On ADHD

«As a young adolescent, I attended a prestigious high school where the students’ social status was largely determined by their basketball talent. Unfortunately for me, my genetic predispositions determined that I would be a short boy – a tricky condition for an adolescent who wishes to be popular, in such a basketball-loving school. I was consistently chosen last by my friends to be on their teams, a recurrent adverse experience that hurt my feelings and threatened my self-esteem, despite my fantastic academic performance. I did not have a genuine medical problem, but sometimes I imagine how, from a pure biomedical perspective, a DSM-like manual could have named my condition a Short Height Disorder (SHD). Furthering this hypothetical ironic concept, I rationalize that back then, during the 1990s, there was very limited awareness to this made-up diagnosis of SHD. It was also not acceptable to treat SHD with growth hormones or with the controversial (made-up) medical practice of ‘physical stretching of short bodies’ […] We all have strengths and weaknesses. As long as our society continues to focus on the weaknesses of ADHD-type children and as long as it continues to operate measures aimed at stretching them until they fit the one-size educational uniform, these wonderful and healthy kids will continue to experience severe emotional distress.»