Anti-Ritalin Clothing Line?

http://www.bonkersinstitute.org/medshow/ymca.html

I will probably be one of the only bloggers this week arguing on the side of medication, but this advertisement truly affected me. I have pasted the url above, but to describe it quickly, it’s a black and white picture of a youth basketball team with text above that reads, “Before video games, before Facebook, before Ritalin, there was basketball.” While I understand the intentions of this advertisement was not to be insulting, but rather to encourage healthy physical activity in a generation plagued with childhood obesity, I still could not help but be a little offended, and I was not the only one who felt this way. A message from the YMCA sates that within only one day of running the ad they received letters from hurt families dealing with attention disorder problems. These families viewed the ad as a rebuke of their struggles. Immediately the advertisement was discontinued.

The problem I see is that there is a stigma in existence today that anyone using medication to manage ADD or ADHD problems is in reality weak and if they would only channel their hyperactivity or attention deficit issues into something productive they wouldn’t need drugs. We can see this stigmatism in countless places. After just a couple minutes of googling I found anti Ritalin campaigns, anti Ritalin pamphlets, anti Ritalin facebook groups, and even a line of gifts and clothing that display some not so PC anti Ritalin sentiments like, “have you kissed your snot nosed Ritalin Junkie today” and “Imagination should never be medicated.” I’ll include the link to this so you can see for yourself: http://shop.cafepress.com/anti-ritalin

I realize that the number of prescriptions for attention disorders has dramatically risen recently, and much of America is genuinely overmedicated. Because of this I can understand where this stigma that “no one really needs Ritalin” comes from, but I can tell you from personal experience it simply is not true. While I myself may not have a prescription for any of these attention disorder drugs, for a year I lived very closely to someone who did. Her name was Hannah, and this adorable nine year old girl was developmentally delayed and took Ritalin daily. I very clearly remember the days when her overwhelmed mother forgot or was late medicating her. The difference between medicated Hannah and natural Hannah was like night and day. Within an hour she would go from pleasant, agreeable, and happy, to kicking, screaming, and miserable. Hannah needed these drugs. Without them she simply was not happy or well functioning.

What I’m ultimately trying to communicate is that for many, attention disorders are a true struggle and it very necessary to manage them with medication. Therefore advertisements, like the YMCA’s, can be offensive when they send messages that delegitimize these disorders.