This needs to be told. I'm glad that you did, especially from a stand point of knowing what you are talking about. This is your line of work.....so you aren't just talking out your hiney!

"If you don’t adapt and look within yourself, you’ll just keep wading in that stagnant poisonous pool of stepparent hell." author: BitchBitchBarbie

Facts are not good or bad they are just facts.

One of my favorite throw away lines.

The hard part (IMHO) about your post on "facts" is that the science around mental health and similarly the social sciences is that the "science" is soft and difficult to verify or peg to a discrete cause. In these types of analysis it tends to be proof by a preponderance of evendence Vs scientific proof (to mix science and legal metafors).

I am an Engineer and business entrepreneur so my world is much more hard science and quantifiable in nature than yours.

If I screw up some equipment or electrical system quits working or a business looses some money. If you screw up by misDxing in either direction it can severly harm people's lives.

I do not envy you that responsibility.

Great topc and post.

Thanks for taking the leap to introduce it. I am interested to see the flavor of the responses.

Best regards,

Success is rarely final. Failure is rarely fatal. It is character, courage and consistency of effort that count. Vince Lombardi (with some minor Rags modifications) To each according to their performance, screw Karl Marx. (Rags)

Good gosh.

You sure did make a friend out of me for sure.

Kids with any kind of disability, disorder, mental illness deserves to be helped in all capacities.

I don't medicate my son for his ADD or his therapeutic diagnosis of abandonment. (Side effects cause my biggest concerns) I was successful in counseling and actually, for me, adjusting his diet and controlling his sugar intake. I read a wonderful book that helped me with the more conventional methods.

I also know that if they hadn't, I would not for one second not have explored a different option.

Thank you for this heartfelt and fact based post.

"For every ailment under the sun....There is a remedy, or there is none;
If there be one, try to find it; If there be none, never mind it." ~ W.W. Bartley

Thank you Catlover, for this voice of reason. I doubt it will do much good for some, but it's helpful to hear from someone who knows what she's talking about. Having worked in mental health myself, and as a mother with a mental illness parenting a child with a mental illness, the ignorance and misinformation on this issue causes a deep emotional reaction in me. Thank you for your voice of reason.

My mother suffers from bipolar disorder and adhd. This was a medical diagnosis. My son also suffers from ADHD. I have a SS who does not suffer from ADHD, and so I have seen the difference that a child who does not suffer from this medical condition acts like, and it is night and day. Medication does help. I think that medication was not used in the past, like when my mother was a child because they simply did not have it.

Her life would have been changed dramatically if they had had it. She self medicated when she was a teen, using drugs like cocaine, because it had the theraputic effects of similar drugs like ritalin. Instead of making her high, it actually calmed her down. Instead of the million thoughts that inundated her brain, she was able to catch a thought. Now she is on the proper medication, ritalin, and her life is better for it. So I think that it is good parenting when a parent helps their kid to help with this very medical problem, because a child will suffer without help.