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[Camp Comic] Tuesday, September 6, 2016 - Geneva Hodgson Guest Comic
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[Camp Comic] Tuesday, September 6, 2016 - Geneva Hodgson Guest Comic
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I love the coloring on this comic. It's very pretty, especially Seventeen's eyes.
Deep, and in many cases inaccurate. While it's true that doctors over-medicating children is an issue, the backlash against overmedication has also resulted in some parents refusing to medicate when their child truly needs it to function. I used to work in elementary education, and I saw it all the time: kids who were a just a little too energetic would get put on drugs for no reason, but other kids with severe ADHD would go unmedicated by their skeptic parents, and they literally could not function.
I grew up on a cocktail of Zoloft, Risperdal, and Ritalin. And contrary to what many would tell you, those drugs didn't "stifle my creativity" or "zombify me" so that I could "study like a good little worker drone." They allowed me to function. They allowed me to feel like the 'real' me. They freed me to fully enjoy the things I was already interested in, but couldn't excel before the medication because I would get too frustrated and have an emotional meltdown. And I wasn't even suffering from any serious psychosis or anything - I have Tourette's, ADHD, and mild OCD. That's it. But all together, those disorders were enough to seriously impede my enjoyment of *most* things in life. Not just school.
Medication isn't the right choice for everybody, but it is the right choice for *some* people. It's a very, very personal decision. So really, it all comes down to what this girl has, and what she's taking for it. If she's just a hyperactive kid who was given Adderall by an overzealous physician, then yeah, this is the beginning of a glorious new era for her. But if she was suffering from things that seriously impacted her socialization skills, impulse control, or emotional regulation, then life is about to get a *lot* harder for her.
- Orson Scott Card
Where's the cat?
ADD has allowed me to see the world on a macroscopic, systematic scale, which I would not trade away, because my subconscious has to constantly stitch together experiences and even conversations that have gaps in them that I don’t even know are there.
Quality treatment means learning how to manage the negative symptoms while also being on something that helps dial them down so they are actually manageable. I’m still *me,* and the person I am because of ADD is why I’m in urban planning, but now I can actually finish what I start, engage with friends, read without getting distracted or, conversely, hyperfocused.
That said, given the parental style Camp Weedonwantcha’s wards have had to endure, odds are this would be some kind of tranquilizer like Clozipine rather than a stimulant like Adderall or Ritalin.
But the bottle looks different.
In fairness, the medication depicted is probably vyvanse or something similar. As someone who actually takes vyvanse, I can vouch that it can be foregone with no ill effects (beyond the lack of attention that it was originally medicating, anyway).
I just wanted to clarify the intentions of the comic for those who are curious: Katie asked for this piece to include myself as a camper. The character is totally just a kid version of me (though inaccurate!)
I have had lifelong ADHD that was only diagnosed as an adult. I take medication [adderall] and have a complicated relationship with it; I'm very grateful for it (I would have a much, much harder time functioning as a working adult without it), but it's easy to beat myself up over my weird brain sometimes. I wanted to talk about how the weird demands of life can give us an odd relationship with ourselves and our quirky brains. And a little bit about forgiving ourselves for that. (I was also indulging in a little bit of fantasy-- if I didn't have to work and pay bills etc, I probably wouldn't take meds.)
As JR. Mithrandir's comment stated, "I don't think the idea here is that she's "better off" without her meds, but that she'll be alright in spite of it without any pressure on her." Spot on!
Thanks all for reading and replying!
Thanks for popping in and sharing!
Winter is coming.