I have been married several years and I have always known my husband has more energy than most people. But it seems to be getting in the way more and more. He cannot concentrate on anything, never finishes anything. He is going all the time, and he can barely carry on a conversation without changing topics every two seconds. I was wondering where I could find some more info about adult ADHD.
There is no organic proof for ADHD. Many believe it to be a myth as every bad thing is ascribed to it and lately they have even been trying to tie it to violent offenders. Why not tie animal abusers to violent crimes instead of those of us with ADHD.
The diagnosis is totally subjective. One expert can say you have it and another might say you don’t based on the same interview. Seriously a large percentage of this stuff about ADHD is just a fad really…
If something is really getting in his way, and it is not just that he is getting on your nerves lately…. And i suggest, before you label him in a way that will make him less able to earn money and less able to be viewed by society as a human being, that you think long and hard about what it is you are doing.
This could carry over to affecting your children in more ways than you can count…. Making them easier to label. It can cause them to feel they are different and or inferior to others etc… Just be very careful, and really spend some time on yourself and understanding yourself before you suggest he get tested.
Testing, is not based on anything organic or physical in nature, even according to the book of methodology, it is based *solely* on the opinion of a trained expert (Trained in something they also admit to knowing nothing about.) It is solely a matter of opinion based on observation in a very set setting that would make anyone nervous.
Also,dsiagnosis these days comes with medication. The most common would be ritalin, which recent clinical testing has proven to affect the dopamine system of the brain, just like cocaine. Only more strongly. There are other drugs too, but i have been used as a guinea pig for nearly all of them in the early 90s, when i was too young to have civil liberties which would include the right to say no…. Some of them have been known to cause suicide, or heart problems…. etc… Delusions can also be a side effect…. These drugs don’t alter attention. They work on the ADHD brain the same way they do on a normal brain. What they cause is one to be stoned and more docile. These are not ‘smart’ drugs. In some cases they have even been known to cause violence in people. This is not a game. It is a super serious matter, for which there is no organic evidence and for which the only test is entirely subjective in nature.
Maybe he isn’t who you are supposed to be with? Maybe the problem in your relationship is you, as you clearly have trouble dealing with him as he is…. Maybe i am super wrong (I hope so)… But these questions, you need to ask yourself before you put him through all this…. Is he uncomfortable with how his mind works, or is this about your comfort??? Because what you are suggesting changes a life, his life. Once that bell is wrung it can never be unwrung. And it follows you around for life and creates other complications, if you can’t deal with the current relationship complications, how do you think you will manage the ones related to society’s views of ‘people like him?’ You are in effect making him “other” in a system that aproves only of what is normal. So be sure, this isn’t some personal need to control or micro manage, Be sure, you love him, and not the person you would like him to bbe, because trust me, once you change someone this way, or get them labled as essentially mentally ill, there is no cure you will still have these behaviors. So ask yourself if even if the behaviors you relate to ADHD were gone. would he still be the man you fell in love with? And ask, yourself if you are entirely certain you wouldn’t then find other behaviors to have a problem with? Often. we look to blame others for something that is really about us. I am as gguilty as the next person. Sometimes, our own insecurities color things in the wrong way. I personally find it troubling you are even asking this question and not him.
I hope the concern you express truly comes from a place of love and concern for his well being and not one of annoyance with his behavior. I am getting married in july i have been with the same man for the last 5 years… I have ADHD, and i felt bad a few months ago, something was very wrong.I didn’t think it was ADHD related. I went to see someone and for the first time in my life, someone had an accurate perspective on what was wrong with me. I was labled at age 4. My brilliant doctor says i have ADHD. He also says it is complicated by some other things, which developed as a result, and because of the time of year (I have SAD) they were rearing their ugly head ina negative way. He said if he treated 1 he treated all. That i would still get down in the winter and early spring, but that over all my mood would be one that is at the average level most people experience which for me average is way too low, likely a chemical imbalance related to the years of child abuse that results from being labled at a young age. He says also, that none of the other few docs i have been to to make my parents feel better, as an adult, or in my mid to late teens, is tandemount to medical incompetence. I went to see the best of boston every 6 months for testing from age 4 till age 18.
My, ADHD symptoms, have not affected my relationship. They don’t bother my fiance at all. He has never expressed any discomfort being around me for those reasons you describe. He is one of the only people who sees me for who i am rather than the scarlet letters stamped on my forehead when i was 4 beacause i had the audacity to act like a child, when in all point of fact, i was a child. So you have some hard questions to consider….
Let me make this clear though, if he feels that his mind functions differently than is normal. If he feels, he can benefit from what subjective solutions that the experts can offer, and if he feels, as an adult, that he would like to try medicating himself, encourage him to do so. Because, if he can see something is different with him and he wants to fit in, then by all means he should do what is going to make him the most happy in life.
If this is all about you… Maybe you need to have yourself evaluated for some sort of anxiety issue or something? They offer medication for that too. But in a relationship there are 2 people. No one is right and no one is wrong. We all see the world in our own way. If he sees no problem with himself on these issues, maybe it isn’t his perspective that is off? Maybe it is yours? I don’t know either of you. And i am not a shrink. I am an egyptology student who has worn a label for a long time, just commenting on what you have written from a position, of lack of information on you and him and your relationship, and a life long experience wearing a lable. Please understand that. I am not an authority nor do i claim to be especially not on you and him and your relationship.
You are considering asking him to consider taking a totally subjective test, for a mental problem for which there is no organic evidence, after 25 yearws of what amounts to Hitler science, and still they have nothing tangible to offer for how my brain is different than yours. Infact, the tests indicate rather exactly that our brains are quite the same. In functioning size and shape. There are several theories about the organic element.
The first one, that the frontal lobe in ADHD people is smaller than those without ADHD. Sure, ofcourse, they compared a 6 year old’s brain to a 30 year old’s brain to ‘prove’ that, or something. Anyway, that was squished when equal aged people of the same gender one with one without ADHD were compared numerous times. Proving that ‘science’ a hoax. (The reason for this particcular theory is that the frontal lobe governs common sense and ‘self editing’ and rational thought. ADHD people according to some experts exhibit the same rationality as a cocker spaniels. As i have read in a number of their papers.)
The second theory relates to a chemical imbalance for which there is ample prrof in depression. In the case of ADHD however, there is no proof and infact the evidence points in a different direction altogether. As it directly contradicts this theory in the similarity once again depicted in the tests, between the normal brain and the ADHD brain. This is also a hoax.
The current fad theory, is a difference in electrical impulses, which they claim to have proven just as they claimed to have proved the last 2 theories as well. As of yet however, they have offered no clinical evidence to be viewed critiqued or otherwise presented to the scientific community as evidence. They will tell you this evidence exists. You ask them then to show it to you. They will not. They will say to get such tests is too expensive. You say it is covered by your insurance… And suddenly it is really a theory they are working on still… but they are finding this stuff out as they go, but nothing is yet published…. So then ask him how he knows so much about it then?! Clearly there is alot about it published! Alot hyping the theory as fact and discussing the tests being done, claiming this theory this time holds the key… But yet they never bother to show us all by unlocking the door…. This theory has been around and most predominant for the last i would guess over 10 years of those over 25 that this mental problem has been in existance. And still they have no evidence to give.
As an egyptology student, if i went to Egypt, and started a dig because int his specific spot i thought there would be a major temple to Isis, and after 25 years of digging at this one site, and still had not uncovered even a single, clearly made human block from this temple in my excavations…. I would be laughed out of egypt and my profession. I would become a joke. I don’t understand why these experts are not viewed with the dubiousness. I suppose if i told everyone, that if we didn’t find this temple of Isis, that Isis would continue to torment the earth with poverty, and disease, and that in her anger, she had cursed us all with war and violence! And that the worst is yet to come…. Maybe then i would more interesting and as no one wants to be sick or to fight in wars, it may be worth while to appease her.
What i don’t get is, when fear mongering became a verified science. First the african americans, scared of them enslave them and view them as intellectually inferior abuse them and mistreat them and science had proof their skin pigmentation made their brains less intelligent. Or so it was believed a long time ago. Today we know better. As we should have known better then too.
Women, science said, we didn’t have all our faculties, making us inferior intellectually as we are so irrational and science proved our irrationality and lack of intellectual equality to men. Then the glass ceiling began to fall apart… Now they sing a different tune.
Then there was Hitler science. The jews were according to his bullox theory, supposed to be intellectually inferior along with racially inferior. He also had plenty of “science” to back him up.
The fact remains. in each of these historical cases of science proving intellectual inferiority, it was wrong and it was based entirely on fear, and the science reflected only the terror of the people in society rather than the actuallity of the measurements it was making. I point out all this for your consideration because you are asking someone to set limitations for himself and make himself subject to alot of hatred bigotry, and ‘science.’
Really really search your heart before you ask someone to put themselves through this… I am going to say it one more time. The tests involved are totally subjective (According to the expert’s own books on proper method for making the diagniosis of ADHD.) The drugs have been known to kill people. (There is a small percentage he could die or that some serious health problem could occuur, is that more preferable than his odd behaviors?) Drugs are the standard treatment for this subjective diagnosis, which limits one’s financial earning potential and changes the way friends and family and society view one. Really becareful before you ring this bell. Because, i personally think if i were a convict i would have more opportunities and chances and the view of me from society would be better.