What's the prognosis? Over-diagnosis

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Something we’ve all heard of I’m sure, and we probably each know a handful of people who are diagnosed with this disorder and suffer immensely. Shoot maybe you suffer from it yourself. (If you do, can I have your attention for just a moment?) Every year the number of kids diagnosed with the disorder shoots up. Why exactly? Are kids just getting fidgety, knowing they have their Nintendo Wii waiting at home for them when they return from school? No, that’s not it. It’s because children aren’t paying attention in class right? They stare up at the ceiling and count the tiles and next thing you know the teacher is telling mom at parent teacher’s conference that “Your child my have ADHD.” Have we ever thought that maybe the kid doesn’t understand what the teacher is talking about? Maybe they missed a step along the way. Well if I didn’t understand fractions I’d probably be staring at the ceiling too. Maybe kids just need a little extra help, not a bottle of medicine. I think we need to give parents and teachers a disorder. Something like ODD, ITBD, you know, Over Diagnosing Disorder or I’m Too Busy Disorder.

 College students are even diagnosed with the disorder for showing symptoms like these: distractible, unorganized, impatient, and tendency to procrastinate. Oh gee, I’m going to go ahead and perform a self-diagnosis. Yes, it seems that I too have ADHD. I got distracted on facebook while writing this blog, my desk is well, quite messy at the moment to be honest, I always stare at the clock during class wondering when it will be over, and I still haven’t written my editorial that is due for this class so it is obvious procrastination is my enemy. Oh no. What should I do? Yes, tomorrow I think I will get on Ritalin, in which I will start experiencing symptoms like these: fast, pounding, or uneven heartbeats; feeling like I might pass out; fever, sore throat, and headache with a severe blistering, peeling, and red skin rash; aggression, restlessness, hallucinations, unusual behavior, or motor tics (muscle twitches); easy bruising, purple spots on my skin; or dangerously high blood pressure (severe headache, blurred vision, buzzing in my ears, anxiety, confusion, chest pain, shortness of breath, uneven heartbeats, seizure).

 I can’t wait to get started on my new journey of having a disorder. It will be great to create more problems for myself. Oh my gosh, look what I just did. I made this too long so some of you just skipped down to the bottom to read the last paragraph. You must have ADHD too you impatient people.