ADD exists, and I don’t want it. Trust me on this. I have plenty in life that makes me feel special. Ever since I was diagnosed I have had an un-ending line of people telling me that ADD and learning disabilities don’t exist and that I am just lazy or looking for special treatment. Sadly, the line was just as frequently populated by my teachers as my fellow classmates (a particular sore point for me).

For the record, I was diagnosed when I was very young (six years old) at The Amos Cottage Developmental Evaluation Clinic at Wake Forest University. I was poked, prodded, and evaluated for any and every developmental issue known to man. After that I was re-evaluated every year that I was in school with a several-day “triennial” psychological and developmental evaluation which as the word implies happened every three years (the triennial was required by Virginia Law).

Throughout my education I was taken into a pull-out program to work on behavioral modification to workaround the ADD, but was also given benefits like extended time on tests, and being released from doing a lot of the transcription that is part of our educational system. Only as an adult have I ever considered medication. Certainly in the early 80s when I was diagnosed, the medication was not as refined, and there were a lot of questions about what the medication would do on a developing child.

However now that I have taken the medication, I can now declare with absolute certainty that ADD does exist. I am very happy to have this own confirmation for myself. To tell the unvarnished truth, I did wonder if ADD was real and if I really had it. It goes back to the fact that you never know any other experiences but your own, so pretty much everything is “normal” for you until you have an alternative. With my alternative clearly in mind, I have my confirmation.

If you disagree, please keep the thoughts to yourself. The only way in which it will change my mind is in the way I will think about you.