The point about boys isn't that girls cannot have ADHD, but that boys specifically are over-diagnosed (and medicated with powerful substances) for behavior which is merely typical of their age or gender or both. Children are supposed to explore and get excited. They are not supposed to be putting in 60 hour weeks in the coal mines just yet. They're kids. Their brains are immature. Growing up makes them more suitable for the coal mines, you don't need to medicate them into an artificially premature maturity. That's the argument, anyway.
And here's a different, more controversial point. We used to have psychiatric disorders called hysteria and homosexuality. Now those have been reclassified out of existence. No one knows which of the current disorders will meet with the same fate. It's not impossible that while the help you get from your treatment is real (and the problems you face are real), ADHD is a poorly defined disorder.
>And here's a different, more controversial point. We used to have psychiatric disorders called hysteria and homosexuality. Now those have been reclassified out of existence.
I don't think that homosexuality is a good example to illustrate your point that ADHD might not be a "real" disorder. There's no question that there are people who are homosexual, but we no longer refer to homosexuality as a disorder because we no longer believe that it requires treatment. If ADHD were to parallel homosexuality in this regard, then there would be people who actually have ADHD, but we would stop viewing this as an abnormal variation in behavior.
Your example of hysteria is a better one to illustrate your point though. We no longer believe that hysteria is a disorder because we no longer recognize it as an actual state of being.
"If ADHD were to parallel homosexuality in this regard, then there would be people who actually have ADHD, but we would stop viewing this as an abnormal variation in behavior."
Some people believe this will one day be the case. (Personally, I don't have strong opinions on the matter one way or the other. It's not something I've researched.)
And here's a different, more controversial point. We used to have psychiatric disorders called hysteria and homosexuality. Now those have been reclassified out of existence. No one knows which of the current disorders will meet with the same fate. It's not impossible that while the help you get from your treatment is real (and the problems you face are real), ADHD is a poorly defined disorder.