Hi there,
I've read through many of the posts but not all, so I may have missed this subject elsewhere.
My husband was diagnosed with ADHD about a year ago (text book case with hyperactivity and all) - he is in his late 40's and didn't know until then. We have been married for 8 years with two young children. I was relieved with his diagnosis, because I hoped that it could help him. At the time, I'd have to say that his ADHD didn't really bother me much. I could almost deal with the 17 different jobs in the last 8 years - I think I could now get a job as a career councillor! But it did bother him a lot. He badly wants to have calm thoughts and lose the anxiety (a lot of nail biting and headaches his whole life). He is now trying his third or fourth medication, and we aren't seeing any change - except for the worse.
His last job was a good one but the commute was too long and he only lasted half a year, and then he had a big breakdown, like nothing I've seen before. He was weepy and sad and seeked help everywhere. He was put on anti depressants, and eventually a new ADHD medication and then another one when that one didn't have any effect. since this crisis started it has been absolute hell. He has been very angry, blowing up every single day, when usually it was once or twice a year at the most. The worst of it is, is that it is mostly directed at my 6 year old son, and he seems to be getting all the blame for why he is angry. Whenever I interject and stick up for my son because his anger seems so unreasonable, he blames me for making the kid not listen to him. I can understand that, but I try to be as fair as possible in my view of the situation before taking any sides. Usually I just try to distract them from eachother. I'm trying to teach my kid to walk away from his dad now, because the verbal abuse never stops... it just goes on and on, and the only way I can think of getting out of it is to leave him to mutter to himself. I'm not saying the boy is an angel by any means, but I do think the adult should have more control of himself, and it is getting to the point where I don't want to go to the washroom or take a shower for fear the 2 of them will get in a fight while I'm 'gone'. That is just ridiculous to me. My daughter is a very good kid and is pretty therepeutic to my husband.
My question is this: What could cause this sudden onset of anger? Is it the medication (anti depressants, or ADHD)? Is it still part of his melt down? Is it us? Is it the ADHD? I don't get it, and I'm getting worried for safety, because he doesn't seem to realize how frightening he can be when he gets mad. I always thought I had it good that he didn't have a temper and maybe that is why I could deal with all the rest of the crap that comes with ADHD. I just don't want him to harm my kids, or have my kids dislike him.
any thoughts? thanks!
After my second child I went
Submitted by Clinging to Life on
deleted, see reason at this link.
thanks clinging, I think your
Submitted by tipping on
thanks clinging, I think your 'combination' answer is probably right.
Right now things are crazy...I just can't figure out what to do- It is not something I have dealt with in our 8 years of marrige. We went to the doctors a couple days ago, and the doctor said he has to get off all his medication for 5 days, and then try an antipsychotic. The anger has only increased in the last month, along with very unpredicatble behaviour. A small example is that he asked to have his hair cut yesterday, and I offered twice today to do it, and he declined both times. I thought "fine, no rush", then he brought my youngest kid to my work today (a mild mannered, chatty girl) and said she was driving him crazy, and dropped her off and left. When I got home from work, I noticied he had his hair cut....this isn't a problem with me (and seems silly), but why couldn't he be straight about it? We've spent many years building trust but in the last month, I'm afraid to leave him alone, or alone with the kids with his constant anger. He told me to 'cut him some slack', but there isn't any left, I'm pulled as tight as I can and living on edge for the next explosion. He was very upset that the doctor basically mirrored what I had suggested (that he get off the medication right away and we deal with his anger first because it (and the ADHD)may be causing the rift between our boy and him). I would give anything to bring him back to his old self, which was still ADHD, but without the crazy fits of anger, that are apparently the fault of the everyone else in the world. My sympathy for him has almost completely evapourted- and I don't think that is fair to him, but I just can't get it back.
a couple of thoughts
Submitted by arwen on
I agree with Clinging that the issues she mentions could be contributors. But it could be that it's more of a Bermuda-triangle combination, there could be other factors too.
Tipping, I don't know if you've read any of my other posts -- my husband has a kind of ADD that varies hormonally. He had a lot of problems as a little kid, then through puberty he "grew out" of his ADD -- then "grew back in" around age 40, apparently in response again to hormonal changes. (This pattern is true of all the men in my husband's extended family -- they all have ADD -- the pattern holds true regardless of whether they have kids or not, whether they change jobs a lot or not, whether they are having marital problems or not, etc etc etc.) Considering your husband's age, is it possible that there's some similar thing going on with him?
Also, my husband and son (who also has ADD) have Season Affective Disorder (SAD) -- most people with SAD get depressed in the winter. My husband generally doesn't get depressed, but his ADD symptoms tend to get worse. My son does get depressed, he can go off the deep end about complete trivia, especially if he isn't on his medications. Sometimes instead of getting weepy, he gets angry. You don't say when during the year these changes occurred with your husband -- is it possible he could have SAD also like my husband, and is reacting with anger instead of sorrow?
I also have to wonder why your husband seems to be having more problems with your son than with your daughter. My husband also had a lot arguments with our son who has ADD, because they would sort of "feed off" each other's impulsivity and other problems. ADD does tend to run in families. Is it possible that your son has undiagnosed ADD? And the two of them are compounding each other's problems?
It sounds from your description that this is the first job loss that your husband has been on since he began taking ADD meds. I don't know whether you are aware that one of the things ADD meds do is increase awareness to a degree. Because of the meds, your husband may be more aware of a sense of failure than he was in the past. Many people with ADD experience this, my husband and son both have. My husband was given Prozac to help with the depression caused by his increased awareness of his "falling short" of norms due to his ADD. Your husband may be reacting more strongly than in the past because he is more aware.
In recent years, as my husband's SAD has gotten worse over time, his doctor switched him to a different antidepressant that seems to work better with his SAD (and that now he only needs to take seasonally). It may be that the antidepressant your husband is taking is not the right one for him -- the doctor may need to try a different medication.
My husband's temper is most volatile, he get angry most, in the spring, when his serotonin levels are increasing. We've learned we need to taper him off his antidepressant in the spring, to keep that from happening -- it appears that if his serotonin levels get too high too rapidly, he's more impulsive and more irritable. This suggests to me that it might be possible that your husband's dosage on either the ADHD or anti-depressant meds might be too *high* at this time, for some reason.
Has your husband changed any of his eating/drinking habits as a result of his unemployment? Caffeine and alcohol consumption can make a difference in how the meds work.
I don't know if any of this helps -- it's food for thought, anyway. Good luck, hang in there!
Thanks Arwen, The answer is
Submitted by tipping on
Thanks Arwen,
The answer is 'yes' to many of your points.
I don't know if my son has ADHD, although I do watch him and try to monitor him. The big difference between him and my husband is reading. My son is 6 and loves to read...my husband is very intelligent and can read if he HAS to, but does not of hand (such as read a newspaper). My son has more focus and concentration (although not perfect). My daughter is constantly happy, orderly, and can read peoples emotion to a T. she know when to walk away and what to say. My son will give aggravating responses to my husband and they completely feed off each other until I have to intervene. This is exhausting. What the doctor basically wants to see is the husband’s anger reduced, so that we can see if we can bring down my sons as well.
There may be some other issues involved in family history; although they are more like my son then my husband (reading and focus aren't so much an issue). His mother (who is in her 80's) is on anti psychotics. She had a rough WWII German upbringing, lost her husband with 6 kids to care for under 10 years of age, and hence my husband’s upbringing was a disaster. I completely sympathize with both on this, as my upbringing was rather unremarkable.
My husband always loses his job in November and gets a new one in April. Yes there is a pattern, and SAD could be the cause...thanks for bringing that up- I hadn't thought of that and will look into it. Come to think of it, his few and far between blow-ups over the last 8 years have always been in the middle of winter.
No, I didn't realize that the ADD meds would make him more aware. This would make sense. He doesn't drink alcohol (thankfully, I don't think it would help the situation), or even coffee. He did lose his appetite with the last medication but it seems to have leveled out now. Other then the loss of appetite and the new anger, there has been no changes from the ADHD medication. He has a lot of anxiety (bites nails constantly, many many headaches) and I wonder if this should be more the focus of treatment.
When my husband started on the anti depressants and changed his weeping into anger. At first I just thought that this was the natural way of him healing from his job flop, but as it went on and on, I thought different. He had a major flip out last night and diverted all his anger to me with insult and the whole lot. This was hard to take, as he never did this before at all and he wouldn't explain to me why he was so angry at me (as in, 'your making your self cry', I rarely cry, but I was shocked). I ended up completely distancing myself and not speaking to him...not in a mean way- more self preserving. I f I said one word he would twist it into and insult. This is so out of character that I do tend to think there is something besides the ADHD, such as the SAD or the medication. He goes to the psychiatrist on Monday. Hopefully he'll let me tag along.
thanks again for the input. I used to be able to discuss it with my husband but that is impossible right now and its good to discuss it with others in similar situations.
son, SAD, meds
Submitted by arwen on
Regarding the reading -- two points: (1) your son could be an avid reader and still have ADD -- my husband, son, brother-in-law are all avid readers and all have ADD -- I don't know if you are thinking that because your son is different from your spouse in this way that he doesn't have ADD like your spouse, but if so, it is not a reliable benchmark -- what matters are behavioral traits, which unfortunately are often very difficult to see clearly in a child that age; (2) people with ADD have a much higher incidence of dyslexia than the average population -- if your husband doesn't particularly like to read, is it possible that he has perhaps undiagnosed dyslexia? This could provide a chronic low-level source of irritation to him, especially if he has to do more (or more difficult) reading now than he used to.
Regarding SAD -- your husband's November/April job pattern strikes me as a very big red flag for SAD. When my husband did not treat his SAD, his behavior started heading downhill in October, by December I was gnashing my teeth because he was so uncommunicative, spacey and lethargic, by midwinter we generally weren't even talking to each other, he'd start pulling out of it the end of February, and then we'd go through a very volatile couple of months in the spring where I'd feel like I was married to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which was really really hard to take -- almost ended our marriage a few years ago. My husband's treatment has two components, and both are absolutely critical -- he uses a 10,000 lux lamp, and he takes Wellbutrin (anti-depressant), both starting in September and gradually increasing the exposure/dosage until midwinter, then tapering it back down in reverse through the spring. Each component helps somewhat alone, but together there is a synergistic effect that helps tremendously. The lamp requires a non-trivial amount of discipline (a timer also helps), but it really makes a critical difference. Also, please note -- not every doctor "believes" in SAD (they would if they lived in *my* house! my son has it too). It took us three years to get my husband's psychiatrist to accept that there was a real seasonal phenomenon going on and that maybe some seasonal medication was in order -- then took another 3 years of tweaking the exposure/dosages to get to the ideal schedule. I'm ecstatic to report that last winter we were not only speaking to each other at midwinter, we even went on a long weekend ski trip (unthinkable in the former situation), and this year has gone so well up to now that I'm pinching myself to make sure I'm not dreaming. It really is like night and day, no pun intended. If your husband's doctor thinks SAD could be a factor, I'll be glad to provide more info if you want it. Good background article from Ohio State University about SAD here: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=4&ved=0CBQQFjAD&url=...
I had another thought about the onset of anger after the anti-depressants. As I have said, the ADD meds tend to make the ADDer more aware. Now, add anti-depressants into the mix -- that may take away the sense of depression, but it doesn't reduce the awareness -- in fact it may increase it further. Now your husband is aware (perhaps not entirely consciously, but aware) of many things he wasn't before, and he's not depressed about it -- how *is* he going to feel? Think of it as somebody suddenly raising the background volume level in your house -- you're hearing things you haven't heard before, do you need to pay attention to them or not? -- it's harder to hear yourself think -- you have to shout more to be heard, how irritating. Do you catch my drift? The gazillion tiny nuisances you've learned to ignore every day could be like a whole lot of pieces of sand in your husband's oyster shell. When an oyster gets irritated, it makes a pearl -- when people get irritated, they get mad. Your husband may not even be aware of this process going on inside him, he may not be able to perceive it because of all the other "background volume" he's being exposed to for the first time. Possibly a lower dose of anti-depressants would reduce the "volume" a bit and give him a better opportunity to adjust to what may be for him a changed environment? I'm not a doctor or expert, but it may be worth discussing with his doctor.
Hang in there!! I've been through a period like this with my husband, I know it's hard, I feel for you! Just try to be as calm and as patient as you can manage until hopefully you can get things normalized a bit more.
it got worse...
Submitted by tipping on
Thanks Arwen, sorry I've been so late getting around to this but it has been absolute hell here...enough that I had to call the cops on him last week. That was probably the hardest thing for me to do in my entire life. He was not himself at all and angry and very unpredictable. After that horrible weekend, we went to the psychiatrist and at first I think she liked to hear him yell and scream about me… a quick way to pry emotional info out of your patient. I sounded like a horrible person by his description and it ripped me apart, again. I finally had enough of it and told her so, and she realized that it wasn't productive having us there with him in this state of mind. She agreed with our doctor that the medication (I'm really not sure whether it was the anti-depressants or the ADHD meds) had removed his natural ability to handell with what they think may be bi-polar. And then she apologized for prescribing this medication and basically going on holiday for 2 months, leaving me with a very volatile person to live with.
They gave him some anti-psychotics to 'bring him down'. I thought it was working because the last couple of days he has actually laughed and relaxed and didn’t scream at us. But today we left the house again because it came right back in full force.
I'm getting so sick of watching him get jerked around with medication, at his and our expense. I've never felt so confused and worried in my life. Along with the anger comes millions of insults that he never ever would have said before and this is difficult to ignore. The doctors tell me to keep my distance from him etc. That's all that I can basically do.
You explained how your husband turned around for the good. This is such a relief to hear. I am really hoping that will happen here too. I’m so freaked out by what has happened to him the last 3 months, and nervous about the future.
Being over sensitized really fits in here. It is the absolute smallest things that we get reamed out about. They are so small that I really don’t mind apologizing except that it makes no difference to him whether I do or don’t.
My son may have ADHD, or something else. It’s difficult for me to even think about it now. He seems so normal compared to his dad(!) but I doubt that much to judge it by. My husband dropped out of school many times, never finished highschool, but did eventually finish university….he is very good at reading in the ‘hyper-focus’ mode but not casually.
I will look into the SAD and talk it over with the doctor. What did you call it: bermuda triangle...!? Thats so funny if it wasn't so darn crazy!
Anger outbursts are new
Submitted by MelissaOrlov on
Most likely the medication
Submitted by tipping on
Thanks Melissa,
Sorry I'm so sporadic in getting back on this site, I'm just juggling too many things right now! He was diagnosed with ADHD by 2 separate psychiatrists...but I think they missed the bipolar and that’s where the medication (stimulants) had the reaction on him. January was honestly the worst month in my life; I've never been so confused, scared and angry before. This is definitely a hazard that people should be very aware of. What the psychiatrist hinted at was that he naturally has a very toned down bipolar and it was overlooked. His ADHD is very obvious, painfully so, so they just thought they would focus on that and ‘fix it’. Of course the doctors throw the blame back and forth at each other...and my husband doesn't even want to consider that he is bipolar because he understands ADHD so well and is comfortable with only that as his diagnosis. I suppose he will eventually be figured out.
The good news is that the Seroquel he was put on after the crazy outbursts has toned him down almost to his normal (It took a couple weeks to have any effect on him). But I can no longer leave my kids with him for even a short period of time. I just don't trust him to keep his temper, and he tells me he can't...which isn't very encouraging. Sadly there is still so much stigma about mental illness. My husband is embarrassed. I'm not, but it is frustrating when he tries to pretend all is good.
I’m really not sure what to make of his relationship with my son. It is really messed up and my son is really suffering. At one point he was in tears and said he was having too much ‘stress’. I feel horrible that my 6 year old has to feel this at this stage in life. He and his sister are going to see a child psychologist soon and family councelling later. What they saw this past month was not pretty and I want to have them speak to someone who knows more then me about this. All I can do is hug them, listen and tell them they aren’t to blame.