Not sure where to put this post. Not even sure what I'm looking for. But my husband and I are about 10 hours home from a party given by he and his sister for their parents over the weekend. We got through it, and with some effort and a conscious choice to go with the flow, we even enjoyed ourselves somewhat--definitely enjoyed doing something special for an important occasion. The rampant AD/HD running through the event made me wonder if anyone could truly, fully enjoy themselves together in this environment. At one point the nonADDers were outnumbered for many hours, and then when the numbers became more even we were all so exhausted the party pretty much broke up. The evening was more about trying to find a corner of peace than truly enjoying a family event.
Maybe it is because my family is so different from this, but I am genuinely wondering if I will ever again put myself into this type of position--difficult as I'm social and this is my extended family! It was painful and maddening by turns so see all this NEED FOR ATTENTION spewing out all over everyone in the house. My husband--the Inattentive ADDer--is more patient with this type of behavior than I am though we both understand some of it is beyond the control of the person. We were white-knuckling it for HOURS. He was one of my few oasises of sanity. On the way home we tried to talk about why it was difficult for us and how heartbreaking some of the behavior was, but at the end of the day the refrain running through my head is THANK GOD we don't have kids, and NEVER EVER AGAIN!
My husband is the first person in his family diagnosed with ADD (Inattentive) about 2.5 yrs ago--age 34ish. After his diagnosis and some education, his mother has admitted she likely has the same thing--which yeah she does but not sure if she's gotten a formal diagnosis. She is on meds for bi-polar and previous to that seperately on meds for anxiety and depression--she brings a pharmacies worth of meds with her when she comes....not sure what all she takes.
My sister in law demonstrates symptoms of bi-polar but resists that diagnosis accd to her mother who has tried to discuss similarities in behavior. No idea exactly what type of doctors she sees, but last I knew she was being medicated for depression and anxiety. Both of her children (ages 9 and 2.5) have *issues*. The youngest has been diagnosed mildly autistic with a sensory processing disorder--which at least one medical professional has told them that is basically what they're calling AD/HD in children of his age. I don't know if this is true, but he acts as if he has major AD/HD issues (esp hyperfocus) in addition to some other out of control behaviors (rages, fits thrown in restaurants on in other locations where his environment can't be controlled, freaking out over touching things he doesnt like the texture of--sand, etc) Some of this could be part of being in the "terrible twos" but there is definitely more to it than just that.
The older child is still going through neurological testing. She acts very immature for her age in many ways--acts out over jealousy of her younger sibling, desperately needy of attention & will make herself sick to get it--yet she can have perfect manners on the other hand. They have been told she is almost definitely AD/HD but she is not currently medicated for that, though I believe she has been medicated for other things.
It was a small dinner party of about 15 in a home and we had it catered to make it less stressful. Definitely fun moments, but very loud in a bad way...not in the small groups conversing and laughing and having a good time way, but more of a child shouting for us to listen to a song--like 5 or 6 times. THEN there was a new one for a minimum of 6 more times...just new words set to well known tunes, but seriously how many times should a child be allowed to stand in the front of the living room and interrupt 5 seperate conversational groups to do this stupidity. And it seemed once that wore off, my husband and I were the targets of future efforts. I honestly think it was because we were some of the few people who possessed the capability of focus, but should we be penalized for that?
The youngest child was demonstrating his dancing.....fairly hilariously, but when the attention went in that direction the older child felt like THIS COULD NOT HAPPEN and started imitating his actions (cute on a 2 year old absolutely NOT CUTE on a 9 year old). One ADHD person has a one track mind...it is always a different track but this visit it was cartoons, and he would interrupt my husband and I while in conversation with other people (a mininum of 10 times over the course of the 3 hours he was there) to ask my husband about cartoons or to tell me ones I should be watching--he's in his 30s.
We couldn't have ANY complete normal adult conversations the entire night because some AD/HDer was constantly interrupting us. It was hard and it was painful to watch and to feel bombarded by. Have other people come up against things like this? How do you handle it? It didn't seem to me like anyone was really enjoying themselves--generally because of all the AD/HD behavior. It would have made sense if because there were so many there with AD/HD that they were having a blast together and we were just along for the ride, but my husband expressed it perfectly when he said they were all competing with eachother for attention so no one was really capable of enjoying themselves ESP not them!
Sometimes you have to just
Submitted by Clinging to Life on
deleted. for reason see this link.
I appreciate your point of
Submitted by Aspen on
I appreciate your point of view Clinging to Life and if your family is able to enjoy itself in any manner then that is great for you. My point about this weekend was that it didn't work for anyone. Every person in that house was frazzled the entire time. I mentioned in my post (granted it was very long :) )that I could understand it if this is just the way the family has fun and that it's different from my family (believe me my family has some unusual characters too, but we have a blast with eachother--and so does my husband). But it was SOO frustrating that we spent so much time and money planning the party, and travelling there, and on the party, and on our gift; yet NO ONE really enjoyed themselves. NOT the ADDers (most of whom when into crisis mode the second the attention focused on someone else) and not the nonADDers (who were pale and white-knuckled the entire time just trying to endure it). My husband and I were trying to have fun and interact with everyone, but everyone kept interrupting us...like literally almost every 30 seconds of a conversation. We weren't able to have a conversation in peace for more than 5 minutes without obnoxious singing child looking for reaction #4 to the same song she made up 5 minutes ago or cartoon boy piping up with something we just had to find on video to watch.
My husband and I had a codeword for when we just couldn't take it anymore, and we started whispering it to eachother before the party even started as an attempt to look at it all humorously. 1/2 the family arrived over an hour late while the expensive catered food got cold because they didn't have enough respect to come on time--and we'd given them a 30 minute buffer built in due to their chronic lateness so they were in actuality almost 2 hours late!!
It was his family AND he has ADD, and my husband could barely take it. Though he didn't need the entire day today to try recovering from the migraine caused the way that I did.
I don't think it would be possible for us to have a shorter visit...we definitely keep our sanity in mind when scheduling the visits, but we were co-givers of the party. We did almost all the planning, got up there about 10:30am the morning of the party, and only spent one other day with them....we got home late last night. I'm just now almost feeling like myself again & it has taken the entire day in recuperation mode. My husband did not have fun other than enjoying that they could do something special for his parents. It was sad to us all that the disruptions of others kept the evening from being much about the guests of honor!
NO ONE has the right to affect so many other people negatively in this way. I genuinely don't know what to do to keep it from happening again other than 1 clear lesson. Which is the entire extended family behaves much better when you get together at a restaurant than in a home. If we aren't going to be able to visit with everyone anyway (the negative of a restaurant) at least everyone is better behaved.
As far as coming in and acting better than anyone and telling them how to be...no one did that. I'm sorry if you've had that happen to you and it has been a negative, but I can tell you honestly this particular group would have benefitted immensely from one of the family members getting a handle on the chaos and insisting that some of the people there behave better. My husband and I both feel one of the blood relations needed to take this role, but he wasn't willing to be the chaos wrangler--and neither was anyone else.
What happened was completely unacceptable and was disrespectful to the hosts and to the guests of honor. I suggested having a schedule of events including some structured games that my husband wanted to play together as I thought it would have helped control the free-for-all atmosphere. My husband was concerned it would feel too stiffling as far as conversation--especially since several of us were travelling and didn't get to see eachother a lot. Now he wishes that he and his sister had instituted something like it because a lot of what they wanted to do couldn't be done....not least of which because someone turned a movie on in the middle of the party and then was agitated that others wanted to talk and he couldn't hear it.
Awful...just awful. And I feel sick about it.
And for the record
Submitted by Aspen on
I can stand people who are different from me just fine. I love people for their differences, including many of the ones exhibitted by my ADD husband. I'm actually hip deep in a foreign culture and language, and enjoying it quite lot. My issue is with rudeness and obnoxiousness, and no concern for anyone beyond the next thought in your head....& more than one ADD individual this weekend felt the same way.
You should have gone ahead and served the food
Submitted by Sueann on
while it was hot. That's the only way people who are chronically late learn to be on time, if there are negative consequences for them. (whether they have ADD or not)
smaller groups, contingency plans
Submitted by arwen on
Aspen, as I've mentioned before, all the men in my husband's extended family have ADD. So I've seen some of this dynamic before.
You're right that a public place will produce better manners -- at least it does in my husband's family! Generally, we've also found that socializing with his family members works much better in smaller groups. When we get more than 8 of them together, things fall apart. I understand that in this particular case that may not have been an option, but it might be possible for you to set things up this way in the future somehow.
When we have the larger groups, and the chaos starts to get to me, I sometimes literally step outside for a breath of fresh air -- and calm. It really does help. If the weather is reasonable, I sometimes even take a short walk. It gives me a chance to regain my cool. I don't make an announcement (or somebody might decide to join me, which would defeat my purpose) -- I just murmur to my husband what I intend, and slip out. I'm susceptible to migraines, so if people ask where I've been after I return, I can always give the excuse that it felt like one could be coming on, and the fresh air helped stave it off. (Sometimes that's actually been true!)
Regarding the kids -- here's an area where structure or planned activities might help. You and your spouse could plan some activities for the kids, away from the immediate area of the grownups. The first time you try this, you and your spouse might be the only ones taking turns supervising the kids, but if it works well, you can point that out to the others and probably talk others into taking turns. We've used this kind of approach with great success to reduce their impact.
For the guy who wanted to watch the movie -- we've had this situation, too. Nowadays we always bring a laptop computer that can play DVD's, or a portable DVD player (these are not all that expensive anymore) -- and if somebody wants to be rude and watch a movie, we can at least get them to do it in another room.
The trick is to *be prepared* for contingencies. We try to think ahead to all the problems that could arise, and have a plan for how to deal with them effectively. It doesn't always pan out the way we hope, but even if only a few get used and work, we're ahead of the game, and the get-togethers go a lot better.
Finally, I understand your husband's reluctance to wade into the mess and play cop, but if his family is like my husband's, he's the only one who can do it. When I've tried to do this kind of thing, I always end up being viewed as a real stick-in-the-mud, or at worst, the evil killjoy. My constructive suggestions are listened to, but anything that even remotely smacks of criticism, no matter how tactfully put, is considered very bad behavior on my part -- whereas if my husband says the exact same thing, it's OK. Your husband might feel less uncomfortable in the role if you did a little role-playing practice before your next event -- or "what if" brainstorming -- so he can get some idea ahead of time what might be good to say in which situations.