As I was working yesterday, the sorrow and grief slowly dissipating, I was thinking about what I wrote yesterday morning about looking to the underlying cause of what prompted these killings in Newtown. I wrote about the treatment of those with mental or behavioral disorders and how medication is not the answer, especially given the incredible volatility of the psychotropic drugs being administered. My thoughts wandered to why we feel the need to administer these drugs to children with ADD, ADHD, autism, or aspergers. As many people will say, especially about autism and aspergers, they are "disorders" in which the brain is wired differently than most other people's brains. One can also make the case to a certain extent that ADD and ADHD, while perhaps not cases of one's brain being wired differently, are "disorders" in which a person simply functions differently than what we would normally expect. Especially with the latter two, while a person who has those may be hyperactive and not able to focus in a typical classroom setting, does it mean they are not capable of learning, albeit a different way than we are used to? I think part of the problem we face when dealing with these and other disorders is we that we don't understand them as they don't fit into our idea of what is "normal". So I ask you, what is "normal" in terms of human beings? For centuries we have struggled with this idea that everyone should be approximately the same when it comes to functioning in society, a classroom, or any other setting. If you look back at the colonial period in the United States and the famous witch hunts that were conducted across New England, were they not a reaction to a group of people that was "abnormal" according to societal mores at that time? Is it not the same today? Anyone who acts differently than the majority of those around them is labeled accordingly. We may use the term abnormal or quirky, weird or strange, odd or challenged, but it all boils down the same thing; we view these people as deviating from our prescribed view of the way people should function in the world. Many times, when we label these said individuals, it can be incredibly harmful to them, their families, and those that are like them. We put them in a group with a label hanging over their heads that begs for medical intervention. If they can't function the way the rest of society functions, then there must be something wrong and they must be put on medication. I would venture to say that we are completely wrong when we adopt these views of others, label them as such, and push them towards the doctors to figure out why they aren't "normal".
What is truly needed, especially with more and more people exhibiting signs that they aren't "normal", is a re-thinking of what "normal" is for them. Why is it unacceptable for someone to be more active than others, to not be able to focus the way other's do in a classroom setting? When a child or person shows these signs, we automatically jump to the conclusion that they must have ADD or ADHD. They may have those disorders, but why must we medicate them to the point where they reach "normalcy" as prescribed by the rest of the world? The same goes for autism and aspergers. When we see a person who is withdrawn, incapable of functioning the way the rest of the world does when out in public or even within a home, we make the assumption that they have a certain disorder and must be medicated. What if they are normal according to what their body prescribes and it is the rest of us who are "abnormal" according to them. More and more research has shown that individuals with autism and aspergers have the capability of being really smart, not in standard "normal" ways, but in ways that we are only now beginning to understand. Take for example the case of a man (whose first name I forget) but whose last name is Wiltshire, who has either autism or aspergers, and yet has a photographic memory, an acute attention to detail, and is capable of recreating something he has seen only once with pen and paper. He is normal according to him, but most likely not to the rest of us. The more we start putting these individuals in groups and labeling them as disabled or disadvantaged, or heaven forbid not "normal"; the more we are increasing the likelihood that they will be medicated beyond belief and whatever gifts they possess naturally will be hidden or eradicated. What if Albert Einstein was put on psychotropic medications and his genius tempered or eradicated? We would have essentially lost one of the greatest minds this world has ever seen. How many "Einstein's" are we removing from this planet by over medicating individuals who are not "normal" according to what the rest of us believe. I hope we haven't removed too many and I hope we can re-think the way we address individuals with these disorders so we don't damage them, put them in situations beyond their control, and essentially "quiet" their minds.
In America especially, the majority of people expect everyone else to fit within a certain mold. We expect people to conform to what other's believe, act the way other's act, and not be too eccentric. When someone goes against the grain or exhibits signs that they aren't normal, we stigmatize their actions and corral them together so we can avoid addressing the issues at hand. The issues at hand are our perceptions of them. What if according to them, the rest of the world is "abnormal"? What if they believe that since all those around them are different, than all those around them are "not normal"? The sooner we can start looking beyond the way a person acts, the sooner we can start treating them as we would any "normal" human being, the sooner we can accept them into the folds of our society and create a way for them to move forward and function without being sidelined. If we keep on pushing these medications to treat "abnormal" behavior, we will just be creating another group of zombie's who resemble a "normal" person. It seems that most of the reactions we have stem from a lack of understanding. The majority of the people don't understand what "normal" is to a person with one of these so-called "disorders". In general, when we don't understand something, we have a tendency to push it to the side into a group that we can keep at arm's length and not get too close to. We need to do the opposite; seek for understanding of what these individuals are truly like so that we can learn to live with them and they with us. Perhaps it means altering the way we function in society to make it easier for them. Or perhaps it is a simple as being more accepting of individuals who exhibit behavior that is fundamentally different than ours. However we change our reactions, we need to change them so that we don't push these individuals to the fringes of society. What they need is not more medication but to be considered "normal" by the rest of us. If we start from that point, perhaps we can start curbing the disturbing trend of over medication and alienating these individuals from our society.
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