Psychiatry is a pseudoscience.... You don't know the history of psychiatry. I do...Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt, you don't even -you're glib. You don't even know what Ritalin is.
I did have a problem concentrating on anything for more than 10 seconds. I was one of the first kids in the U.K. to go on Ritalin, and my mum hated it, and I hated it.
You don't know what it's like! Hyperactive twins! When they turned three, my doctor prescribed Ritalin -- I wouldn't dream of giving a drug to my children, but it does help when I take it myself.
I was diagnosed with ADD - see also: raised on sugary cereals and cartoons - and manic depression. So I was prescribed Ritalin for the ADD, and for the manic imbalances I was prescribed mostly benzodiazepines, which I loved, and antidepressants.
The mainstream media is funded by pharmaceutical companies, so when you have the biggest movie star in the world at the time - Tom Cruise - coming out against anti-depressants and Ritalin... they still brutalize him.
The White House comes out and says it's going to do a major study of the effects on preschool-age children using Ritalin, Prozac and other drugs. I know in advance what the study's going to say. The results are in before they even start. They're going to do a window-dressing control while praising the overall need for the drugs. In the end they're going to try to peddle more drugs than before while making us think they're clamping down; that's my guess.
There is a systemic problem in this country, where schools are often forcing parents to turn to Ritalin.
I was not good in school. I could never read very fast or very well. I got tested for learning disabilities, for dyslexia. Then I got put on Ritalin and Dexedrine. I took those starting in the eighth grade. As soon as they pumped that drug into me, it would focus me right in.
I'm from the ADHD generation, to be honest - I genuinely was on Ritalin in middle school - so I'm most comfortable with a hundred things going on at once. It's deadlines that get pesky.
We went to Ibiza, and I was on Ritalin, and, for a kid who couldn't concentrate, I read a 200-page book on King Arthur, and my mum just hated it. She said it just wasn't me.
I couldn't guarantee that someone could get off their medication. But I suspect that meditation instead of Ritalin would change the life of any kid with ADD.
