Separating them from their mother by putting them in daycare is a stressor that is harmful for them, causing the amygdala to expand to a huge size and shrink, which leaves the child to suffer a lifetime of emotional dysregulation, because their amygdala cannot regulate their stress response, which leads to ADHD symptoms. “It’s like a PTSD response.” Komisar says.

And it’s not just Komisar. I read a small book on natural treatments for A.D.D. that mentioned chamomile as treatment. Chamomile is a sedative, which knocks down anger and fear responses. I tried that because I was having trouble with focus myself, and suddenly I noticed a reduction in my trauma symptoms as well. This anecdote really pushes me to agree with Komisar’s findings: it’s all trauma.

Komisar also links this trauma to poor parenting, lack of mothers and fathers for children, and the key role of the mother in first few years of a child’s life.

 

[tritos]

Maybe the biggest problem with ADHD is the name. People hear it and think they know everything about the condition, whereas if people hear "autism", they don't tend to make so many assumptions about that condition.

It's probably true that conditions like ADHD and autism are not disorders as such (depending on severity I suppose), but are naturally occurring and actually beneficial to humanity, if some members of a group have these conditions. In our modern world and one-size-fits-nobody school system etc., these conditions can be more troublesome. It's also possible (maybe proven, I'm not sure) that things like pesticides and pollution may be increasing the incidence and severity of these conditions.

"Everyone's a little ADHD these days" - that's true! But here we're talking about certain symptoms that are exacerbated by the modern world. Stolen Focus by Johann Hari is a book that gives an overview of these issues and potential solutions.

With the term "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder", you can almost picture a teacher or scientist observing someone and thinking, "Hmm, this person isn't paying much attention to me (a person in authority), plus they're quite hyper and annoying". So we have a description from the viewpoint of such an authority, rather than from the person with ADHD. Also, many people with ADHD were either never particularly hyperactive, or they learned to confine most of their hyperactivity to their own heads rather than expressing it in a more obvious way. PLUS people with ADHD can usually pay attention to certain things they're interested in, although they may have more need for novelty and to learn in different ways than neurotypicals, even with things they're interested in.

"Actual" ADHD involves things like impulsivity, developmental delays, interpersonal difficulties and misunderstandings (including with authority figures), issues with motivation and completing tasks, disorganisation, need for routine but also a need for novelty.. To make things more confusing, it's common to have both ADHD and autistic traits in differing amounts. Also psychology is very far from being a perfect science, so our understanding of these conditions will probably change a lot in upcoming years.

I'm not a fan of mental health medications in general, although I've never tried ADHD meds. I have tried Prozac, which didn't agree with me.

Also getting too obsessed with "having ADHD" can be a bad idea from a self-esteem standpoint, since a lot of the symptoms aren't exactly always valued by modern society. However, having no concept of ADHD can also hurt self-esteem for obvious reasons, so there's a balance I guess.

I could go on. As for the religious angle, could Jesus or some of the saints or apostles have had ADHD? That was just a random thought lol, typical of ADHD maybe.

 

[RamiC]

At the same time, I’ve found that sometimes the route to forgiveness, endurance, and love for others is found at the bottom of a glass of chamomile tea. If your brain is filled with so much anger or fear that you’re hopping from one task to another and you can’t think, taking a chemical thwack to the brain’s response can help one move on and do things right. The root cause may be spiritual, but using chemicals to put your thinking brain back in control instead of giving into the reaction can be a good first step to dealing with whatever spiritual cause it has.

Chamomile tea is food, it is safe to give it to babies (not too hot).

 

[linux.poet]

Chamomile tea is food, it is safe to give it to babies (not too hot).

It is a natural remedy, ground up flowers, but you aren’t supposed to drink it while pregnant. Herbal remedies like that toe the line between food and drugs.

I do think that chamomile and lion’s mane have less long term side effects than Ritalin and should be considered as ADHD treatments.

 

[RamiC]

It is a natural remedy, ground up flowers, but you aren’t supposed to drink it while pregnant. Herbal remedies like that toe the line between food and drugs.

I do think that chamomile and lion’s mane have less long term side effects than Ritalin and should be considered as ADHD treatments.

If there is no significant risk, could they not just be suggested as lifestyle choices? Chamomile tea is cheaper here than a prescription, and on the supermarket shelf, next to PG Tips and Instant Coffee. Pop into my workplace and it is free, help yourself...

I do know that things are not automatically safe just because they are growing wild in the hedgerows, but I still believe chamomile is just food. There are a few foods that can be unsafe in pregnancy.

 

[linux.poet]

If there is no significant risk, could they not just be suggested as lifestyle choices?

Chamomile is a sedative, and the maximum recommended amount is 2-3 cups per day. While it is so mild that you’re likely to fall asleep before you drink enough to be harmful, it can interact with other sedatives, like sleeping pills and alcohol. It also can interact with stimulants like caffeine and cause chaos in your system.

Someone who is suffering from trauma and/or ADHD will likely not feel the sedation effect of chamomile at a normal safe dosage. That’s because traumatic reactions and being in constant fear/anger reaction mode burns a ton of energy, so shutting those reactions down with chamomile actually gives you more energy available for use. That’s part of how I can survive an a 8 hour workday without being exhausted and moving in slow motion by the second hour, staring blankly off into space while my brain is off in Traumaland.

But, I’m a 32 year old woman, and I’m an adult. I can make my own choices and choose not to suffer when the remedy to my problem costs less than a dollar a packet at Walmart. A lot of this is ADHD thing is systemic oppression of young boys which I don’t agree with. I’d have some serious qualms about giving a healthy boy this tea just to make him more docile and compliant. Giving him lion’s mane before a test could foster dependency on it. He needs to learn how to succeed on his own.

And I’m not going to fool myself either. Drinking the tea is self-medication, a compensation for the fact that I am in an unhealthy environment with bad people every single day. I have to respond to them every day on a tightrope. I have drank less of it as time goes on, probably because I rely more on my lion’s mane vitamin water. When I started I was drinking 2 16oz cups per day of the chamomile tea, and now I don’t even drink it everyday. But when a fight comes up, stressful and frustrating situation, yep, back to pouring water into my teakettle.

It’s better than what Mark Manson did, who medicated his ADHD and trauma with alcohol. That I obviously don’t recommend at all. It’s better than yelling and screaming or becoming functionally disabled for days. But I know when I move out of here that I will try to get myself to stop drinking it. I’m very much anti-drug. You need to know what you’re putting into your body.

 

[Fervent]

I do think that chamomile and lion’s mane have less long term side effects than Ritalin and should be considered as ADHD treatments.

Is there any evidence of their efficacy?

One of the things about ritalin and other stimulant ADHD treatments is they only work because of the unique brain chemistry present in ADHD. In non-ADHD brains(and some ADHD brains, especially those of the primarily inattentive type) rather than acting as stimulants as they do in neurotypical brains, they produce a leveling effect and improve focus. The same effect can be seen with caffeine, though not as "clean" which is why so many people with ADHD are heavy caffeine users.

Sedatives and depressants can have an exacerbting effect in ADHD, because they cause a rebound effect.

 

[iluvatar5150]

Personally I think a big part of the problem is that Churches have lost touch with the healing grace available through the Cross and abdicated responsibility for the flock to 'professional services'.

Elders are not seen as the 'go to' source of healing prayer because of poor or little biblical teaching.

The ministry of Jesus cannot operate in fellowships that have lost touch with the reality of the healing power available through the Cross and become a social event commemorating a faith that once was.

Most of what you’ve written in this thread is nothing more than toxic, over-spiritualized nonsense that does nothing but shame people into not seeking help for legitimate medical conditions. Stop.

 

[RamiC]

Most of what you’ve written in this thread is nothing more than toxic, over-spiritualized nonsense that does nothing but shame people into not seeking help for legitimate medical conditions. Stop.

Do you have anything to support your opinion here, that there is indeed any danger at all in the opinions being shared? What exactly is "over-spiritualized"? If the medical proffession have dropped a commitment to first doing no harm, and fall short of producing scientific evidence that their definition of diseases, and treatments for them, actually work, how does that constitute legitimacy for those conditions? How is anyone at all being shamed here?

Please,could we see your evidence that people are deterred from approaching Dr's because of shame caused by someone thinking that the churches are letting people down?