With regards to what Mish was saying, I agree completely and would like to offer a supporting personal experience.

I have ADD as well as Asperger's. When I was 5, the ADD was diagnosed. (The Asperger's has never been formally diagnosed, and I'd prefer to keep it that way.) My parents' response to this was to put me in 'therapy', which I saw, and still see, as pointless, and to put me on ritalin.

I remember arguing with my parents about being on the ritalin definitely as early as 8 years old, and probably at a much younger age than that. I wanted to learn to function without it. They were more concerned that I seem normal and be able to do my schoolwork.

When I turned 17, by law I was allowed to decline treatment for my ADD, and I did. I spent the next several years after that learning how to function, pretty much from scratch. I'm happy to report that now, at age 23, I can function fairly well with regards to my ADD. And this is in spite of, not because of, the treatment I was given.

My relationship with my parents, however, has not improved. They have shown over and over since I was practicaly a baby that my needs, wants, and goals are unimportant to them. I feel that I cannot trust them at all, because of how they treated me. I go for long stretches where I don't talk to them at all. And, to repeat the point, this isn't because of the medicine. This is because they disregarded my needs, wants, and goals.