I believe refusal to treat any medical condition of any kind is abuse. I know now that I have been battling depression and PTSD since at least as young as age 6, although the depression wasn't diagnosed until I was 20, and the PTSD diagnosis came much later. (I think when I was younger, they still thought that condition only applied to combat veterans.) I entered individual counseling when I was 12, but this only served to demonstrate to my family that I must be the "crazy" one among them, because after all, I was the one who saw a shrink. They didn't.

My brother's situation was similar to yours. He would have been diagnosed with ADHD if that diagnosis had existed back then. But when my father suggested getting him into counseling, my mother balked because she didn't want him "facing the stigma." It was OK for me to face it, but not for him. Why? Apparently because I had been sexually abused by someone outside the family, so admitting I was broken was no reflection on her parenting. But if my brother needed counseling too, that would have forced her to admit there might be something wrong *within* the family, and she wouldn't do that. So instead, she tried to deal with his ADHD behavior by what I'll tactfully call harsh corporal punishment. I got some of that too, as she tried to force my depressive/traumatized behavior into something within the realm of normal, but my brother got the brunt of the physical abuse in the family. The abuse I went through was more mental and emotional, as well as the SA plus bullying at school.

Besides not dealing with our psychological conditions, it took school intervention to get our parents to provide glasses for three out of the four of us, and braces on my teeth. I think it all comes under medical neglect, and I don't see a difference between the lack of braces and glasses, or the lack of the counseling and/or medication my brother could have benefited from.