| ""I love my boy just the way he is, and I don't want to medicate the joy and creativity from his life. I also believe that differences in brain-wiring are not necessarily defects, but part of the diversity of the human species. Since the medication was a pretty recent course of action, I don't think it will hurt him to choose non-med options.""
I'm gifted, ADD, older S is gifted, ADHD, younger is gifted, ADD.
All of us have tried meds at some point. All of us are very creative. None of us experienced a lack of joy or creativity when on meds.
All of us decided not to use meds, but for different reasons.
Older S, 24, -- decided in h.s not to use because he refuses to believe he is ADHD. I have no question about the diagnosis, and virtually anyone who is familiar with ADHD could diagnose him on sight because he's never still. On meds, he was more organized and less impulsive, which helped him stay out of trouble in school due to his not doing things that were funny, but justifiably irritated teachers. If he's in a job that plays to his skills, he can do fine off meds.
Younger S: Just didn't like the idea of meds. Doesn't even like to take aspirin when he has a headache. Due to high motivation for staying in college that he loves and keeping the gpa his scholarship requires, he has devised various organizational methods that work for him.
Me: Diagnosed with ADD at age 50. Have used meds off and on since then. Found meds useful when I had a job that required lots of travel and thus taxed my organizational skills. Have used meds to help me focus to do routine tasks that I hate. For instance, I used to thoroughly stress out and be horribly disorganized when preparing to entertain. As a result of a 3-year regular mediation practice, I'm much more relaxed and organized, so don't bother with meds. Would use them again, however, if I ever do a job in which I have to travel a lot because under that kind of stress, it is very hard for me to be organized.
BTW, while I did well enough as an undergrad and h.s. student to get my undergrad degree from an Ivy, it was in grad school that I really blossomed. That was because I could spend night and day concentrating on exactly what I loved.
I literally immersed myself in my field doing far more than was required, and was probably the top student in my graduate program. Had some problems getting around to doing my dissertation, but when I did it, I literally sailed through and had the best defense that my advisor had seen of the 50 dissertation committees he'd chaired. |