I've noticed a lot of talk about ADHDers being "self absorbed" which to be honest, really surprised me - having connected with lots of other ADHDers over the last year or so, the general vibe is that they make up some of the most empathetic, supportive, self-sacrificing groups of people I've ever known.
However.. I imagine a lot of this is because of our mutual experience and understanding of each others issues. But something that commonly happens in the peer to peer support group I'm in is, when one of us is struggling is, we step up and support that person. Not necessarily everyone in the group, often some of us have a lot of stuff already on, in that moment those people effectively ignore the whole conversation, but no one else minds because we understand that this is the way we are - we have good days and we have bad days. We don't lack compassion, nor do we lack empathy IMO, what we fundamentally seem to lack is an ability to be proactive - we're almost always reacting to something - whether it's our own feelings (hence appearing self centred), someone else's feelings, a notification on our phone, or the internal chaos in our brain.
I think where we really struggle is not so much, caring about other people - a lot of the time we care immensely (please bear in mind I'm speaking for myself and also generally, I'm not speaking on behalf of your specific ADHD SO at all), it's handling being asked to be something different than we are- to be proactive rather than reactive. Being told that we don't care because we struggle with proactivity. Sometimes this isn't even explicitly said, but it's been said so many times before that any kind of criticism of our now-centredness puts us firmly on the defensive.
I have a few ADHDers in my life that I have very good mutually supportive friendships with, so I really struggle with the idea that we're so self absorbed that we're unable to care about anyone else - and it's even possible to "hack our brains" into a crude form of proactivity by just, setting up things for ourselves to react to (calendar reminders always work for me, if it's in Google calendar it's happening whether it's a one off thing or a weekly reminder). I do understand why ADHDers might give off this impression though, and I also don't doubt that there are some ADHDers who are in fact very self centred - like I say this isn't intended to write off anyone's bad experience with an ADHDer, just a common subject I thought worth bringing up as it feels a little like we getting written off as incapable of empathy at times. I think in some ways it's very hard for ADHDers and non-adhders to have empathy for each other in either direction
I recognize this
Submitted by Swedish coast on
This rings very true to me. It hits the nail on the head as far as my experience goes. I've lived with an immensely empathetic ADD partner who had no ability to imagine or initiate what not yet existed. He therefore reacted, but didn't act.
It's been incredibly sad for us, since it's literally wrecked our family and myself. But it was never lack of compassion, nor self-absorption.
I'm struggling with this too
Submitted by shevrae on
It's hard because we didn't know about ADHD for the first 22 years of our marriage. My pwADHD also struggles with anxiety (which we also didn't know about) so most attempts to break into the now-absorption went south pretty quickly, though it is a lot better now that he is taking medication for the anxiety. But I'm still having a really hard time after 2 decades of feeling ignored and then resented for reminding him I exist. And being asked to flip a switch from 'my husband refuses to consider my needs in this relationship as legitimate' to 'accommodating a partner with a legitimate brain difference' while still really hurting over all the years we didn't know feels so impossible sometimes. "He doesn't do it on purpose" only gets you so far.
I want to believe I am the kind of person who can understand and forgive and recommit and give a lot of grace, but the last 3 years since diagnosis have shown me that I'm just a person and while my personal values may be idealistic, my actual human ability is limited. And so is my husband's. I'm currently having a tough moment where I don't know if we can do enough to overcome all the pain of the past, no matter what our intentions may be.
Moral obligation of nons
Submitted by Swedish coast on
I hope when switching into regarding ADHD symptoms as legitimate, you still also claim your own needs. I may want to accommodate severe ADHD symptoms in a partner, and I might try, but it's beyond what can be asked of a person, really.
maybe depends how you define "accommodate"
Submitted by alphabetdave on
First of all I don't think it's a moral obligation whatsoever, I think the only way you could really justify it as an obligation this strongly is if you believe really strongly in the moral obligation of a committed married couple to stay committed and married at all costs, don't believe in no fault divorce etc - and I understand that that can be a very prevalent attitude (I'm in UK so probably less so over here) - but yeah, if you're unable to accommodate ADHD symptoms in a partner I don't think it's any kind of moral failing on your part, especially since most of us don't even know we have a lifelong condition. Don't get me wrong, we know we're absolute chaos goblins usually, but we tend to assume that some novel thing that's about to come along is going to be the thing that gives us a kick up the arse to pull ourselves together - whether it's a new job, a new relationship, some new routine we're going to stick to. We're very good at giving the impression that we're just going through a rough patch and we're going to get ourselves sorted with some new thing, because we genuinely believe it - and my point here is that it's not the non-ADHD partners fault for believing that the ADHDer was going to change, neither party really knows quite what they're getting into when undiagnosed ADHD is there
Anyway I was also curious what you meant by "accomodate" - because I think my gut response is that, in a functional partnership between an ADHDer and a non, there has to be some sort of accommodation but the key word here is "functional" - the partnership needs to be functional for you and meet your needs, not just the ADHDers, in fact some of the focus of the accommodations should be finding ways that work with the ADHDer's brain, to meet the non partner's needs - not simply for the ADHDer to do whatever they want and for the non to pick up all the slack - and for the ADHDer to behave however they will and for the non partner to just take it and not complain.
Workplace accommodations for ADHD are a big thing but the focus is never on simply letting the ADHDer continue doing what they're already doing and ensuring they don't get into any trouble - it's about finding ways that work for the ADHDer that are "reasonable" (as in, aren't just a massive burden to the employer) so that the ADHDer can function in their role. And a lot of the time this is all we really want - we don't want a person to treat like an emotional punching bag or a doormat or a slave, we just want to actually function well and be recognised as functioning well, rather than having to be defensive about not being able to meet the expectations on us.
don't know if this makes any sense at all - and tbh I'm speaking as an ADHDer who's dealt with a lot of my shame from past failures, there's been times in my life when - especially not knowing about ADHD yet, I was still feeling that shame acutely and, I checked out of life really for a long while just because I really struggled with the fact that it didn't matter how hard I tried to be better, the results were always as though I'd hardly tried at all - so I just stopped trying because it's much less painful. Point being I think ADHD really needs to be thoroughly come to terms with before it can really be properly accommodated
Accommodate was my word
Submitted by shevrae on
I used the word accommodate and I guess I mean adapt.
“not simply for the ADHDer to do whatever they want and for the non to pick up all the slack - and for the ADHDer to behave however they will and for the non partner to just take it and not complain”
I mean, you just described my experience of marriage for the first 2 decades (not that I was always great at my part as slack-picker-upper and non-complainer). So not that.
The truth is I don’t really know what to do. I have spent 25 years of my life living with a husband and children with varying degrees of ADHD and anxiety and for most of that time I didn’t know it. I am your typical non-ADHD partner. I’m exhausted and frustrated and depressed from taking on too much of the responsibility for the family. I’ve developed an auto-immune disorder - is that from the stress? Who knows?
I get it - we didn’t know. Now we do. And while I’m doing the hard work of figuring out how to let go of 20+ years of pain and resentment, I need him to stop creating new resentments by getting the help he needs. I don’t want to be responsible for taking care of myself and doing all the work of figuring out what he needs to do as well. I understand that for someone with ADHD this is going to take longer and be a much more meandering route - how can I adapt to that in a way that is compassionate to both of us?
How can I understand how hard it is for him to make changes while also honoring that I really need changes to happen to stay in this relationship? How can I set boundaries that protect my heart and my health but don’t cause me to disconnect emotionally from the relationship? How can I articulate my needs so that they will be understood by someone who defines words and concepts so differently as to almost speak a different language? How do I advocate for myself and our marriage with gentleness and patience (which he says he wants so he doesn’t get so emotionally overwhelmed) when he only responds to crisis (he says he needs deadlines and pressure to function)? These are the kinds of questions I’m asking myself and struggling to find answers to.
I feel for you
Submitted by Swedish coast on
Your story is so relatable.
My psychologist just said to me: anyone psychologically healthy would have kept going in your situation, trying to make the marriage work, trying to understand ADHD, and mend the damage. I think she's right. We love the ADHD partner, we try. It's not a very rewarding pursuit for many of us. After decades, we might be rather worn out.
She also said: you are incredibly brave to have divorced him now.
I relate to your thoughts about how to arrange life and expectations around ADHD. My conclusion was finally that I couldn't. My husband could never state his needs, his ability was unpredictable in every moment, and he could not make arrangements. So the task was impossible: for me to arrange his life according to needs I couldn't understand myself and had no help to identify. But in my desperate need for things to work, I thought for some time it was doable.
It's all in the ability of the ADHD partner. It's not possible to fill the deficit in another. I've learned that a very hard way.
I hope for the very best for you.
Thanks
Submitted by shevrae on
I'm sorry it has been so hard for you and I hope that your healing journey continues. I know a lot about processing years and years of grief and pain.
I'm in a much healthier place psychologically than I have been for most of my life at this point. I still have a ways to go, but some things have happened lately that have me feeling like the road back to hell is in front of me and I am refusing to take even one step in that direction. So I'm proud of me.
I have reached a place where I believe I will be OK even if my marriage doesn't work out (we have one of those religious commitments alphabetdave referred to that made me feel trapped for a long time). I'm also committed to homeschooling our kids so it complicates matters as I am a SAHM. But I don't have that responsibility for much longer and I'm prepared to do whatever I have to do to be a healthy person.
This makes sense
Submitted by alphabetdave on
in fact the resemblance of your words to those of my own wife is a little bit scary!
I can't really answer your questions, only empathise heavily with your struggles but from the ADHD side. I don't know your husband so I don't pretend to speak for him, but talking about "someone who defines words and concepts so differently as to almost speak a different language" really hit home for me. Working out what I need to do to be a better husband just feels so hard at times. I'll have conversations with my wife where, I genuinely struggle to see her side, and I'm completely open to there being another side of things and want her to explain but, it seems to be too much to ask. And it times it almost feels like our conversations/arguments are like a card game, and I'm playing with only half of a deck - to be clear I don't see the point of arguments as being "winning", it just feels to me like arguments never really get "resolved" for me because, I don't really understand how my wife put an end to it.
To some degree though, ADHD is is just a massive bag of contradictions, e.g. when you say your husband asks for "gentleness and patience (which he says he wants so he doesn’t get so emotionally overwhelmed) when he only responds to crisis (he says he needs deadlines and pressure to function)" - I get what he means completely here. I also understand that it doesn't make a lot of sense. I think the only way I can really describe it is that there's a difference between "crisis" and "judgement"? If that makes any sense - a crisis is literally just, the most urgent and immediate that a task could possibly be, whereas it can feel a lot more like judgement if what we're hearing is not "this needs doing right now it's really urgent" but rather "why didn't you do this months ago? It was urgent then, it really needs doing now". Don't get me wrong, it's a perfectly valid question, but with ADHDers all we can really answer is "my brain's rubbish and it's always been rubbish" - focusing on the failure aspect just sends us into a spiral about our past failures, whereas focusing purely on the task that needs doing generally has much better results.
Just worth pointing out here, I'm not trying to give you practical advice re how to support your husband here - I'm not saying you judge him too harshly or you need to be extra kind to him when telling him urgent things that need doing - I don't know anything about the details of your marriage and can't possibly have enough insight to offer practical advice there, I'm only trying to explain why "crisis" can be a double edged sword when the crisis is caused by past failures, as we also have a strong urge to avoid feelings of failure too
reactive/proactive
Submitted by honestly on
This is an interesting insight, and it mirrors my experience with an ADHD husband. The problem remains, though, if that if the ADHDer is compassionate and caring BUT entirely focused on their own current moment of experience, then nothing beyond that moment is to be intuited or anticipated or considered or even really heard. So for the neurotypical partner (speaking only from personal experience here) every day provides more evidence that your OH does not care about you (they may not mean it, this is how it is understood by a neurotypical brain). But if progress is to be made, this pain to be met with compassion for the person who causes it, with flexibility and an understanding - they don't mean what they keep on doing. It is hard to hold faith, against so much outward evidence to the contrary. It's like getting repeatedly kicked in the teeth and believing that you're wrong to feel hurt, and that you have to keep on smiling.
IMO "they don't mean it" is only the starting point
Submitted by alphabetdave on
By which I mean, sure, "they don't mean to act like this" is an important insight into the past but, it's not an ideal end point. An ADHDer may not (edited) switch from primarily "reactive" to a more proactive mindset (we can maybe keep this up for a few weeks at a time only), we can at least try and do things in a way that actually works for us. A calendar reminder to give your wife some form of attention that you've established she'd appreciate might sound like the least romantic thing in the world, but if it takes something our spouse needs to see us doing proactively and turns it into something we can react to so that we actually do it, I don't see the harm?
Hopefully I'm being sensible here and not being blinded by my ADHD mindset, but IMO there can be too much focus on the means by which we get from A to B - part of the reason your needs were never met is actually because there's this expectation - not necessarily from you personally but as a culture, that genuine feelings of care result in proactive efforts to show affection without any kind of external structures, and that we "shouldn't need" external structures if we truly care deep down. Couples with undiagnosed ADHD in the mix have gone along with that framework because it's the norm and it simply doesn't work in our cases.
IMO the point isn't to simply accept that your spouse is never going to be able to seem like they care, and suck it up and accept them anyway. The point is to find ways for your spouse to show that they really do care, that are both genuine expressions of care and effort from their end, and also can be received as such on your end, that actually work with the way their brain works. It might not function "under the hood" like a non-non relationship, but if it meets your needs, that's the end goal IMO. Which isn't to say it's easy!
RSD
Submitted by honestly on
I was talking about RSD. It hurts like hell. You mean only the best and you get a faceful of spit and fury.
Stop give them the chance
Submitted by adhd32 on
For me, I stopped giving H the chance to do more damage. Why should I give someone who speaks and acts rudely toward me another chance to do it again? I have adopted a more FU-type attitude. I wouldn't allow a stranger to speak or act poorly toward me, H does not get a pass anymore either. He has shown he is capable of regulating his behavior with others.
I walk away now when he starts. He isn't interested in changing so I had to stop being the vessel for all that ills him. I am no longer concerned how he feels physically or mentally, those things are his load to carry, not mine. If he is unhappy, it is his responsibility to find a solution. I moved to a place where his distress is his burden. Compassion while initially a good thing turns into codependency when someone expects it and doesn't work on the root cause. I stopped accommodating things I would never tolerate from others. I matter too!
You do matter
Submitted by shevrae on
I just want to validate that you absolutely DO matter and so does honestly. I have started to tell my husband and kids that I didn't pick my brain wiring anymore than they did and I'm allowed to have my own different needs. And I'm allowed to expect those needs to be reasonably met in a relationship. And I'm allowed to change the nature of the relationship when that doesn't happen. I really need my ADHD kids to understand what is required to be in a relationship and not just look at the model I've given them over the years, which has been awful.
Self-absorbed (negative) vs.
Submitted by Haveaniceday on
Self-absorbed (negative) vs. Now-absorbed (positive?)... I think this is a good way of looking at it, but may I add my two-cents. We're all told to live more in the now, be present etc., and I think it's very valuable. But, what I've noticed is that Now-absorbed in ADHD really means absorbed in MY now, not in the communal now. So, you can all be sitting around a table, enjoying "the now" together, but the ADHD'er is in his / her own "now" quite often. To me there is a big distinction, and I've sometimes commented that my spouse is like an island, remote and hard to get to a lot of the time...
I think this is valid..
Submitted by alphabetdave on
..but also a separate facet of the whole "self absorbed" appearance IMO. I was talking more about the fact that, we struggle to proactively do things without some sort of prompt to react to (sometimes this prompt is a passing thought in our brain, and if we're hyperfixated on something in particular, e.g. a new relationship this can give an illusion of proactivity when actually it's just that the new relationship is the brain's current main focus)
What you're talking about here I think, is more to do with our prevalence for distraction. In one sense I think all people live in "MY now", hence the existence of thought experiments along the lines of "if I was living in a simulated world would I even know it", and the disconcerting fact is that if the simulation was good enough, you really wouldn't. I don't think we should draw conclusions like "we are in fact living in a simulation" from that at all, it says more about us than it does the world around us - we're relational beings that need connection to others but in another sense we're completely dependent on our senses for interacting with the outside world, at base level we're all individuals living our own individual experience. "The communal now" isn't so much a distinct entity, as a bunch of "individual nows" that are essentially synchronised and are affecting and being affected by each other mutually.
This is a pretty convoluted way of explaining what I mean but my point is this lol - the key difference with ADHD isn't that we're in a sort of separate bubble, refusing to participate in the communal now, more that in a group setting, in addition to everyone else in the group affecting us, we also have our own distractions affecting us as well, so we can find it a lot harder to stay "in sync" with everyone else, and this can be for a number of reasons:
-the group activity isn't stimulating enough
-the group activity is too stimulating (in which case we're more likely to leave to go find some peace and quiet)
-it's been a hard day/week and our mind is racing
-tiredness
-they might be struggling to engage in the conversation, to work out what they can contribute or when to take their turn speaking
-even in the absence of issues like these, we're still very distractable!
(not an exhaustive list)