Re: Advise from the grilfriend

[Anonymous]

wow, I typed a long post and it completely disappeared!

I agree with scattybird: the meds kicked in during writing this and they must work because that wasn’t my first suggestion!! – quite often I type a post and then delete it completely. I have to impulsive respond, but with the meds, I can manage to delete it instead of sending it.

I sure dwelled on the ADD during the quest to find out what it was, if I had it, and to talk to others about it. I also went through a kind of grieving process looking back on my life through the ADD filter. And I needed to talk to someone about it all, especially my husband (also ADD) – that’s been really important since we both need to understand how our behaviours affect each other and how we can work together to capitalize on our strengths (including meds effectiveness) and minimize our weaknesses. It’s hard work, and it takes time. We’re far from being ready to just move on, and it’s been a year for me.

Fortunately the meds are helping for us. They work hand in hand with behavioural change, for us. I’ve heard this from other professionals too, a combination of therapies is often more powerful than either alone (cranial sacral therapy combined with orthodontal work in preparation for elective major jaw surgery, for example, which I went through).

Back to the girlfriend’s email: “Maybe if you didn’t dwell on the ADHD and work on making it a priority to change yourself it wouldn’t seem so bad. I believe you can change behavior if you really want to.” – I’m sorry, but this still sounds like the same ignorant (meaning lack of knowledge) response that many of us hear. “You could change, but you don’t want to”. “If you loved me, you’d change”.

If it were me, I’d sit down face to face with the person (NOT email), and tell them that I have a disorder, that it’s not curable but treatable, and that it requires understanding and support from the people closest to me to be able to live with it regardless of whether treatment is effective or not. If she’s not willing to participate any further in talking about it or learning more about it from a non-ADDer’s perspective, then you may have a bigger problem than either of you are willing to address.

Good luck, let us know how it goes.

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