Spouses Response…

[AussieADHD]

Does anyone else have a spouse/partner that doesn’t get it, and thinks you should just be able to choose to change your behaviour?

Slowly trying to educate them is exhausting…

[Old_Owl]

Yep. When I was diagnosed my life made a lot more sense and I had a bit of hope. My wife thinks I'm being hoodwinked by Big Pharma. Everyone gets distracted, people forget or get stuck. She even had me watch some documentary on Netflix on stimulants and the overuse of them.

Threw me for a loop and self doubt. But I knew I needed to move forward.

Now she loves me and I love her. She doing this because she doesn't want me to be hurt. What makes it hard is I still really can't express to her that these things every once and then is with me 24X7, and I've been living my life thinking if I just was a bit better or smarter or just not lazy I could do what everyone else seems to do.

Sorry, might be over sharing, but the short of it is I've resigned myself I'll figure it out as I move forward.

[AussieADHD in reply to Old_Owl]

Not oversharing at all, that’s what we do 😂

I totally relate and appreciate you being open, that really helps

[lemonspeaks]

it is exhausting to try and explain it to someone else, especially when you’re still figuring it out yourself.

I gave my partner a few books and podcasts to educate themselves, because I realized I’m needing to learn more about how this is effecting me and I don’t have the energy or expertise to teach someone else yet.

Take all the time you need to grieve, ask yourself questions, and learn more about this. There’s so much that I thought everyone did and has been shocking finding out is an adhd thing. And realizing how much masking I’ve done and hid who I really am because of it. Not sure if you’re dealing with that.

sending you all the magical vibes!!!

[AussieADHD in reply to lemonspeaks]

Thanks for sharing. I’m relating so much to your words. Seems to be something I’m doing a lot lately as I find out more about this. Thought I was okay with it at first but it seems like there’s a lot of adjusting to do.

Soooooo many things I thought were “normal” 😊

[lemonspeaks in reply to AussieADHD]

yes totally. I got diagnosed last week and at first it was validating and no big deal, but with each day I’ve started to feel a lot of emotions about it. Someone in this community told me that grief is something people can tend to feel after getting diagnosed and that it can take up to a year to fully accept about yourself. Phew I would say I’m wondering if I agree with them now!

[Gettingittogether in reply to lemonspeaks]

The grief process can take a while. I mean, once we accept the diagnosis, it's like we can now be honest. My brain went back through my life on all the tasks that I struggled with and sorta felt the pain of the struggle--and yet hid it, minimized it at the same time.

I had a job where I did excellent work that took me longer--like 3x longer--than other people doing the work. I was clueless about why I was so often "late." Clueless. And then I get the dang diagnosis. There is definitely grief. But you want to do a lot of reading and then start building up systems and shortcuts to minimize the ADHD.

There is also a lot of shame about the condition. Takes time to let that go.

[AussieADHD in reply to Gettingittogether]

I was just always wondering why I couldn’t fix me. No matter how many courses I bought, or how hard I tried, how many Jim Rohn lectures I listened to, nothing would stick. Now I have an answer that doesn’t really change any of that, it just means instead of trying to fix it I need to understand it and, like you said, minimise it.

[Underbite234 in reply to AussieADHD]

I've got tears in my eyes as I am reading this post. I just got diagnosed at age 44 after a whole lifetime of overcompensating, imposter syndrome, and heavy masking. To make matters worse, I am a clinical psychologist, so I constantly feel tons of pressure to be perfect, have my shit together, and always be emotionally and cognitively engaged. I absolutely love my job, AND I am exhausted. My spouse (ironically a child psychologist who works with kids on the spectrum) is not very emotionally supportive and has been trying to feed me strategies. I know what to do (and I'm working on it), but she seems to think that she will just be able to fix me. It's really hard.

I'm grieving hard and having a lot of trouble accepting that my challenges are never going to go away. At first, this realization was validating and helped me to let go of some of the self-blame. Now, I am feeling like I need to rebuild my life in many different ways.

It helps to see these posts and know that I am not going through this alone.

[AussieADHD in reply to Underbite234]

I feel you. I was diagnosed 8 months ago now and I’m still processing and trying to adjust to it and figure out what’s me, what’s”it”, what I can change, what I can’t change, whether I should even bother trying to change?

One of the biggest things for me now is processing my past and looking at it through these new “glasses” that I have. People ask me if it makes sense now that I’ve been diagnosed. It makes sense, but it doesn’t make it easier. It doesn’t change the hurts of the past either.

It also doesn’t help that there’s a 12 month wait list to see a psychiatrist where I live. Seriously, making someone with ADHD wait 12 months for an appointment… Is that some kind of sick joke? 😂

[NYCmom2]

This 1 hour long ADDitude: ADHD Experts Podcast sums it up nicely:

“ADHD is a Whole-Life, Whole-Body Experience” it’s episode 427 from October 28

The more confident you are with your knowledge and acceptance of yourself the easier it is to navigate other people’s opinions.

[AussieADHD in reply to NYCmom2]

Thank you 🙏

[Knitting20projects]

I completely understand the grief. I was diagnosed 3 months ago. Initially I was elated. Now I’m kind of crushed. And I have 4-5 books I haven’t finished yet (on ADHD). Onwards and upwards!!! Sigh. (Age 50, female, always thought everyone was like this)

[AussieADHD in reply to Knitting20projects]

”Your Brain’s Not Broken” was a Godsend of a book for me 😊

[Knitting20projects in reply to AussieADHD]

Thank you. I will look for that book.