✊ ADHD Wasn’t Just Ignored in History — It Was Criminalized

The tragic legacy we’re still unlearning — and the reason I’ll never shut up about it.

By Traian Burgui | ADHD Advocate, Copywriter, Psychology MSc Student

“They weren’t just misunderstood. They were disqualified from the future.”

Let’s talk about what happened to kids like me before we had the right words. Before “ADHD” was a diagnosis. Before “neurodivergent” was a flag we could wave with pride.

Because for over a century, children who couldn’t sit still, focus, or follow rules weren’t given help. They were locked away. Sterilized. Institutionalized. Erased.

Their names were scribbled in court files, not case studies. Their behaviors — now seen as classic ADHD traits — were treated as moral defects and genetic threats.

And psychology? It didn’t protect them. It powered the machine.

🧬 Eugenics Didn’t Die in Germany. It Was Born in Our Labs.

In the early 1900s, psychology was still proving itself as a science. And it proved it — by deciding who was fit to live freely.

IQ tests, moral diagnoses, “feeble-mindedness” classifications — all wrapped in the cold language of reason.

Kids who were impulsive? Labeled “moral imbeciles.” Teens who rebelled? Declared “incorrigible.” Children with sensory issues or executive dysfunction? Seen as threats to the gene pool.

They were sterilized. Removed. Forgotten.

🗂️ The Erasure Was Global. The Patterns Were the Same.

From North Carolina’s Samarcand girls (🔗) (sterilized for breaking curfew), to Emma Wolverton (🔗) (the real “Deborah Kallikak,” institutionalized for decades), the stories follow a brutal rhythm:

📌 A child misbehaves.
📌 A psychologist gives it a name.
📌 The state gives it a sentence.

And behind it all? A belief system that said: If you’re not compliant, calm, productive, and quiet — you’re defective.

ADHD didn’t “just go undiagnosed.”
It went punished.

💥 Why I Write About This (And Why I Won’t Stop)

I was diagnosed with ADHD late. As an adult. After years of trying to “behave,” “fit in,” “focus harder.” After years of masking, failing, recovering, and rising.

But what hits hardest? Knowing that in another era, I wouldn’t be writing this. I’d be in a facility. Or sterilized. Or missing from history like the thousands of neurodivergent kids who were never given a chance.

🧠 Psychology Must Be a Shield, Not a Sword

I’m studying psychology now — not to become a gatekeeper, but a guardian. To make sure the tools we build don’t become weapons again.

Diagnosis should be a mirror, not a cage.
Labels should open doors — not lock them.

🎯 This Is Bigger Than ADHD

It’s about how we treat the minds that don’t conform. It’s about how easily science can become control — when it’s stripped of ethics, compassion, and accountability.

And it’s a reminder that for every misunderstood child today, history has already shown us what happens when we fail to protect them.

We cannot repeat it.
We cannot sanitize it.
We have to name it.
Loudly.

✊ Neurodivergent. Not Broken.

We are not late bloomers.
We are survivors of a system that never saw us.

And we are here to rewrite the script.

#ADHDAwareness #Psychology #Neurodiversity #EugenicsHistory #MentalHealth #TraianWrites #LinkedInArticle

Further Reading / Source List (APA-style):

  1. Lombardo, P. A. (2008). Three generations, no imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell. Johns Hopkins University Press.

  2. Black, E. (2003). War against the weak: Eugenics and America's campaign to create a master race. Four Walls Eight Windows.

  3. Selden, S. (1999). Inheriting shame: The story of eugenics and racism in America. Teachers College Press.

  4. Trent, J. W. Jr. (1994). Inventing the feeble mind: A history of mental retardation in the United States. University of California Press.

  5. Reilly, P. R. (1991). The surgical solution: A history of involuntary sterilization in the United States. Johns Hopkins University Press.

  6. Schoen, J. (2005). Choice and coercion: Birth control, sterilization, and abortion in public health and welfare. University of North Carolina Press.

  7. Kline, W. (2001). Building a better race: Gender, sexuality, and eugenics from the turn of the century to the baby boom. University of California Press.

  8. Pernick, M. S. (1996). The Black Stork: Eugenics and the death of "defective" babies in American medicine and motion pictures since 1915. Oxford University Press.

  9. Stern, A. M. (2005). Eugenic nation: Faults and frontiers of better breeding in modern America. University of California Press.

  10. WUNC. (2020). North Carolina’s Forgotten History of Sterilization. 

  11. University of Oregon. Deborah Kallikak Case. 

  12. ASU Embryo Project Encyclopedia. Carrie Buck. 

  13. NPR. (2011). Living the Legacy of Eugenics in North Carolina.