The other day, I watched the David Lascher movie Sister on my computer. Reid Scott, professional handsome guy and one of my favorite actors from Veep starred in it, so I pressed play without knowing much about the story.

After his father dies and his mom has a mental breakdown, Billy (Reid Scott) is left to take care of his much younger sister Nicki (Grace Kaufman). Nicki is a problem child on a small pharmacy of behavioral drugs, mood stabilizers and Ritalin, a medication used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Billy decides to take Nicki off all her medication cold turkey after suspecting it’s the very thing causing her to become withdrawn and aggressive. He claims the only reason she was on drugs in the first place was because her school found it “easier to teach zombies” and that their mentally ill mother didn’t want to deal with actually raising her.

Once Nicki is off her medication, she’s thriving, doing yoga and drinking pomegranate juice with no sign of struggling with any focus or emotional issues.

This narrative is...troubling, and left me with an uneasy feeling even Reid Scott’s beautiful face couldn’t assuage. Is there a problem with overmedicating children in this country? Of course there is. In any society, in any area of life, people tend to overcorrect at that first sign of trouble. Giving children with normal neurotransmitters corrective medication they don’t need, just because they’re fidgety or exuberant, obviously isn’t right.

But as someone with ADHD watching the character of Nicki, it was very clear she actually did suffer from it. I was prone to crying meltdowns as a preteen, just like her. In multiple scenes, she becomes filled with a rage so intense and sudden she physically attacks the people around her. When I was fourteen, I knocked a punching bag off the ceiling out of pure aggression. I’ve lost count of all the times in my childhood I bit someone or burst into tears over an inconsequential piece of homework. The inability to filter emotions appropriately is a telltale symptom of people with ADHD.

I had (have, they’re not dead.) wonderful, attentive parents who, like Billy with his sister, played with me and read to me and took me to therapy and tried everything they could to make life easier for me. In the end, Ritalin is what best helped me focus on school, helped me stay calm in situations that otherwise would’ve sent me into a tailspin. Shockingly, when you have ADHD, ADHD medicine can improve your life. Imagine that.

I resent the implication of this movie that ADHD is only caused because the person’s family doesn’t love them enough. Love helps. Attention and understanding helps. But at a certain point, it’s chemical. It’s nobody's fault, it’s just a fact of the disorder. The idea that only in paying attention to Nicki can Billy save her seems dangerously close to the beliefs of the anti-vaxxer movement.

I liked a lot about this movie. Reid Scott wore a lot of sleeveless shirts. He and Grace Kaufman had wonderful chemistry. Sister is a noble attempt by Lascher to start a dialogue about a little discussed and frequently hindering mental problem, but it also neglected to mention how there's no shame in getting medical help, either.

You shouldn’t overmedicate. You shouldn’t give ADHD meds to someone who isn’t actually displaying the symptoms of ADHD. If a certain pill isn’t helping, you should talk to your doctor about being taken off it. A doctor, not someone with Google.

But when your have a mental problem or disability, DON'T IGNORE THE THINGS THAT COULD HELP YOU. Being on Ritalin to treat ADHD is not “giving up” on your loved one or on yourself. Implying that only plays into the dangerous stereotype that ADHD isn’t real, merely a crutch to excuse bad behavior. There are treatments that work better for some people then for others, but it’s also not something you can cure with a can-do spirit.