My son can't get dressed or have a conversation without medication. Pretty sure that is not any sort of gift. I'm sorry if you were incorrectly diagnosed and medicated. That's not the fault of the DSM or the existence of the diagnosis of ADHD. Psychiatry has allowed many people who would have once been institutionalized to lead normal lives.
There are kids who can't be educated or access life without medication. Kids who have severe anger/emotional issues and hurt others or depression and are at risk for suicide. There are kids who have severe psychotic symptoms and research shows that these kids, when started early on meds, seem to have better outcomes. These medications save lives and these diagnostic categories allow us to help treat specific problems and choose appropriate therapies and/or medications.
No one made me put my son on medication. I see every day medicated ds and unmedicated ds and I know which way he wants to be. He asks to take his meds and says that he likes his medication because he doesn't get yelled at or get in trouble when he takes it and he can do the things that he likes to do. He can also attend school for the first time in his life. This has nothing to do with expectations or a poor fit, this is a child who neurologically cannot succeed at being a 6 year old. He cannot sit still, be quiet, follow directions, or follow the rules of a classroom, not even for 10 seconds. The medication that treats ADHD relieves the symptoms so well he functions like a typical 6 year old. Explain to me how his brain is within the normal range but he was kicked out of every school/preschool we ever tried and even got in trouble and had to leave within a few minutes every time I took him to the playground but a simple little pill fixes everything for 3.5 hours.
Your opinions on psychiatry are outdated. We don't need precise and exact measurements to have something be an actual science. All fields of science had problems at some point with lack of ability to 100% mathematically prove various theories. It's the unknowns that make science truly interesting and the brain is still largely an unknown. We may not have a test for ADHD, but we know what it looks like, we measure it using scales, and brain scans show remarkable similarities in ADHD brains vs. typical brains. Maybe someday we will have a definitive test, but until then we will continue to do what other parents do, use the treatment that works. I for one am happy to live in a world where my son is able to attend an excellent private gifted school and live at home with a loving family rather than be institutionalized.
