I found my ex has ADHD (he's 34) 5 months into our relationship. He never told me. He only mentioned sometimes that he's bad a organizing and scheduling. I found out when I saw Ritalin on his desk and asked him what it is. He told me it's to help him with organization skills. I went home later that night and googled Ritalin myself. So ADHD came up. But I didn't think it was a big deal. Now finding this site makes me realize ADHD stretches far beyond work ability. I'm now officially done with this guy after a year of physical and verbal abuse. It's sad thinking about how kind, attentive and trustworthy he seemed at the beginning. However things turned around a few months later and he started distancing himself from me. When pressed for a reason, he would blurt out things that hurt me so much. The things he said are so shocking that I would need another post to write them down so that readers can understand the extent of their hurtfulness. Sadly enough, even now I still think he's a guy with a wonderful heart. Maybe it's his ADHD? Maybe it's me that's not good enough for him and brought out his worst sides? I don't know.

Anyway, as I said I will write a separate post about his verbal outbursts with me. Here's just an example of "physical abuse" he has done to me throughout the year, even in the beginning of our relationship when he was optimistic and happy:

My ex boyfriend thought I was not skinny enough and don't look good enough, so he controlled my diet. In fact I have a very normal BMI and healthy and happy. He would allow me to only eat a salad at every meal, and at occasions where others are present, e.g. eating with friends and relatives, even in the presence of his own mother, he would stop me from eating when he thinks I've had enough, or take away food from my plate (in a smiling "loving" way). It went on for a year. Imagine feeling starved when climbing the Alps (he blamed me for looking grumpy all the time, of course I was starving and struggling with low blood pressure, thus I was grumpy!) Of course now I blame myself for allowing those things to happen to me, I humiliated myself. But at that time even though I knew it was wrong, I always assumed my ex was a bit nerdy and idiotic when interacting with people, so I kindly explained to him that he can't do that kind of actions to people (like explaining to a 5-year old) instead of smashing the food on his face.

Anyway, nothing worked because he would become defensive and put the blame on me. He would say things like he's only doing that coz I don't have enough determination to be on a diet on my own, and that he doesn't even enjoying controlling my food etc. Ironically, we're not together anymore, and the past few months post-breakup has been hell for me because of all the abusive shit. Food is just one example, there are many more. Hell has made me lose weight even faster than when he was controlling my diet, now I'm officially size small.

From hindsight, it's interesting that even when the food controlling began I didn't know he had ADHD at that time. But I still found excuse for him and assumed he had good intentions but bad actions. I guess I just have too much empathy that turned into my weakness and ended up hurting yourself. Dating this ADHD man has taught me so much about life, lesson of life that normal people would learn in years, I've learned them all with just one break-up.