I wasn't sure whether to put this in communication or Hope and Progress but as I see......this is a huge step forward and making progress but it did come through communicating some things to wife....including the possibility of her having ADHD? She actually took the initiative to take some on line tests that put her in the "possible" category which was no surprise to me. However....that;'s not what this break through is all about (but related....emotional lability? Thinking it is? In part )
But the Good part...and the one to explain at least....the problem. The real big problem that there was no conversation that was going to explain it to me unless she told me what it was? Well.....she finally told me. ( I had my suspicions and they were right all along )
Our family growing up....had some really good times together as a whole despite the problems and the issues in our dysfunction. Having said that....we could really "party" when things got rolling. It was loud and boisterous and a lot of laughing and cutting up and it was BIG. Everyone talking at once...everyone was animated and lively and it was not unlike the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" when we all got together and got on a roll. (We aren't Greek...but none the less lol )
And as the one and only....little brother and boy....I played my part and being hyperactive and bouncing off the walls was part of it only in a good way. I was very animated. Extremely so.....and easily got excited especially when we were having fun together. (like the family in the movie)
Most people who would come to our house when there was an event or party happening....left with a smile on their face and reported having an overwhelmingly good time. There was never a dull moment when we got rolling...and laughter, joking, teasing and practical jokes were parr for the course. No one was the center of attention because.....we were all the center of attention together and If you were shy or not willing to jump into the steady stream or rushing waters and go with the flow....you were left behind and sitting on the bank of the river while the party rolled down stream with who ever was left was left out had no other alternative but to sink or swim. There was no shallow end of the pool....either you jump into the deep end of the pool with everyone else or you didn't. One of two choices in our family and it could get pretty rowdy at times when the party was in full swing. If you were in the party....you were part of being the center of attention because everyone was talking at the same time and everyone was having fun. No alcohol needed or permitted either. The was a "G" rated affair of wholesome boisterous, rowdiness with lots of laughter and having fun. Period. Not unlike that movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" but with only 5 of us and whoever wanted to join us. The more the merrier as they say....it's a party for crying out loud!!!! Everyone is welcome!!! (and usually.....between my sisters and their boyfriends, my friends, or some neighborhood usual suspect involved...more often than not )
My mother had a way of making everyone feel welcome and many times my friends would say...."Gee...you're mother is sooo nice?" It hadn't occurred to me why that was but in context to what I learned from my wife....this starts to make a lot of sense.
Since I told my wife about the differences in our families and I dropped the hint of ADHD onto her....the wheels must have been turning because the topic of my ADHD symptoms came up again. I was making a reference to some issue we've had and I said." I rarely am angry or hostile with you and I am so shocked at your reactions to me sometimes?"
I said..... "I still cannot understand why you think I'm (agitated and angry) when clearly I am not? I'm clearly....happy, excited over something and am animated for sure. But I'm having fun...and being my usual animated self and just expressing myself naturally. The way I always do when I am relaxed and having a good time? You act as if I'm some alien intruder and you've even said to me....I seem like a stranger to you (in the past ...she said that I went....huh??? ) That was telling. I know I get loud sometimes and am easily excited about things....but that's always when I'm happy but I realize from years of toning this down....that this was not always the case. There was a reason why they use to say .."I was bouncing off the walls" ....but no one (I mean no one) ever misinterpreted that as being hostile or angry.....even back then. I did learn to control that and bring it down and later as an adult...that usually only comes out now if I am around someone I trust like my own family since I know this is annoying to some people and am completely aware of why this is. That part....you don't need to explain to me but I do have some control of this but only up to a point. I am an expressive extrovert and can be very dynamic and I can get big and loud and rowdy when I get wound up about things.
But it's only when I'm feeling safe enough to let my guard down and when I know someone well enough to do that with since I am so aware that not everyone finds this a comfortable thing like I have explained with the many stories of my family (Big Greek Wedding Family example) but even then....it wasn't a problem in that no one thought our family was hostile, angry and intimidating?????....even my friends who came over who would say WOW....you guys are a crack up and it's always a surprise to come over to your house when you guys ( our family) get all in "party mode" with company.
This is true. No one ever thought we were hostile...when everyone is animated, excited and having fun??? WTH.....then why to you when I get this way with you? In fact.....I never get this way with you.....you won't let me and accuse me of all kinds of things that aren't happening????" This really hurts my feelings when you shut me down and especially when you react hostilely towards me and won't even allow me to speak. You just cut me off mid sentence at the first sign of what you call.....AGITATION. It's not AGITATION you're seeing....it's animation, outward expression and excitement.....in any form it comes in.
I might be mad when you see it.....but that's not when you cut me off. I'm happy, enjoying our company...and then suddenly...you turn on me? What makes me mad or angry...is being cut off in the first place. What gives????
She said...." I don;t remember anything like what you described in our family. I don't remember having fun or doing things like you said. I don't remember our family laughing or having fun together or having any company over or any social event anywhere at any time in my entire life. Our family was kind of flat and boring all the time. Kind of expressionless....kind of dull...and mostly very quiet. If someone got excited for any reason....that meant they were angry. Whe I see you start to get (agitated)....my PTSD kicks in and all I want to do is stop you or prevent you from getting more (agitated) than you already are. I'm afraid when I see you start to get (agitated) and it's because it's so overwhelming to me and I am afraid. I'm afraid to get close to you since all I want to do is get away from you and I'm afraid of the next time it's going to happen. This is when my thoughts get distorted and I can't think straight and I panic or over react."
Replace....AGITATION.......with........"any signs of extroverted outward exuberance, excitement, expression, animated behavior and being loud and boisterous and having fun and apply that to hyperactive-impulisive ADHD....and that's what you get.
Happy, sad, mad, glad, having fun, not having fun, outward expression, animation,, annoyed, depressed, elated, impatient, irritated, ecstatic, over joy, rambunctious, disturbed, contempt, judgmental, criticizing, understanding on and on...Any outward sign of emotions and done in animated way....all gets lumped into one group called...."AGITATION"
Ironically......the time she should be the MOST worried about....is when I get quiet. Quiet for me....means....I'm pissed and angry. Not a good idea to poke the Tiger when he's sleeping as they say. The reason why the Tiger is being quiet....is because I learned how to control my outward anger and I don't go off half cocked because I learned to be still and be quiet so I won't react and be hostile......
That is....until someone keeps poking the sleeping Tiger repeatedly when he sleeping and I can control it any more?? Even within that...I have stopped reacting to that as well. I don't do this at all any more....but what my wife cannot understand is......Quiet.....is when she should be worried about it??? I do not wear AGITATION on my sleeve where everyone can see it. AGGITATION for the most part....goes completely unseen until it explodes from someone being told repeatedly that I am agitated and to stop...and if they see me as being quiet and reserved and mistaking what they're seeing and not listening to me and proceed anyway.....they get what they get.....and it my wife's case.....that was it. she couldn't have asked for it....any harder on my account looking at this now...for what it is?
This explains it completely.....now on to what's behind it for my wife beyond what she thinks but she's taking the online tests for ADHD (on her own initiative...and thinking about it now)
I'm calling that a touchdown and holding a lot or promise for us both. Whew!!! What a ride that was!!!! lol
J
I concur - this really is a
Submitted by SpaceyStacey197... on
I concur - this really is a touchdown for you guys. Lots of miscommunication going on for you guys that now makes A LOT of sense. This is for sure another foundation stone on which to build. Now - it will be up to you guys to respect each respective experience and try to learn to work with in it - baby steps..... small steps until dealing with in those boundries are natural.
I have a feeling that there are several of these kinds of miscommunications with me and my H - but he refuses to talk to me and sees me as the enemy. It sets me up to meet his combative expectations and to further reinforce his self sabatoge.
I am so glad for both of you to have managed to get to this level in the game. Knowing is only HALF the battle though :-)
Safety
Submitted by NowOrNever (not verified) on
Here it is, again, J, from your wife:
If someone got excited for any reason....that meant they were angry. Whe I see you start to get (agitated)....my PTSD kicks in and all I want to do is stop you or prevent you from getting more (agitated) than you already are. I'm afraid when I see you start to get (agitated) and it's because it's so overwhelming to me and I am afraid. I'm afraid to get close to you since all I want to do is get away from you and I'm afraid of the next time it's going to happen. This is when my thoughts get distorted and I can't think straight and I panic or over react."
Please believe this, literally. You in your boisterousness, are all right. its who you are.
But that doesnt mean that her PTSD, or flash backs of whatever it is that scares her when she hears loud acting out are "wrong" and you need to "fix" it in her. Please stand down from that project.
She has a safety issue, all right? Whatever the two of you do from here forward has to take account of you; and has to take account of what she is telling you straight out, in plain language here about herself. Don't interpret it. Believe her about herself. Don't presume that you know something other than what she's telling you about it, for herself.
She's got a safety issue. She's not trying to control you to be some kind of dictator, on whatever's loud or chaotic to her. She's trying to protect herself in those moments; she has her OWN issues.
If you assign yourself the credibility that you have your own ways and needs, DO it as well for your wife, and that she knows her difficulties better than you do. And don't try to be her shrink on this one. Think about her, love her with that great sensitivity that you have, but understand that she is talking to you straight out here. Don't talk her down. Don't presume that she's "wrong" or "incomplete" or "weak" to have these reactions to whatever scares her, all right? You give yourself a break, as you should, for your shortcomings and your old bentnesses from how you were handled as a kid. Do her the honor of giving her that break and believing her.
It must feel bad to you to know that you scare her, but understand that her issue is real, and that you won't get to better with her if you try to turn in to her controller, her manipulator, her shrink or her daddy on these things.
She has her own pain and her own whatever it is that scares her to deal with. It's REAL for her...regardless of waht you intend, regardless of your ADHD, regardless of what you're trying to do. This is a marriage (a real one!! bouquets to you both), so this is not all about you understanding her.
She has safety issues. I don't know why. Whatever you do, don't micromanage her feelings, or play games with them. Whatever it is that scares her now, I can tell you that she has been messed around with a lot in her earlier life. I hope you and she get all this into therapy...with that wise T, ideally. You can't fix her. Only she can. And it's a relation issue, so that doesn't excuse you from it all. You can't hold yourself innocent, saying I didn't mean to do X, so I am exonerated. Get out of the one person is the guilty one and it's not me. Ideally you won't deal with this issue as a guilt issue, anyway.
I'm talking to you about this because I know a lot about the mentality of being scared, at things suddenly breaking lose around me. If I had not had bad times over my own version of what your wife is reacting to in her past, that's triggered by whatever break out whatever you are doing, out of her own fear of things breaking lose and harming her, I can guarantee you that things would be much worse for me with my husband, who also is exuberant, also is loud, also has emotional lability, to the point that once he gets going he can't rein himself in and says anything, certainly has yelled at me out of his own frustrations. Had I not been through some hell earlier in life, and had I not been the age that I am, when all this started happening after the honeymoon of hyperfocus, I'd be in much worse shape than I am, and chances are reasonably good that I would have left this relation with him...married on the books, but gone, and when I'm gone, I'm gone and don't come back. There's no reason in my life to be living in a relation in which I am targeted, or otherwise have to be physically present for someone yelling, accusing, blowing out.
I can tell you, and know what I'm talking about, that when your wife says she doesn't feel safe, that it scares her when there's yelling and boisterousness, she's not trying to tamp you down and control you, even if she is somehow trying to stop whatever you're doiing. Her principal need at those moments is to be safe. Let me be a witness to that. I've been through so much of this in my life. I'm not kidding. First of all, she's not trying to control you, she's desperately (like she says) needing to ge tto safety.
If you can develop the attention to her in your moments of lability and boisterousness...if this is possible, to extend her something that she has told you makes her feel safe, it will be a great thing.
To be clear: though all human beings need to feel safe, sometimes; and women especially perhaps need it, given the fact that homes and families aren't necessarily safe to them growing up, you'll do better, as a beginning point, now that she's told you this, to begin by respecting her need. You have the houdini job now of figuring out how to continue to be who you are, and respecting her (very real) need for exactly waht she told you, not to be scared.
I don't know what she's up for, but have you considered asking her to help you imagine, or come up with some ideas, that would allow your bodaciousness and her reassurance of safety to happen at the same time?
'Nuff said. I think she's telling you the strict truth about her self on this one. I hope you don't replace her own description, in your mind, with what you think is a better interpretation of her.
I can't tell you the number of times taht my husband has triggered my old survivalist coping of getting the H away from what came across to me as anger blowing out of him, disproportionate to anything that I did or said to him, of his all round loudness, which makes sense to me in some situations (noisy bars, boisterous times with friends) and sometimes absolutely seems to me to be out of place...I don't think he hears the volume of his voice often. My old triggers, to get away, were firing off pretty regularly, by sudden blasts of his feeling, his loud voice and particularly his total fails at interpreting me, but based on his fears or whatever, winding himself to get angry at me, or if not anger, why the yelling, the furrowed brow, the nasty words?
Well a lot of it was ADHD lability, I didn't cut and run, as your wife I think is telling you the truth that she wants to cut and run or somehow, desperately, want it to stop (that's so familiar to me). I had to find some boundaries for myself and stick to them. I had to learn not to speak when he was out of his own control. I had to figure out what wouldn't set him off worse, because he didn't have a really good kit for reeling himself in, himself, once he went into emotional blow out mode.
J, these things aren't easy. Neither I nor your wife are screw ups because we're shell shocked from something in our past when our partner does break out loudness, banging, crashing and so on. It's not a failing of someone around someone with ADHD to be having a fight or flight reaction to large pattern noise or yelling or accusation, or winding it up.
It needs to be dealt with and both of you need to work on it.
I hope, at this point, your wife and you get this issue to your T, for his help with navigating how the two of you can learn ways for you to be your big-gesture sellf without scaring the S out of your wife.
Trying to say it straight out: if she's reacting to your big acting out this way, and either fleeing, physically or emotionally, or trying t tamp you down, she's scared, like she says, and trying to regulate the situation.
Children in blow out abuse situations do try to regulate, meaning do what they can, when things get chaotic and dangerous, according to their kid going through it. They try to mollify. They try to stop it. I used to run out of the house and hide. Like your wife, when things at home got verbally violent, I couldn't take it as a kid and fled. Kids do everything that they can conceive to regulate what shocks them so it doesn't come and scare the shit out of them and harm them again. They don't have the equipment to do this, but they try. Taking your wife seriously and literally, she's got an issue there that you, because you're her husband, not her shrink, CANNOT force her to do anything about. Take it to your T, I dearly hope. The both of you.
You need to be, and will be, who you are. She needs help from you, in ways taht only she can name, and may indeed need your T's help in naming them to you.
I know you don't believe in God as describe by religion, but you believe in the Power that Is, because you've touched it and it has touched you. I'll be praying for the two of you. You've both been courageous. You go, guy.
Safety is a very big deal for anyone abused as a child.
Now