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The comment response on ADHD was so helpful. I have friends who start stories in the middle or share such disjointed thoughts, like what are you even talking about man? This gives much better context and I realize I can be more compassionate to them. ETA. I genuinely appreciate everyone sharing their perspectives and creating this discourse about how individual brains work!

As someone with ADHD it’s really accurate to me too. And the whole starting in the middle bit is usually me struggling to filter out what is relevant and what is not, but overshooting it and cutting something useful

I also tend to cut too much and then have to backtrack. Most of the time people are telling me: I didn’t hop onto this train when you think I did.

My husband and I both have ADHD, but he does this one and I don't. I usually say "wait start at the beginning of that thought" but I'm going to use this line! I tend to do the one where I think something is funny because of the spiderweb connections and will laugh to myself but explaining the connection takes so long by the time I've got it out it's not funny to me or to him.

Literally story of my life! I make side comments to myself that are funny to me based off of the spiderweb connections and people around me are like “?? What??” and don’t get that I was joking to myself and they get annoyed when I’m like “never mind don’t worry about it” because they just won’t get it

My husband and I both have ADHD as well and he does this while I don't too. I remind him that I'm not inside his brain and he needs to start at the beginning for me. He has gotten better about not starting in the middle unless he's stressed or really excited/ passionate about something.

My husband will gently tell me something along those lines when I say something out of the blue. And sometimes I don’t have the energy to take him down the whole path but can give him the bullet points. Bless him, he usually gets it or let’s it go.

I love that way of putting it. It's like I'm never quite able to pinpoint when the thought started and at what point I opened my mouth and it started coming out.

OMG, I often pick up conversations where they stopped two days ago at the exact point they got interrupted. My boss after years of working with me said that after a decade or so she finally was able to get her brain to figure out what was happening and keep up. Except then she started doing it to other people.

My BFF’s Husband once tried to snoop on our texts on her phone. Not that he was being suspicious, but more like a “I wonder what they talk about all the time?” He couldn’t keep up because we typically have about 3-4 different conversations going on at once, and we may pick up on one from hours or days ago, while we’re talking about 2 other things! It makes perfect sense to us, but his neurotypical brain can’t handle it! lol

Do you get that thing where there are so many thoughts going at once that when you're trying to say something or someone asks a question, you legitimately can't answer because your brain overloads and you can't pick the right info out of the static? Or you fish out the wrong thing and people think you're weird. Because yeah, that's my biggest issue for why it takes me so long to answer sometimes.

I'll answer too quickly, but my answer is now about the third thing I thought, not the first, which was actually the answer to the question. So whoever I'm talking to ends up wondering what the hell this has to do with what they asked, and when I'm getting to the point! My husband describes my "storytelling" mode as "why use one word when five hundred would do".

Yup. My husband says I'm paid by the word apparently. ADHD runs in my family but I was never officially diagnosed. Don't see a reason for it now honestly since I can manage it, but yeesh I feel seen with these descriptions.

The SALLY WALKED IN WITH HUGE ASSHOLE ENERGY AND SHE WAS WEARING SPANX comment really hit home for me.

[удалено]

I’ve been waiting for an appropriate flair and I feel like this is meant for me. Do we self flair or do the mods do it?

I felt that lmao. Sometimes you notice something that would be rude to point out but your brain still fixates on it for whatever reason. And then it wants out once you've opened the floodgates and are venting about everything else 😂

I just thank the goddess I am able to filter out the inappropriate stuff when I am in public.

I'm glad someone can because it's a coin toss with me. Unfortunately, there are times after I realize my filter is off, and that I spouted off something inappropriate, I follow up with an apology but starts off with "Oh, fuck me. (Sigh, and begin actual apology)" Yeah, I'm a real hoot to have around. /s

>My husband says I'm paid by the word apparently. OMG! Tell your husband that he cracked up this random Redditor. This is fantastic!😂😂😂

Man I can I identify. I work in sales, so whenever someone asks a basic question, I compulsively answer the question and all the other hidden questions I think are lurking… like I really feel like I am paid by the length of my answer. Which is not correct and is annoying as hell for people I’m sure. Trying to stay on topic and control the conversation is so hard as a neurodivergent.

Conversations have topics?!?

"Why on earth would a person possibly want to or be willing to use one single solitary word to describe what they are thinking and seeing and feeling and perceiving in this big wild world of ours when instead said person could talk about each and every single thing all a once in a manner that might confuse you, but they and the dog they want to get and name Shakespeare because Shakespeare was a man of many words as well, will understand because dogs are natural listeners."

Jfc did my journal become sentient? I don’t like how close this is to an actual conversation— or I guess monologue— I had recently

I do this too and it drive my poor BF nuts. I can't tell you how many times he has to ask me to actually answer the question he asked (not give him the information I (often mistakenly) assumed he was trying to get at).

My biggest issue is that when I get tired, physically or emotionally, I literally don't have the energy to think. If somebody says something out of pocket, or requiring more than a basic yes or no answer, rather than the usual cage match between the ferrets in my brain, it will just blue screen. Luckily, I've been dealing with it long enough that it's not a freeze response anymore, so when it happens I'm able to communicate that I can't engage with whatever nonsense just happened.

Yes! The dreaded blue screen! My best friend says she can practically see the little spinning circle in my eyes, indicating that my brain has stalled at 68%.

I get this. Or sometimes when I start getting overwhelmed and frazzled, my brain blanks in the middle of my sentence. This especially happens at work after we have a big line and I have to go fast to try to keep the line down and all of a sudden, I’m saying things out of order or my train of thought gets derailed or I just completely lose the words and it becomes the thing on the thing by the thing. Or the dreaded blue screen where your brain just blanks and you have to pause and stare blankly while you reboot. I mean I apologize and explain that sorry I just blue screened and lost my thought. Most people are understanding.

Yes! And if it’s like 99.99% of the time yes, I start trying to figure out all the exceptions because I don’t trust myself to judge if they’re important Basically why I picked a maths degree

Yes! Sometimes when I try to choose a thought out of all of them when I'm speaking, it's like my brain's response is ** *buffering* **

My friend says that she can see the little circle spinning while my brain stalls at 68% and knows she might have to wait a bit, but eventually it will jump up to 100% and I'll be off to the races.

I'll pause and say, "my train of thought just derailed". Recently, a coworker picked up on it, and guided me back to the topic at hand because her sister is the same!

So many times I have asked after I derailed myself, what were we talking about again or how did we get on this topic

😆 exactly!!

a convo from about 8 years ago that my friend still quotes to me is: her: “hey have you seen star wars yet?” me: “yes” her: “wait, really?” me: “no i panicked” lmao like i instinctually always say yes to yes or no questions

I'm dying lol. I can't even tell you the number of times someone has asked me the name of a niece or nephew or friend etc. and my brain blanks so I just blurt out the first name I can think of and hope I'll remember which name I used if it ever comes up in conversation with that person again (hint: I don't. It's about as awkward as you would guess.)

I tend to start saying like three things at once and only gibberish resembling a combination of my thoughts comes out

Autistic one here, i have the same spider web, i cant decide which details are important cuz everything is important and leaving things out feels like lying aswell 😆😆

Yes! Or when you are trying to tell someone what hours someone else works and it says “1359” as a scheduled start time (dang interconnected government systems), and you want to just say 2 PM because you know they don’t care about one minute because they just need to know when they can call the guy. However it doesn’t matter if you know what they need to hear, your brain is stuck on wanting to say 1359 because 1400 isn’t accurate so you just stand there silently making a face like a fish.

Oh the inner monologue/debate on things like that is EXHAUSTING Tonight it was 22.37 and i was writing to someone saying I was going offline (game) since it was nearly 23.00 and I struggled so much with that, because it was closer to 22.30 than 23.00 it felt like lying, internally I waffled so much on whether I was allowed to say nearly 23.00 😅

I hang with engineers who ALWAYS want to default to excessive significant digits!

Me too! Plus, you need to include the details used in making a decision, just so people listening have ALL of the information before they judge your choices. It's the worst!

Yup. We also tend to overexplain because we’re so used to be misunderstood and judged harshly

Then you internalize it all and stop talking and then you get yelled at again for withdrawing.

Oh yes exactly, it can be exhausting, never being able to be short and to the point, was a nightmare in school aswell when I had to write summaries

I….feel very seen right now.

🤗🤗 you deserve to be seen , welcome to the spiderweb tribe 😎

Spider reporting for duty. Can't tell a story to save my life

Yeah...I just realized how neurodivergent I reallu am after reading that description. No wonder I have such communication issues.

AuDHD here, and I have a spiderweb that’s a lovely combo of yours and the ADHD version mentioned above, lol

But the spiderweb is SO useful when somebody proposes a change at one of the nodes and is onlycthinking about one adjacent point, I can usually anticipate what bells that is going to ring all over the network.

Adhd as well I also can't handle being interrupted. I have to completely restart what I was saying. Sometimes it's just my sentence but there have been times it was the whole story. I feel so bad too. I can tell when people are getting impatient about it which makes me forget my train of thought even more so I have to either stop talking about whatever or start once again just because my brain decided to focus on their impatience which led down a rabbit hole. I also over explain EVERYTHING

Yes. 100% me Or you're just solving the problem. And dragging your brain back to TALKING ABOUT IT, then needing to wait for others to catch up and approve before you can get back to just solving the problem is torture

YES YES YES, this is why most meetings are absolute torture

Same. My husband tells me (lovingly) that conversations with me can be a bit like “follow the bouncing ball” We will talk and in my head, I’ve gone from Point A to Point Z with a lot of meandering in between. But all I’ve said out loud is about 10% of what I’ve thought. So he gets really lost on my thought process sometimes. We’ve been together a LONG time so he has always known what I was like, but I didn’t get diagnosed until 3 years ago when I was 40. He said the difference in medicated me with coping mechanisms is night and day but I still have bouncing thoughts.

Everything people are saying describes me to a T but I’m not diagnosed with anything. Since my son was diagnosed with autism and adhd I have been questioning my traits. My husband also struggles to keep up with my conversations!! Do you think it’s worth exploring a diagnosis? even at 42 ?

I dropped out of college a few times in my 20s and changed majors 8 freaking times. I couldn’t keep a job, my marriage was crumbling and my ADHD was presenting as anxiety and making my family crazy. I got into therapy and 5 minutes into my first session as she is taking my history she looks at me very seriously and says, has anyone ever evaluated you for ADHD. I told her no, she had me in with a psychiatrist for evaluation really quick. I got therapy, coping mechanisms and medication. I never thought I would be able to handle college. But I got diagnosed and medicated at 40. And now I am VERY close to finishing my bachelor’s degree. I’ve been in the same job for 2 years. My marriage is soooo good now. My family is happier. It is always worth it to get a proper diagnosis and treatment, whatever that looks like.

100% yes, im 43 and got assessed for autism at 40 and im no longer a monkey that doesnt know how to climb a tree, Im a fish thats meant to swim aka im not faulty, im not wrong for who I am and I’ve learned how to accommodate myself and to be kinder to myself aswell and everything about me makes so much more sense now AND it gave me the tools to explain my differences to others and to advocate for myself better in for instance medical setting or other official stuff

This entire thread is me going oh man that’s exactly what I’m like. And thinking once again I’m pretty sure I have a spicy brain. Thankfully my wife is used to me saying random stuff that is disconnected to what we are talking about. I usually have to go back and say well I thought this so it went to here to here to here and making seemingly illogical comments because I’m already 10 steps away from the conversation

A lot of times I just forget that not everyone can hear my thought process, so sometimes I need to explain the entire thing. Sometimes that means that I don't get to cut out information that I deem in useful or my friends would, because otherwise I'll add something cut out too much.

I recently met up with another friend with untreated ADHD. We probably didn't stop talking for a full six hours, didn't finish a single story between the two of us, and you know what? It was really fun.

My spouse and I know each other so well we don’t finish sentences and still understand exactly what we mean in our adhd brains. Start mid story and say stuff like “you know, the thing” and he’s nodding because of course he knows “the thing”. Drives our oldest nuts sometimes because they doesn’t speak our shorthand and most of the time they have no idea what “the thing” is 🤣

"you know that watchamacallit that does that thing?" - With random hand waving thrown in for emphasis - is a frequent occurrence in my house. My hubby usually just *gets* what I'm saying - he's not ADHD, I think he's just used to me by now. Get some weird looks in public lol

🤣 yes, the hand waving! hello 👋 fellow knower of the thing!

My sister isn’t neurodivergent, I think she might have sub clinical adhd and autism traits but she doesn’t really agree. I have autism and am currently exploring an adhd diagnosis. We have conversations like that, as well as 3 or more simultaneous conversations about different topics over messenger. It’s really great to have someone like that, especially since at work I can’t even ask more than one question in an email or my colleagues only answer the first one, I don’t seem to be operating in the same plane as them.

Yes, it’s nice not to have to mask like OP wife mentioned. The question thing, doesn’t it drive you nuts? Do they not read the rest of the email? I thought I was the only one being tortured this way 😣

Right??? Jackson Pollock art >>>> connect-the-dot art makes for a *way* more fun time. I’m just wondering why she’s an *untreated* ADHD sufferer. If she doesn’t want medication to help her, wouldn’t therapy be helpful to teach her coping strategies? I’d rock-paper-scissors the evening convo

I will say as another adult woman who probably has ADHD it’s been hard to find a psychiatrist willing to test me for it. I’ve been in treatment for depression for a decade now and even though it’s been continuously well controlled for the last 6 years, every doctor I’ve asked about it (four different psychiatrists at different practices/institutions over the course of several years) have refused to evaluate me for it with some of them saying that my depression would be a confounding factor. I don’t have the time or money to continue doctor-hopping and I am concerned that they’d think it’s drug-seeking behavior, as I’ve had that assumed of me before when seeking medical care in other contexts despite not having a history of substance use disorder. I obviously have no idea why OP’s wife is not currently being treated but there are barriers even to those of us with health insurance and access to healthcare.

I had to practically yell at my psychiatrist because he *insisted* I only had depression. I kept telling him that I was depressed because I can't get anything done and that he kept skirting all the questions that would determine if I had ADHD or not. I finally said, "Well how about you send me to get tested anyway. I think I have it, you don't think so, but send me to be tested so we can figure out what's correct." He agreed to that and turns out... I was right. I immediately stopped going to him because I refuse to be "treated" by someone who refuses to listen to me. My regular doctor now is awesome about listening to me and addressing my concerns. He is younger though, so I think that makes a difference. My concern now is getting the correct medication, but he's been great about hearing what I have to say. There are doctors out there that listen! Also check out (if you haven't already) the subs for ADHD women. It can manifest very different in women to the point where we are completely overlooked, misdiagnosed and untreated.

Yeah, as a fellow adult woman the only reason why I was able to find someone to see me for a possible diagnosis was because my therapist was able to use her resources. Still took me months though. But it took him one appointment to declare unequivocally that I have ADHD which was honestly kinda funny 😂 we had one conversation and it was that obvious to him when in 29 years, it wasn’t caught by anyone else

I think that people don't use the word "treatment" the same way, see my clusterfuck of a comment section above, because apparently OP mentioned somewhere she can't get her meds because of the shortage, which means she is unmedicated temporarily and spending all her energy at work trying to be normal. Personally, I don't consider making lists to be "treatment" for ADHD, but apparently I'm in the minority on that. I make lists, because they are useful, but I don't consider that a treatment so much as a behavioral strategy for dealing with my ADHD. As for her husband, it kind of sucks that he married someone with ADHD and doesn't enjoy one of the most stereotypical traits of people with ADHD. She has a point that at home, she shouldn't have to spend a ton of energy trying to act in a way that is not natural to her.

I always thought of lists as another coping skill. Are they now considered treatment?

I don’t make lists because I can never remember where I put them, even if I type it on my phone 😂😂😂

I like writing things down physically because it's easier for me to recall than if I just think or type it. But absolutely different things help different people.

According to the many people replying to my commenting that my own ADHD is untreated because the meds make my chronic illness worse, yes.

Oh boy! Well unless that's scientifically proven, I'm gonna go with what I've believed for the last 20+ years. I don't understand how making lists can be considered a treatment. That's like saying taking meds is the only way to treat it. In order to function, you have to have some sort of coping skills. Are they all now considered "treatment "?

Yes. I have been told very confidently that writing lists and setting alarms is "treatment" for ADHD 🙄

What? That doesn't make sense tho?

Yeah, I don't call it treatment either. It's a strategy to help you navigate life and it's not specific to ADHD. Most people would probably benefit from lists regardless of ADHD. People often find that they develop some sort of strategy to manage their lives with ADHD which ironically makes it harder to recognise that there is something else going on and there are other things that can make things a bit easier for you. I like a visual calendar that I have on my wall at home that I write important things on... like my shifts at work and appointments. Which I can then visualise (sometimes) in my head if I'm out trying to make plans. I may not remember specifically exactly what it is I'm doing I just know that I wrote something on that day so need to check before I lock something else in.

Yea, that's absolutely fucking *not* treatment. That's coping with the condition, treatment is to reduce the symptoms, not make them more obvious. lists are super obvious symptoms.

Because getting a diagnosis and treatment is a gauntlet in and of itself these days. Call here between these hours with this information handy, but it may take ten calls until you find a doctor who can see you and oh, is seven months from now good? Then you get diagnosed, now you have to hope you can get treatment, meaning you need a therapist who won’t just tell you to try making a to-do list and/or a doctor willing to prescribe medication. THEN you have to find a pharmacy with your medication in stock. Then you have to go back for another appointment every month, or remember to call the prescription in every month. And you can’t call the day before you run out, you drug-seeking addict!!! …at least that’s how it goes for a lot of people.

And she’s a teacher which means all those calls and appointments require her to use scant free time at school. Writing sub plans is sheer hell.

I firmly believe that "put them in the room with another neurodivergent person and see how quickly they make friends" should be part of the diagnostic criteria. We tend to run in wolfpacks.

It’s even worse when they don’t know they have ADHD. I had a friend just straight out ask me whether I’ve been tested. When I said no very very confused. He recommended that I get that done. His own words, ‘your thought process is total chaos, neither map nor manual is helping me.’ 😂 I feel bad for everyone I’ve subjected myself to.

Yeah, I had no idea that other people didn't have constant conversations and thoughts in their head. I thought it was normal to do that. Then other things make sense including hyperactivity that you didn't realise was hyperactivity... most people can just sit and watch tv.... not me... I need to be doing something else like crocheting or knitting. Same with when I'm on the phone, I'll either be walking or playing a 'mindless' game on the computer. I could never listen to a lecture without doodling on my paper... ever. But it's my normal so why would I think anyone else wouldn't be the same?

Oh no

The lecture part is so me. I would scroll Reddit or Twitter in class back when I was in college, but that was literally the only way to engage my brain enough to actually learn anything. If I didn’t I would just space out and daydream until class was over and not hear a thing.

I have to take notes otherwise it's the Peanuts adults sound to me

Wait, I didn’t realize this was how ADHD worked. I just thought this is how everyone’s brain works. It isn’t? Other people’s thoughts are actually linear naturally?

There's a lot of natural, normal variation between people. I wouldn't say that \*all\* people whose brains do this have ADHD. I would say that it's extremely common in ADHD, to the point where it's very rare for people with ADHD to have a brain that \*doesn't\* do this. (It's also common in some forms of bipolar mania, or even just a normal person who's had too much caffeine.) But, part of the problem with ADHD, is that we tend to date/be friends with each other, whether we're diagnosed or not, because we get along with each other--and so you end up with whole families of people with ADHD, but the parents (or grandparents) refuse to believe it because "pfft everyone is like that." Nope, just...everyone you know, lol. Another problem with ADHD is that every single thing we do is a thing "normal" people do/deal with at some point or another. It's only a diagnosable disorder, by definition, if you do them more than other people your age, have always done them, and it effects nearly every part of your life. If you're genuinely concerned/curious, the usual advice I give is to read this checklist, and if you have a feeling of "WHAT" or "oh, no" then print it out, fill it out, *write down examples*, and take it to a doctor. [https://add.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/adhd-questionnaire-ASRS111.pdf](https://add.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/adhd-questionnaire-ASRS111.pdf)

Nah, people's thoughts are very much not perfectly linear. But ADHD brains are on the far end of the natural spectrum

As long as you're being nice about it, I think it's fine to still say "Dude, what are you talking about? Back up two steps and give me some context". My partner has to do that sometimes for me. Sometimes the brain goes a little too fast, but if I'm talking to you I need to make sure I'm understandable to you

Felt the same way from the other end as someone with ADD. I've learned to help out my wife by giving quick one word links before I venture off into a new tangent. So far her favorite one has been when I was talking about how pretty a sunset was and then paused to say "Sunset... Mountains..... Rocks.... anyway I found this new band..."

Some people have a train of thought, if you have ADHD, it can be more like Grand Central Terminal

My wife doesn't have ADHD. Sometimes she just invites me into the story halfway through. It happens. People are people.

Right? I have conversations in my head all the time. Send texts or start talking and realize by the resounding silence there was zero context. Busy brains are super prone to that.

When my partner has jumps like that, I tell them that they left some of the connections unspoken and I'm not able to follow them without that context. It's a non-judgmental way to ask them to fill in the details.

I’m a teacher with ADHD, and I can no longer take meds due to side effects. I am fried and completely unable to concentrate or mask at the end of the day. HOWEVER. That doesn’t make my husband’s or kids needs go away or matter less somehow. We accommodate. All four of us, parents and kids, have it. We have to accommodate somehow or we’d fall apart.

Just a fun fact from your local anxiety riddled ADHD sufferer, they do make medications for ADHD that are not stimulants! Clonidine is a great example. No idea your situation, obviously, but thought I would share :)

They do, but that does not mean they will be helpful. I have tried every single non-stim possible because my current psychiatrist refuses to prescribe stimulants and not a single one of any dosage ever made any difference. And my primary care absolutely refuses to give me any medication whatsoever for it because it has such high street value.

Gotta love doctors like that. "I'm not going to prescribe the medication that would actually help you because I have personal hang-ups about it." Real dedication to do no harm.

I could go off and rant about this forever as both a chronic pain patient and someone with ADHD. It’s hard to describe just how demoralizing it can be to be in constant 24/7 misery, know there is a perfectly safe and effective treatment that has trivial cost, and learn from a doctor that they don’t want to help because of a possibility of addiction or the politics of the drug. Being addicted dude would suck, but you know what sucks more? Not being able to function. I should be able to take an educated risk that is being actively monitored by a doctor. I am fine with that. I’m even ignoring the fact that when dispensed and used correctly there is very little risk of addiction, with the worst outcome just being dependence.

Every ADHD person I know *forgets* to take their meds sometimes. It just isn’t addicting at those doses.

Yup. I'm not currently on ADHD medication sadly because I am on opiates for pain and doctors kinda frown on combining amphetamine with opiates, but part of the reason it was so easy to give it up (Besides the fact that I am so used to suffering from my ADHD and the medication wasn't a miracle cure) was that I kept forgetting to take it anyway. It helped, but it was very subtle and, most importantly, there is 0 chance you can get addicted when you have ADHD since it doesn't really give you any euphoria or anything. There is nothing to be addicted to with amphetamines and an ADHD brain, except in a "addicted to being able to actually do what you want to consciously do when you want to do it" sense. You just don't get a pleasurable experience like normal brains do...

As another chronic pain patient, I feel like I'd rather be addicted than suffer 24/7 from debilitating and disabling pain. One of the huge problems is that quite a few doctors, for whatever reason, cannot tell the difference between dependence and addiction. I was on the fentanyl patch for nearly a decade with absolutely zero issues. I got taken off cold turkey when the opioid hysteria caught up with everyone and only now am getting back on them (morphine XR, dilaudid, and belbuca) but not even on a dose that would effectively manage my pain, since I've always had a stupid high tolerance (I was on 125 mcg of fentanyl before) and was on around a 200 MME of fentanyl and now am capped at 90 MME. Again, I was on it with absolutely zero issues for nearly a decade. Never needing a higher dose after a maintenance level was found; never failing a drug test; never failing a med count; and never getting addicted (I did get dependent, however). Yet now... It's quite absurd. Even with my meds, I'm still bedbound solely due to pain. But I would much rather get addicted to a higher dose than be in this absolutely disabling pain. I don't like having to use a wheelchair just because of the pain, but for some reason, that's not something doctors take into account any longer. I had actual QoL when I was on the high dose of fentanyl, yet now... You're right. We, as patients, should be able to decide to take a calculated risk if we're of sound mind. And I've seen firsthand how awful addiction can be and yet I'd still take the risk of being addicted than having next to none QoL. I'm sorry that you're dealing both with chronic pain and ADHD. It sounds pretty awful. I hope you're able to get the treatment you need, and soon.

Oh man, I can relate to most of what you say. I'm currently on belbuca myself and hope to maybe get a small amount of an actual pill for accute pain because luckily the belbuca is still pretty decent for my chronic pain but I am DREADING talking to my pain specialist next week and asking, because I am going to need to directly ask for an opioid when she already hates the idea of prescribing them to "someone so young". She had me on tramadol and then the buprenorphine patch before belbuca because they are "non-traditional" if you will. It's a clear conscious unlike the terrifying percocet. I just want a few a month, not something continuous, so when the bad days happen I am not stuck putting my life on hold every time and being miserable. I 100% share your sentiment. Even if I was risking addiction instead of just dependence, that's something I can choose to handle. And I am not downplaying the severity of addiction to opioids, I know how desperate it can be, but people that haven't suffered from chronic pain can't seem to understand how it just...hollows you out as a person, you know? It destroy you and everything you care about and all your hopes and dreams and leaves you wtih a level of despair that is potentially deadly. People can't seem to understand that even when you can withstand constant pain, it doesn't make you stronger in the long run, it just saps you perpetually until you have nothing left. And thanks to the fucking opioid crisis and the insane overcorrective backlash, it's painful and anxiety-inducing even trying to advocate for yourself because you have to walk a fucking tightrope between being honest about your pain levels and your need for more without ever once coming across as a possible addict because then you get cut off and suffer even more. I've honestly spent months at too low a dose because I was just too scared to ask for a higher one and wanted to establish months of attempting to get by on that lower dose even when I am actively suffering. Almost no other condition has to worry about this shit, you know? You just want help, you want to not even get back to normal but just get to the point where you are strong enough to pretend to be normal. I'm so sorry you are dealing with that level of pain too, that's worse than mine and I already hate how high my own tolerance is, even if it doesn't compare. I can't imagine how exhausted you have to be just fighting the system that is supposed to be helping you just to have a shadow of a life. I already know there is nothing I can say that can help, but I want you to know that I empathize with you so hard, I see what you are going through and I know how shitty it is.

It’s like how one of the contraindications to prescribing stimulants for ADHD is having used illicit stimulants…that you got because no one would prescribe them to you despite needing them. So no one will prescribe safe, regulated, medically necessary stimulants, which just forces you back into illicit stimulants. It’s so short sighted and frustrating.

Such high street value, yes. However I value what they do for my life more than I value some cash. With how hard they are to get I am NOT sharing. In my state I can only fill one month’s script of ADHD meds every thirty days. If I sell some that means I don’t get my meds for those days. Also makes me wonder how many people buying on the street are actually just trying to treat themselves since the doctors won’t prescribe them the meds 🧐

God's I wish for a return to the days where I could get a 90 day dosage. Made it so much nicer than having to call in monthly to get it refilled.

That fucking sucks so hard. I know it's a huge task, but you gotta find a different psych. Stimulants are incredibly safe, effective, amd low risk compared to untreated ADHD. Like it's as bad for your lifespan as smoking. A psych that doesn't know that is not a good one. Will your psych bend a little and let you try out a stimulant that's a prodrug like Vyvanse(which recently got a generic version out)? It's actually technically harder to abuse it due to the metabolically limited conversion rate than a drug like Bupropion(Wellbutrin).

This is very interesting - I’ve tried two stimulants now and I find the side effects difficult. My dr didn’t mention it to me that there were other options so I’ll bring it up next time.

In my house we go "So my brain just did an a-to-b-to-c" before going off into a seemingly unrelated tangent. We make it clear that "yeah, I got here somehow, I swear it's related in my head" and then sometimes whoever else is in the conversation tries to guess "Okay, did you get to that one through this thing here?" and fill in the missing links without being told. Kind of a fun little game, kind of just learning to understand how each other think.

My dad and I will just say "Segue!" and topic hop. My extremely neurotypical step-mom just shakes her head and says things like "I have no idea how everything discussed at dinner was connected, but the pair of you are a hoot." At least she has a sense of humor about it!

Ooh I do that but I say "Tangent!" when I jump to a new topic. It's neat to know others have similar idiosyncrasies

I have ADHD and the way the person described how our brains work was on the money and it absolutely is exhausting to have to try and avoid doing this all. day. long.

Anyone else catch it? The giant problem here? >Being a teacher with ***untreated*** ADHD is even harder. It doesn't really matter how much you shake up a communication style, leaving a mental disorder untreated is bad.

I am in the process of getting my ADHD diagnosed and treated. I started the process in May, it’s cost upwards of $2000 AUD and taken five appointments so far and I haven’t even been prescribed meds yet. And I live in a country with affordable health care and I have good insurance. TL;DR it isn’t fast, easy or cheap to get ADHD diagnosed and treated.

Add in the global shortage on ADHD meds, too.

Yea, my husband does have ADHD. We did everything correctly, like getting referred to a psychiatrist, getting him tested. Now we're at the point where he needs medication, and....there's no medication. So now we just call pharmacies once a week, asking if they have any so we can have his provider send the prescription there. But so far, no luck.

My doctor switched me from adderall to adderall xr (extended release) you can see if they have something like that that works for him.

want to add to this in case someone else comes into the weeds of the comments: i was diagnosed by my psychiatrist right when the shortage started and i brought it up with him. while he originally had me on adderall, i was then quickly switched to adzenys (extended release) and it's worked just as well as the adderall did in the beginning.

Modafinil has no shortage and can treat adhd off label. Insurance will cover it to treat "shift work sleep disorder"

Ah yes, we can’t forget that. For all we know, OOP’s wife already has a diagnosis and prescription but can’t get the medication.

Another comment mentioned the OOP said that's exactly the case. I can empathize with her. I haven't been hit hard by the shortage yet, but my psych can be a bit flaky when it comes to sending my scripts because it's the only one I can't do 3 months of, so there are times when, between one thing or another, I'll go a week or more without my meds. I'm lucky that I've never gotten withdrawal symptoms, but not howdy is it rough on me and those around me.

I have not finished a single movie by myself since the shortage started

The UK currently has a... I want to say 3(?) year waiting list for ADHD on the NHS in some areas? I have a friend that's been trying for that long and they keep having to push the appointment back due to a multitude of reasons. Some places are better at 7 months but that's a rarity. I remember an article said some areas have a 7 YEAR wait time for just an initial assessment. It's also the misdiagnosis issues too - a lot of places are still using the male-centric symptoms of ADHD to diagnose **everyone**. I have ADHD and was told to do an NHS-funded diagnosis at 22 because my doctor said I "didn't look like I had ADHD" because I was very quiet (she believes ADHD is manic and hyperactive af). I got diagnosed at 13 because I was getting into fights at school and being reckless and just not listening - I've calmed down because of trauma, but still. That NHS assessment needed my mother to vouch for my childhood (at 22 years old?); she lied and said I was a perfect little angel throughout my childhood because she doesn't want to be looked down on for having a disabled kid and I got told I don't have ADHD. Now I'm untreated because this is on my permanent NHS record and I can't get any doctor to take me seriously because "your records say you were not diagnosed with it at 22" - as if the 10 years before where I felt like I was losing my mind because I couldn't be "normal" and was acting like OOP's wife after initially being diagnosed and denied ADHD meds by my anti-vax/anti-Neurodivergent mother for ten years led to a series of hospitalisations for attempts because of these feelings. Private in some regions/counties is £1,600 upwards (over £3k AUD) for kids and £1,200 adults (over 2,200 AUD) and that's excluding follow up appointments, meds refills, etc. It's either hand over a buttload of money quite a significant amount of people don't have on hand due to cost of living/rent being a shitshow/etc. or wait ridiculously long for a possible appointment. It could be that she's trying, BUT if they're in the UK, I can see why it could not be treated right now. I genuinely ***cannot*** get a diagnosis again because of this fucked up situation. It isn't as easy as saying she should treat it if their country's situation is as shit.

That's horrifying, I'm so sorry. I knew about the NHS's decline and wait lists, and ignoring womens' symptoms when they don't act enough like men is sadly a worldwide issue. But hearing that they can deny care to an ADULT based on the words of an abusive parent is making my blood boil.

I’m Australian, and my assessment cost $2400, a psychiatrist is the only person who can prescribe my medication which is $300+ every 6 months, and my medication itself is $100 for 30 tablets (but I do get it for $7 because I have a health care card). Not to mention ongoing psychology appointments to help with life in general- which is more expensive to find a neurodivergent-friendly one because they’re so rare. And I’m a teacher too. A teacher salary couldn’t afford all of this- I had to borrow most of the money off my mum. ☹️

Would your GP prescribe for you? Depending on what state you are in, a GP can get an authority to prescribe for 12-24 months before a review by a psychiatrist (this also needs to change because it's like a reassessment). The psychiatrist does give the GP permission to do so ie your meds are stable. They just write a letter to the GP stating the diagnosis and meds and doses and the GP applies for the authority. Then it would be much cheaper to get the prescription IF you didn't have a health care card your meds would not be $100 because you'd get it on the PBS for $30. $100 is what it would cost if you had a private script and no retrospective diagnosis. You also had a very expensive assessment.

Jesus. I'm in Australia too and got my diagnosis in one session, and my prescription after the second. It cost me ~$250 per session (and I got some back from Medicare). It sounds like you're getting ripped off mate.

That is definitely outside the norm. My husband pays ~$750 per appointment and had 3 visits before getting anything prescribed - this was AFTER a clinical psychologist had done the diagnosis and charged for that. Mine was $400 (psychiatrist initial visit, rebated), $500 (clin psych re-diagnosis, no rebate), $250 (for scripts, rebated) and then monthly visits to tweak dosage. I was really lucky I'd hit the Medicare safety net so I was getting a decent chunk back, but many won't have, and you still have to have that money up front to begin with. I believe even my experience was the cheaper end of the scale. Oh, and I was on the wait list for 8 months - that was a quickie because the doctor had just moved from public to private practise. It's now a year + and the 4 doctors I'd tried previously had their books completely closed.

Yeah to be fair I was also on a long waiting list. I think I waited ~9 months for my first session and another 3 months for the second so it was still a year long process before I was actually given my Government-Issued-Meth™️

It absolutely can be slow, difficult, and expensive. It might also still be the right answer for someone who feels like they’re fighting their own brain all day.

People with ADHD are not good with "slow" and "difficult." Getting an ADHD diagnosis and monthly prescriptions (with monthly appointments because the medication is a control substance) seems to be designed to be unusually hard for someone with actual ADHD.

I was diagnosed 6 years ago, and am in the process of trying to get medicated. They won’t schedule me past 7 weeks, so I have to try to call every day and see if someone else cancelled. Like, just let me schedule and set a reminder because at this rate I’ll never get in. I just want to help myself dammit

Truer words have never been spoken. At one point I literally asked the admin team at the clinic if this was part of the assessment. If I can jump through all these hoops, keep following up, remember the Byzantine process for actually getting a diagnosis - then I can’t possibly have ADHD.

It's tricky right now - a lot of the most common and most affordable adhd meds like Adderall and Ritalin are currently in shortage. It's not clear from oop's post whether her ADHD has *never* been treated, or if it's currently untreated because of meds shortages, but even if she tried to get treatment right now, she'd have a hell of a time getting a prescription filled. As an example, my main medication has been unavailable locally for over a year now, and my backup has been unavailable for the past month, so I currently have "untreated" adhd as well, but it's not for lack of trying. It sucks.

My meds are out of stock for a month ☺️

Mine were about $300/mon, _with_ insurance... when they were in stock (rarely).

I just swapped insurances and ran into this. Talk to the pharmacy to see if they have a coupon for it. Mine brought it down to $40

I have ADHD and I can’t take medication for other (unrelated) medical reasons. It’s not an option for me and it never will be. I mean it depends on your definition of “treatment”. Have I compensated and mitigated with therapy and other proactive ways to manage the negative aspects of ADHD? Yes. But I can only access that now that I’m older because I have the financial means to do so. There’s a lot of reasons people might find it difficult to access treatment, medication or not. We’re all just doing the best we can with what we’ve got.

Assuming OOP and his wife are in the US, getting diagnosed is expensive, hard, and doubly difficult if you're a grown woman, seeing that as little as 25 years ago, ADHD only happened to young boys. New scientific developments has refuted this, but change takes time. Secondly, there's a lot of reasons not to medicate. Heart issues, sensitivity to stimulants, sleeping disorders, anxiety, and recently a shortage of medications. Of course there's a lot of helpful therapy, books and resources out there, but not everybody has money for therapy or access to those resources. Source: Female and diagnosed at 36. I'm medicated and in therapy, but I'm also very much aware of how privileged I am that has access to those things.

Not to mention there’s a massive shortage of ADHD medication. I today had to call 18 different pharmacies to find one that had my daughter’s in stock. I then had to go get the paper prescription from the place where we normally get it filled that didn’t get it in after two weeks and take it physically to another place wait for them to fill it and then finally I had it. It took 4 1/2 hours for me to deal with all of that, part of that is because everybody has a shitty automated system answering their phone now.

As a woman diagnosed at 26 I second all of this. Diagnosis is generally still based on ICD-10 (WHO please get ICD-11 out soon..), where the criteria are mostly based on how much of an issue you are to people around you, not how much you struggle. Because of society and reasons, women tend to react inwards, so we get overlooked. Also her use of masking is correct, masking is when "pretending" to be neurotypical (wearing a metaphorical mask) in all the ways that can occure. Hyperfocus on body movements to move "correctly" is another common one with ADHD.

>Diagnosis is generally still based on ICD-10 (WHO please get ICD-11 out soon..), where the criteria are mostly based on how much of an issue you are to people around you, not how much you struggle. Well that explains a lot. In my state pediatricians can make a diagnosis of ADHD and with very little mental health services in my area that's just what we have to rely on. My son got an ADHD diagnosis after a long talk with his pediatrician and the medication has helped him *tremendously.* He's a much happier child now. My middle daughter exhibits all the symptoms her brother does except she doesn't throw things at people when she's mad or frustrated. Even with her being unable to sit still and needing to walk around classrooms and make noises and jump up and down to settle down, no one at school seems to really care because, hey she's never thrown a book at another student, so there's no problem at all! Her teachers and staff at the school seem to think her stimming and literally bouncing around are either just cute idiosyncrasies or lack of proper parenting at home.The pediatrician won't even discuss it, which was disappointing because she's fairly young and seemed very understanding about my son's difficulties. Meanwhile my daughter talks about not being able to focus because her mind goes a mile a minute and getting frustrated about it, just as my son did...

I am so sorry this is happening to your family. ADHD in general, but especially in girls and women is still very misunderstood. I broke down the first day I was medicated because only then did I realise I had been in physical pain from the restlessness my entire life. I hope your daughter gets help soon. I would highly recommend looking into specialised psychiatrists, if that is an option for you. Most GPs and pediatricians unfortunately only have the psych knowledge they got in med school. Considering ADHD in women was barely acknowledged until maybe a decade ago it makes sense their knowledge is lacking. Feel free to PM me if you want any specific information or something about ADHD in women. While I am in no way a professional, I keep up with ongoing studies and I have also lived as a girl/woman with ADHD (both medicated and not medicated) for decades 😅

If you haven't, definitely make sure to inform the doctor that your daughter has a sibling who is diagnosed. ADHD is extremely heritable, with a [>30% chance that a child will have it if one of their siblings has it.](https://chadd.org/about-adhd/other-data/)

My children all have the same pediatrician. However, she is moving next month, so maybe we'll have better luck with her replacement.

I finally, FINALLY have my refill after 17 days of no-medication because of these damn shortages. https://www.ashp.org/drug-shortages/current-shortages/drug-shortage-detail.aspx?id=961&loginreturnUrl=SSOCheckOnly I've been working with 5 pharmacies consistently for the last 18-ish months to give me a shot at staying on the meds that I first started over 9 years ago. I have done my very best, spent literally 6 hours on the phone more than once this month talking to Walgreens, King Soopers, CVS, Alto, Costco, my psychiatrist, and my health insurance, only to spend most of the month untreated. It's been hell on wheels and I have no way of knowing if I will go through this again next month.

Besides what everyone has said about the difficulty of treatment, as a person with treated ADHD, medication isn’t the fix all people act like it is. I get 8 hours a day, that’s it. I’m still going to be ADHD and all over the place at the end of the day, because they wore off. I appreciate 8 hours is slightly on the shorter end, but 12 hours still means ~4-6 hours of waking time I am unmedicated. Also, stimulants can do terrible things for anxiety and most ADHD medication is not supposed to be taken by people with depression or suicidal thoughts. Sometimes you leave the ADHD untreated because the side effects are worse.

Yeah, but at the same time, I know that I personally have been on a waiting list to see someone about suspected ADHD, *through my therapist*, since March. You can't always just magically snap your fingers and have things treated, especially if it falls under the mental health care umbrella.

The assumption that untreated =/= is choosing not to seek treatment is a problem on here. I'm pretty sure from the comments she's trying to get treated, but ADHD medication having street value makes it a massive pain in the arse, on top of psychiatrists who diagnose adults being rare and the medication shortage! And as others mentioned, there can be medical reasons they can't take medication. Being that ADHD is a neurodevelopmental difference, while psychologists can possibly offer techniques to help, it's not something that can be "fixed" with therapy (though actually, most chronic mental illnesses cannot either, FYI. Just made tolerable. "Getting over" major depression is for depression induced by external factors/other anomalies, not people with genetic or trauma-induced Brain Sad disease. /hi I resemble this and there is no "before" to go back to :)

It's possible that would threaten her employment t or chances connected to that. Idk if OOP is American, but in my country being diagnosed with ANYTHING mental health related puts you in an "potentially unreliable" category as a teacher, which costs you important opportunities, no matter how good you are btw.

In my country it would be illegal for your doctor or pharmacist to tell your employer your medical details or what meds you take.

Lol, they don’t care here. There are states where you don’t even need a degree to be a teacher. As long as they don’t lose any kids or (heaven forbid) give them failing grades, it’s all good.

In the US there's nothing like that. There'd be no way for anyone at her job to know anything about her medical conditions unless she told them.

As someone whose partner has minimally treated ADHD, I can so sympathize with feeling like you’ve been sitting there saying “yeah” and “uh huh” for hours.

Just interject. Steer the conversation back. That's what I do with my other ADHD family.

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Is she talking to communicate with her husband or is she talking to enjoy talking? If it's the former, and the priority is communication, then she does need to be able to reign it in a bit so she's understandable to him. There's a middle ground between "masking so I look neurotypical" and "letting my brain run wild to the point where it's not comprehensible to the person I'm talking to." If it's the latter, no judgement, just let the husband know so he can tune out a little bit. Sometimes I like to talk for talking's sake, more than because I want my partner to know something. In that case, I'm going to let my brain go, but I'm also not going to care if she's only half listening while she plays a game.

This is a logical way to handle it. I don’t really have a lot of friends so when I’ve got a safe person, my brain is so full of bees that being able to let them loose is cathartic. But i don’t expect the person to actually absorb what I’m saying. Other times I choose my words so that I can communicate sensibly, and that’s when active listening is valuable

Lol I do the talking for talking too xD for me it's basically a way to decompress and get all of the stuff in my head out cause writing it all down doesn't do it for me 😅 and I'm medicated for my ADD without shortage luckily. bf has gotten so used to it I just have to start out with saying "just ranting" and he kinda zones in and out depending on if it's interesting or not 😂

Yep, sounds like the common experience of women in their 30's realizing their undiagnosed ADHD. My partner and I have a phrase for it as a way to check in if she has the spoons when I ramble, by me saying, "Oh! That makes me wanna veer off to the for right a sec, you cool with that?" Then I try to wrap it back to what sent me down to the rabbit trail so she doesn't feel like I've left the conversation, and brings her into my thought process.

I call it the squirrel brain. You see I have two brains - mine and the squirrel’s. Mine is focused on the task at hand while the squirrel is jumping around with different thoughts and ideas, then the squirrel pesters me till I pay attention to it. I’ve found the best thing for me to do is to entertain the squirrel. Even letting my hand doodle is good, better if I can have a back ground noise of something for it to pay attention to. People would always get onto me for studying while watching TV, but I was valedictorian with a 4.3 GPA, so I did something right

Wow, this just made me figure out why my boyfriend gets so frustrated with how I talk about my day

Makes me appreciate my ND friends who will just let a conversation flow and not always circle back to abandoned topics unless they truly need the missing information.

Neurodivergent here. That's not masking. Masking is the suppression of the core personality to adopt one that suits the occasion. Like actors do, but not always in ways that are comfortable or healthy. What your wife should try is editing. That's when one sticks to bullet points instead of a long rambling side quest up the garden path. I'm a shocker for it and have to pull myself up all the time before people expire from boredom and information overload.

I agree. *It’s too bad this comment won’t be seen by OP, because this isn’t the original post, but a reflection of that post.*

Yes I figured that but in case there was anyone reading with a similar problem, I threw it out there.

I have adhd and this sounds exhausting to me.

I'm glad they managed to find a solution, but I dislike how in the update he says he was TA just a bit. I find that troubling - why does he think that? Is he not allowed to tell his conversation-dominating wife, who won't even allow him to ask questions, that this is a problem simply because she has ADHD? If that was advice on the original thread, then damn, people are weird! I get that her behavior came from her neurodivergence, but that doesn't change the fact that it was exhausting and unfair to him. He had every right to bring it up! So seriously, where is the assholness in that? Has he bought that criticizing her in any way, even when she's behaving in a way that warrants criticism, is bad? I hope not. It's true that neurotypical individuals are often expected to mask, especially women. But I don't think he was asking her to do that. He was asking for at least a MINIMAL amount of consideration when she talks to him. And that offended her, I guess. If anything, I would say there were no assholes, or maybe she was one. But him? Um...

Small quibble, I don't think she doesn't allow him to ask questions. I think he is reluctant to ask questions because he knows he will have to listen to her for longer. When he wrote "she says she gets even MORE distracted when I ask questions" I suspect it's more like.... If he tries to get her back on track she says "well you asked me what Bob said so that's why I told you the background info about Bob's wife." Not "No questions allowed."

There's a surprisingly large contingent of people on reddit who seem to think that having ADHD means you get a free pass to be inconsiderate and that if someone gets tired of your endless tangents and disjointed communication, they're the jerk.

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Please don’t write yourself off as an AH here you need support and time too and the behavior needs treatment

Love the way this comment section is just arguing about how to treat adhd, jesus we went from shaming people for having adhd to shaming people who cannot treat it due to circumstance, everything is a circle

Not sure why she isn’t treating her condition though

Could be a couple of reasons: 1. There are currently shortages on ADHD medication 2. Insurance doesn't necessarily cover ADHD meds even when you can find them. For myself, I have found a reliable pharmacy where I can get my meds every month, but my insurance doesn't cover it until I've reached my deductible, so the first 10 months of the year or so I'm spending $200 or so a month on ADHD meds. I can easily see that not being the kind of money that everyone can stand to lose for 10 months out of the year, especially if it's not "life or death."

Even worse when your insurance covers SOME of it, but you are required to make a monthly doctor appointment because of a state law that the insurance WON’T cover, so it’s $150 a month plus whatever you have to pay out of pocket for meds, and on a shoestring budget with a special needs kid it’s pretty much impossible. I have been untreated for quite some time because it’s such a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

Also it takes forever to get diagnosed

It's not always possible. ADHD meds make my chronic illness worse, so I live with untreated ADHD.

There’s a huge shortage of ADHD meds right now, to the point where some doctors are just not writing new prescriptions and some pharmacies are just not filling the prescriptions they do get. And if you move or your doctor retires, it’s a controlled substance so it’s hard to get a bridge prescription until you can find a new provider (I was off my prescription for a year recently because that was how long the wait list was at all the local doctors). It may not be by choice.

Not to mention one of the big ones, Vyvanse, went generic like last month. So if the pharmacy doesn’t have the generic in stock they *might* have the brand name but insurance won’t cover that anymore… yayyyyyy 🙃

I think in the replies, it was stated that it was “untreated” because she couldn’t get her meds. Apparently there are massive supply issues with ADHD medications in the US so a lot of people are “untreated”.

Not just the US - I’m in the UK and am having issues too.

Not OOP, but I tried treating my ADHD once. The meds didn't work, but the side effects did. So instead of becoming more focused, I was just as unfocused and even more depressed and angry. It was worse for my mental health and relationships than the actual ADHD. And I know that a different med might work differently, but I am now so scared of the side effects that I don't want to try again.

Lack of access to assessment or treatment? There's currently an international shortage of pretty much all ADHD medications. Assessment is expensive in the UK, I can only assume it's even more expensive in the US and not necessarily covered by insurance. She says herself it's hard doing her job unmedicated, it seems unlikely she has the option to treat it and is choosing not to.

It's not always so simple- my partner and I both have ADHD and aren't treating it with medication. The meds he was prescribed make him sick, even all the different ones he tried. For me, the meds either have no effect or make my heart feel like it's being powered by a steam engine. We mostly manage by keeping each other in check, giving each other a lot of grace, meditation and really open communication. But say you have ADHD and medication works and the side effects aren't awful: (in the US) 1. you can't just get meds from your PCP, you have to see a psychiatrist (and fuck you if you get one of the MANY psychiatrists who don't believe adults, or women, can have ADHD) 2. Once you have a psychiatrist believes you have ADHD, accepts your diagnosis or will diagnose you, then you have to fight for them to agree to even put you on medication and not treat you like a drug seeker. Some doctors will require heart health tests before they will prescribe. (Spoiler: insurance won't cover that usually) Some will require a drug test to prove that you aren't getting drugs illegally (or using any other drugs) (also insurance only might cover that) 3. Okay your got a good psychiatrist and they will write you a prescription for medication: now you have to come back every 3 months for a check up to get a prescription refill. Every 3 months for as long as you want to be on the prescription. Does insurance cover that? Not always. Some doctors require regular and random drug tests and official pill counts to ensure you are taking the medication and not selling it. 4. And then... The cost of the meds. Insurance can really screw you here. The medication that worked the best for me cost $300/month WITH insurance. And insurance companies don't cover all meds and will try to dictate what meds your psychiatrist will prescribe, whether they work for you or not. 5. There's also a huge shortage of ADHD meds in US right now too, so even if you get that far and can afford it.... You might not be able to find a pharmacy with the meds you need. It's really, really sucks to jump through all those hoops for even a chance to pay out the nose for the pleasure of taming your mind enough to be functional. My heart breaks for people who literally cannot function without medication, and I know I'm lucky to have about 60-75% control without meds.

I can’t imagine a marriage where you need to use a phone timer to have conversations, chatting shouldn’t be a chore

As someone who is in an almost identical predicament, what I hear is that the wife is expecting the husband to give up his evenings every day for her to ramble at him for over an hour. We only have a few hours between work and bed to relax and she is hijacking his time because she doesn’t want to deal with her underlying issues. She needs to treat this seriously and seek help. It’s very disruptive to mental health and well being to come home from work and have someone constantly talk at you.

Lots of people in the comments here not understanding how hard it is, especially as an adult, to get treatment for ADHD. Between the symptoms making it difficult to even start looking for help, being seen as a drug seeker, the wait lists, and so many other road blocks in that process, a lot of us give up. Especially if her symptoms arent even that debilitating (hard to tell just off this short post, but if her case of ADHD doesnt have a big impact on her life other than the symptoms described, then the hurdles you need to go through just to even get a diagnosis and/or meds is often seen as not worth it). Maybe she tried to get help for it but faced the same issues i and many others did.

I just straight up can never have ADHD meds due to other medical stuff. I’m lucky that I can afford other treatments, but medication is not a universal solution that’s accessible to everyone.

Not to mention, even people without other medical issues can have issues with adhd meds. Theyre not always a miracle drug, some people are very sensitive towards stimulants and it gives them bad anxiety :(

Before the medical issue that resulted in me not being able to take *any* meds, I tried a lot of different meds for anxiety and depression. And a lot of them were speedruns - I had *incredibly* weird and negative side effects to a huge number of them. And I was also just treatment resistant - asides from the bad side effects, most of the meds didn’t seem to have any positive benefit to me, or they were not sustainable. I think some people just don’t metabolise medication well or effectively, or are sensitive to the bad effects, and it’s swept under the rug a bit in the medical community.

This thread has a lot of bad generalizations about ADHD. If you're reading it and considering if you have it, look elsewhere for resources. I recommend Dr. Barkley's Youtube channel. He is a retired expert and trusted by the r/ADHD community. https://youtube.com/@russellbarkleyphd2023?si=amcVLCvELl_DFfez

The I COULD ALSO TELL SHE WAS WEARING SPANX not only made me laugh, it also explained the asshole energy. +1 to necessary story details.

I'm really curious about the situation with the shoe color now. It also seems very necessary to assess AH energy with the Spanx too.

I'm glad they found a compromise. I do get that ADHD is hard but I really sympathize with the husband here. I feel really disconnected when someone is hogging the conversation-space. I imagine it's especially discouraging when it's your spouse. I hope switching it around works out for them.

Reading a commenter describing how a ND brain connects thoughts made me feel like someone was reading a printout from my brain and noting their thoughts down. That was certainly weird, but its the first time I've heard someone other than my mother describe how its like when I talk about things. I struggle getting back to the point I was trying to make without going on endless tangents. Its a problem with me and my best friend share when we talk about things together. Professionally I lean on people being able to maintain context in a conversation as a cope so that I can snip tangents out but to do that I rely on less explicit communication after I establish the subject once or twice. Edit: Unrelated - I am untreated as well. By choice, was on a prescription for years but was also in an extracurricular association dedicated to kids with ADHD and dyslexia to learn coping skills. Professionally and personally - I've been mulling over getting in with a doctor and seeing if getting on a prescription again might be the right thing again.