This is in response to the letter from Phillip E. Parke (“CHADD and Novartis,” Forum, March 31). When you have attention deficit disorder or attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder, you get distracted by everything. You have a life filled with half-finished projects, and a home full of half-cleaned rooms. With medication, you can finally complete projects and finally get things done. Without medication, you procrastinate (a lot) because you are overwhelmed by the amount of work that you feel should be done.

It would have been nice to have received medication years ago, but it wasn't available when I was in school. If it had been, my life might have taken a much different path. I would have thanked, on bended knees, any teacher who could have brought me help sooner. And it would have to have been a teacher who brought it to my parents' attention. Why? For one thing, as with many families, I never saw a doctor except when I was ill, and then for so little time that there was no hope that he would have been able to diagnose ADD. ADD and ADHD run in families. Because they have it, too, parents don't recognize that anything is wrong!

Also, I don't take Ritalin, and I am not a member of Children and Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

June Olsen

Salt Lake City