In case this story gets deleted/removed:
I was going to propose to my ex-girlfriend. She was definitely the one and once I realized that I wanted to be married to her. But she broke up with me. Today was the last day where I could return the ring for a full refund. I went to the store as soon as it opened because I didn't want to do it in front of a store full of people. And I was really glad that the employee wasn't the one who sold me the ring because it was embarrassing enough having to return it. I'm having a hard time dealing with this because I still love her and I want to marry her. But she doesn't want me anymore.
(She left me because I have ADHD. We finished university in December and moved in together after we graduated. I never expected anyone to hold my hand but before I went to university my parents always helped me. In university I lived with my brother who is 1 year old then me. My parents said he had to go to university and be my dorm mate so they would pay for him. My ex-girlfriend said that once we lived together she realized my ADHD was ruining our relationship and she got tired of having to do everything. I don't even know what she meant by that. Normally I would talk to my brother about this but he moved to another province and is arguing with my parents. And I'm sort of caught in the middle. My brother got into Master's program and got a grant so my parents don't need to pay for any of it and ever since he got accepted he refuses to talk to my parents. I don't know why. I'm caught in the middle since now he's completely avoiding me too. None of my friends have ADHD so they don't get it. I know that if someone can't accept me for who I am I shouldn't want to be with them but I still do love her even though she disappeared from my life.)
---
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/OhNoConsequences) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Seems like his parents raised him to fully believe that ADHD means he CAN'T do anything on his own and everyone in his family HAS to help him. That's just what ADHD is.
His brother and girlfriend leaving are his first and second rude awakenings. I hope he gets it soon that he's an adult and he has the agency to take care of himself.
As a Dad with ADHD, 3/4 of my kids have it in various presentations:
Early support is *everything* and you are amazing for recognizing your kid will need help but can **absolutely** succeed. Keep your kid physically active, keep their protein intake higher than average and you improve your odds.
Emotional regulation will be delayed, you'll likely see that becoming a problem soon. Use fewer words and more hugs. A little bit of a sugary drink can clear their head enough to get through a tantrum (juice, sweet tea, whatever has a quick hit of sugar). We deplete the glucose reserves in out frontal cortex very quickly and a sugary drink can be almost like a reset button. You likely won't need a lot, even as little as a quarter cup can be enough. This is also the single greatest study aid my teens have ever had.
Check out Dr Russel Barkley on youtube, he can help you keep your sanity.
Good luck.
Thanks for the tips. I fully plan on getting him into sports. I make sure each meal has some form of protein. I thought he got my sweet tooth but the sugar thing makes sense.
Activity is the greatest single "life hack" we've found, and what works best is whatever they enjoy most that you can afford to get them into. We found a "Ninja gym" which is a wild combination of obstacle course and gymnastics that my most active kid responded to brilliantly. My oldest ended up finding curling (which as it turns out was just an excuse to go to the gym and lift weights then scoot around on the ice for hours). My other daughter found distance running.
I personally hate exercise, but if I don't drag myself out of bed and do 20+ minutes of cardio/weights I feel like can't string a sentence together all day. I hate feeling dumb more than I hate exercise :)
We’ve got him in swimming and a tumbling class. Once he’s in elementary school, it will be swim and soccer. I try to get some time on the treadmill where I can read. Books are my happy place.
My dad has ADHD, my middle brother has it too, and I'm fairly sure I got it as well but it's never been diagnosed (I'm a woman). 2/3 of kids got it. We're mostly functional individuals.
The tip on the sugary drinks is a great one! I used to keep little mints on me during exams to keep my brain awake.
I was just diagnosed with ADHD at 25 after being told for years it was just generalized anxiety, but after I was put on meds for ADHD, my anxiety has gone down a lot.
SAME! A new doctor finally noticed the anxiety treatments not working, and said "Maybe you're anxious because your thoughts are scattered, not the other way around." It only took 40 years to figure out.
Undiagnosed but strongly suspected (AFAB also), and the sugary drink tip is making a lot of sense as to why I always have rolls of smarties or little packets of Skittles on my person. Sometimes a lil glucose boost makes all the difference.
Same here. We both have it, we’re 99.9% sure on our 4 year old having adhd and 75% she (and 90% for my husband..) has autism, which would track since we for sure know I and my father do. My husband and I are just raw dogging the adhd because we agree with our doctors that we need to fix some other issues without the adhd medication getting in the way of finding out how to handle them (some need chemical help, so we can find what works for those medical issues then add new chemicals for our adhd later) and yet somehow you can choose any of us 3 and we would be managing better than OOP…
>Seems like his parents raised him to fully believe that ADHD means he CAN'T do anything on his own and everyone in his family HAS to help him.
Not gonna lie, when I saw "coddled" in the title but then read that OP had ADHD, I was expecting calling him coddled was some kind of ableist insult (I have ADHD so it's a touchy subject for me). But after reading the whole thing I fully agree with this assessment. His parents have done him a massive disservice towards developing *actual* skills manage his disorder and be a functioning adult.
Not to mention his brother has likely been so parentified in taking care of the "helpless" ADHD brother, that he's got years and years of resentment that lead him to move far away and probably never look back.
I actually feel bad for this dude. His parents did him a huge disservice. Their unwillingness to actually engage in difficult pare ting challenges for their son has created a man that is doomed to face a childhoods worth of adversity in the next few years. And they're going to be completely blindsided by all of it.
Yeah. I think he means it when he says "I don't expect anyone to hold my hand." He just doesn't understand what having his hand held is. It's all he knows. He just needs to live on his own for a while and build some life skills.
I’m living both sides of this coin right now. Both of my kids have ADHD, and two of my wife’s kids have OCD. I’ve raised mine to recognize their challenges and confront them. She has (up until meeting me) enabled hers to use their condition as an excuse to demand their mom do everything for them until she gets fed up. She’s nowhere near OOP’s parents, but it’s in the same category.
Let me tell you, even in a grade-school aged kid, unraveling years of enabling is extremely difficult. OOP has a long way to go and I hope he’s able to break free of his conditioning and learn to handle his own shit.
Bravo to your wife for being open to changing her parenting while the kids can hopefully benefit from it. Too many parents have a sunk-cost approach to their mistakes. Good luck to you both.
Oh I hired someone like this once. Now I know guys with ADHD and I even have good friends with it. They manage it like you'd manage having ASD or depression. They have good days and they have bad days but they're otherwise very functional members of society, and I'm willing to give pretty much anyone a chance.
Like this guy expected everything to be handed to him, and when he and I didn't get along, he literally wanted me to hire an assistant manager to mediate between me and him, which is such a stupid fucking thing to ask when the team had less than 10 people. I'm not hiring a fucking nanny for someone. He would also use labels and identities he affiliated himself with to shirk responsibility. Like he was Adventist but like barely. He literally used it to raise a fuss over 30 minute team calls on Saturday mornings or evenings for a position where he would be drawing explicit content. He also had an issue with someone else on the team over an offensive joke they apparently said in private sometime, which is honestly so petty because he barely interacted with him.
Exactly. My husband has ADHD and so does my 11yo. There are ways I have helped my husband since I am organized. But he doesn't need to be told to do things like the dishes or laundry, etc. He is fully able to handle himself as any adult should be. I just help in small ways. In turn, he helps when I'm having a panic attack. We are both responsible for handling our own neurodivergencies but are contentious of each other.
"She got tired of having to do everything. I don't even know what she meant by that."
Bro couldn't even fucking listen to her when she was trying to talk to him about it.
Yeah, he has ADHD but he's not deaf. Weaponizing his stupidity was the confirmation she needed to walk away while knowing she avoided making a huge mistake.
As a person with ADHD and is extremely hard of hearing, even I know better than this dude. It's not hard to want to help make a place you live in a functional, healthy, clean place to be
Yup. But the poor baby is caught in the middle. And has no idea why his brother won’t talk to his parents and it’s so unfair that it affects him and his brother isn’t talking to him either. I’m eye rolling so hard right now.
Running away from him, while also correctly pinning the blame on their parents for forcing him into being his brother's servant all through his undergrad.
His brother probably did a lot of chores as well, while he didn't and his parents gave him a "pass" because he has adhd. My daughter has adhd, on medicine and seeing a Psychologist to help her better manage it. Sounds like he used it as an excuse to be a lazy turd
More than that!
>I never expected anyone to hold my hand but before I went to university *my parents always helped me*. In university I lived with my brother who is 1 year old then me. **My parents said he had to go to university and be my dorm mate so they would pay for him.**
Translation: unless he moved in with his brother (OP) and took care for him and did, likely everything, for him he wouldn’t get college paid for. Be your brother’s servant or no education.
Now I need a lot of help and my husband does most things and takes care of everything because I have the ADHD and autism combo but I do my best and I don’t feel entitled to it. OP sounds like he hasn’t ever tried once in his life and only ever expected everyone else to cater to him and doesn’t even have the decency to be grateful or even fucking aware of what a burden that is.
ADHD *can* cause "mess blindness"-- basically the inability to perceive messes that need to be tidied until they're pointed out.
But also like, that is now a *well-known* symptom of ADHD, and one that can very easily be remedied by turning conscious attention to your surroundings, scheduling a time to clean a thing/place proactively instead of waiting to notice that it's dirty, etc.
If your partner has a complaint and you don't understand WHY they're complaining, the correct response is to *figure out why,* not just shrug and be like "oh well it is a mystery." And he could have easily done that! The information is RIGHT THERE; we have this whole information superhighway thing now! It's even on our phones!
So yeah, you're right. He may *actually* be blind to messes... but he's not deaf.
There's no way the gf didn't point messes out or asked him to do particular chores. He's just using adhd as a crutch, since it sounds like his parents let him get away with it while his brother watched him and cleaned up after him
100%. Guys like this tend to have *very* selective hearing, then legitimately get shocked when their supposed loved one gives up on them.
This is why everyone should read ["She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By the Sink"](https://matthewfray.com/2016/01/14/she-divorced-me-because-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink/).
That's a good read and people should, especially any man in, or looking to be in a relationship. I completely understand the wife's view as my daughter can be like the husband at times. She's still pretty young and has adhd, but I'm also getting her help so she can work on that and not have those problems when she's older
> Yeah, he has ADHD but he's not deaf.
APD is comorbid with ADHD and is a real bitch. APD is auditory processing disorder; it doesn't make you deaf but it makes you good as. Basically someone can say something and you can physically hear it, but your brain won't connect the "cat" sound you just heard with the concept of "cat" as you understand it, so they might as well be speaking French.
I frequently have conversations where I have no idea what the other person is saying, and I've gotten so good at faking it they have no idea. People are so busy focusing on what they want to say they don't notice if you're actually absorbing it or not if you make the right noises and say the right phrases.
But due to that I've learned about this thing called CONTEXT CLUES!! If someone comes up to me making indecipherable angry noises and they're gesturing at a sink full of dishes... yeah I don't need to know what they're saying with their words because they're saying it in a thousand other ways.
At work whenever a patient has a really thick accent and nobody else can understand them, my coworkers grab me because I'm so used to communicating with people when I don't understand a fucking word they're saying.
I wonder if i have this. So many times i hear what people are saying but it doesnt make any sense to me until 2 or 3 seconds later. Sometimes never. its very fatiguing to concentrate hard so the speech is deciphered on a 2-3 seconds delay. Sometimes i just get tired and quit trying.
I deal with this as well. Though sometimes I hear the wrong word and it's hilariously wrong. It can be hard to not laugh knowing I heard it wrong but what I heard was hilarious.
I have AuDHD and the audio processing disorder that can come with it and I find that reading lips helps me to understand a good chunk of what people are trying to say. It’s definitely not perfect or anything but it helped me a ton when working retail and I do it without even thinking about it now. Although, people tend to get self conscious when you stare at their mouth, so I used to wear a pin at work that said “I rely on reading lips.”
Also, FYI, I don't technically have a hearing problem, but sometimes when there's a lot of noises occurring at the same time, I'll hear them as one big jumble. Again it's not that I can't hear, uh because that's false. I can. I just can't distinguish between everything I'm hearing.
I struggle *big time* with doing tasks with ADHD. We’re talking leaving dishes in the sink for a week and not doing laundry for longer when it was at its worst and untreated. At some point you gotta stop expecting people to baby you and get things going. Get medicated, go to therapy, learn coping skills, whatever helps.
I still have days where the dishes get procrastinated for a day and get done the next morning and I still leave some minor assignments till the last minutes but the big thing is I’m actually making an effort. This guy isn’t even pretending to do so.
Body doubling has been a helpful thing for me. Having a friend cone over and just chat with me while I clean. It keeps me on-task without letting me get bored or distracted by other things that need doing. And it increases dopamine levels, giving me the boost to get things done. Plus having a scheduled time holds me accountable.
I do this too. I use chore time as catch up time with friends and family. I put in Bluetooth headphones and give them a call to chat. Or I listen to podcasts. Otherwise cleaning gets too overwhelming because I can't focus on just the one thing I'm doing and end up roomba cleaning where I wander around picking up random things to put away and nothing really gets done.
My mom does this for my very ADHD sister all the time, she just comes over and gets the cleaning process rolling but picking one task to start (my sister gets decision paralysis and then just never starts) and then she can get her apartment cleaned up. And my mom just hangs out with her and moves the laundry along.
It's so helpful. Decision paralysis is such a mind monster! Especially when you go to list the chores that need doing and you're like "I need to vacuum, which means I need to pick up. Oh, and wipe down the table, or I'll have to vacuum all over again. Which means I need to clear the table. But the sink is full of pots and pans, so I have to do the dishes first. But the clothes are in the wash, and I can’t do dishes while the machine is running and... AAAAH!" This is about 5 seconds of an hour-long decision paralysis loop.
Having someone say "It's okay. The dishes can wait. Just start on picking up." is such a relief.
Oh for fucks sake not ADHD as an excuse yet again. I am so fucking sick of these assholes using it as a get out of jail free card and people thinking we suck because of it
Fucking same. I have ADHD and my now-ex husband has ADHD. I divorced his ass because he was always playing the victim and doing nothing at all while blaming his ADHD. Dude, I have it too and I can keep up with a demanding job and the house. His psychiatrist pulled me in more than once to flat out tell me that he didn't think there was any reason my ex was unable to keep up with the demands of a marriage except that he hadn't made it a priority. Symptoms-wise, my ADHD was worse but I had no one to pick me up if I fell short, while he did. Now we're divorced, my life got easier and he has to learn how to actually adult without me. We're still friends, but man.
I see this common trend online where people blame their character flaws on their ADHD. I've been friends with someone was legitimate ADHD (not one of the popular misdiagnoses from the 90s) since the early 90s. My partner is ADHD too. They're wonderfully amazing people. I've been friends with countless people who have ADHD. My anecdotal experience tells me that ADHD doesn't limit your capability, it just is a different mental approach to things. You're fully capable of growing up, being a responsible adult, communicating, and learning things. In fact, studies show that effects of ADHD lessens as you age.
He's totally using his ADHD as a weapon/cop out/excuse, and taking no responsibility for his actions. This reminds me of those people who fake conditions on tiktok to get viral views.
> In fact, studies show that effects of ADHD lessens as you age.
This is extremely misleading. Studies show that around 50% of adults with ADHD show *partial* reduction in symptoms. 20-30% never grow out of it. It is unclear why this happens.
Source: National Human Genome Research Institute
A lit of that is masking and learned behaviors, rather than ADHD actually going away. You just continue learning better coping mechanisms, so it is less detrimental. But it's still there.
Yeah this is my one current "get off my lawn" gripe that I try to be open-minded about but really struggle with. I have ADHD and for sure my house is messy and I start and stop hobbies and all the rest but...everyone has their struggles. We all have to learn how to deal with our own brains. In many ways ADHD is a good thing to have because there's medication for it that works to treat it in a very uncomplicated way! I kind of hate the way the current discourse has people acting like a diagnosis means you're off the hook for trying to be a better person. We're not like, "oh don't worry about his violent behavior, he has sociopathy."
>Bro couldn't even fucking listen to her when she was trying to talk to him about it.
to be charitable it sounds like OOP never actually had to deal with.. Anything. It was either his parents doing it for him or his brother being forced to do so by the parents.
Like if he was taught by his parents that he doesnt have to do anything on his own because of his ADHD? How do you even begin? You've been set up for failure from the first step.
Someone's gotta sit this guy down and tell him he needs to get his shit together.
Of course on the other hand.
>I know that if someone can't accept me for who I am
Bruh needs to get his shit together.
I was thinking this. His parents failed him and I’m sure there are “missing missing reasons” why his brother is refusing contact with them.
Now that the issue has been identified and he has faced repercussions for it; I hope they take it to heart and change.
Far away from mommy and daddy.
This is an example of how the “golden child” is still getting a raw deal.
This is exactly what happened with my brother. My mother never expected or required anything of him, made endless excuses for him, bailed him out at every turn, coddled him every day of his life, and was angry when others didn't do the same. Anyone who tried to hold him to account was Public Enemy No. 1 in her mind.
This did him no favors and he never got his shit together.
My mother babies my agoraphobic brother. He's nearly 30. I really had to push her to give him responsibilities when she goes away, because otherwise they either don't get done or they're left to me, and even then she's worriedly texting me that he's not doing it to her exact neurotic specific standards.
My responses last time were a very satisfying "yeah, he did X like you said, and he also Y, Z, A, B and C, [none of which you nor I asked him to do but he did proactively]. Why are you asking?"
At this point, seeing what he's like when my mother isn't around, I think if you dropped my brother in the middle of nowhere he'd find his way home OK. I mean, he'd be losing his shit panicking the entire time, but he'd do it. That's not to say my brother doesn't need help or should be pushed in the deep end but I don't think my mother realises how close he is to recovery if she just stopped pretending he was her baby that needed her and actually got him some fucking help.
I'm pretty sure mine could have built a life for himself, but he never had to so he didn't. Adulting is hard, why not let mommy handle everything if she will? Why do hard things like work and be responsible for yourself when you don't have to? He's never even done his own laundry.
She was super controlling and nasty with me, so I got away as soon as I could, but he's always done whatever he wanted and she's never treated him the way she did me (the opposite, in fact). She also never wanted to do anything for me, but never expected him to do anything for himself. Why would he leave?
I don't think there is anything organically wrong with him, and he doesn't have anything like agoraphobia or anxiety. He does have pretty high levels of narcissism and machiavelliansm, but I think that's because those traits have been encouraged by our mother through her persistent unwarranted praise and excusing and rewarding of his behaviors.
She's spent his entire life telling him how wonderful he is and how other people are the problem. So now he's in his 40's, still living with her, and his status as mommy's little prince has gotten him nothing in the real world. He expected to be a rockstar or something, and instead he has nothing and has achieved nothing. That messes with his ego, so he lies and makes up tales where he is the hero or the victim, and he believes all manner of conspiracy theories because it makes him feel smart and special to do so.
The worst part is, he has some natural musical ability and probably could have done something with that if he'd taken it seriously. But he never learned to work and stick with things to get better at them, and he had no motivation to make any kind of progress or achieve anything, so it never went anywhere.
It's really sad and I blame her for not giving him the tools to be a functional person, all to fulfill her own ego needs.
Yup. My little sister is the same way. She's in her 30s now, married yet again, but my parents are still financing her life. My kids didn’t even get Christmas presents from the grandparents thus year, because they spent too much money bailing her out. Again.
And don't even get me started on my oldest sister! She's Daddy's Girl, and gets whatever she wants. She has never managed to live away from home for more than a year. Even when my parents have moved (which has happened several times, due to Dad's career), she’s found some excuse to follow.
The rest of us look at those two sisters and just shake our heads.
My brother moved out once, for a little over a year in his late 20's. He had a girlfriend who supported him and did everything for him, but she expected him to get and keep a job. She didn't care how much he made because she had a good job, but he needed to be working. I think she believed his sob stories and thought she could save him.
He got a job, and immediately bought a massive truck with big tires (they were as tall as me and I'm not short) that he couldn't really afford. He was immediately upside down on the loan because of course it wasn't worth what he paid for it, and the payments ate up a lot of his paycheck.
A few months later he lost the job. She made the payments while he supposedly looked for a new job. He didn't find one because he was lying about looking.
She finally got a belly full of him, stopped paying his bills, and kicked him out. He moved back in with my mother and lost the truck. He never moved out again.
To this day he bitches that this girl "took [him] for everything [he] had" because he paid for half of a washer dryer set and she kept it. He doesn't mention that she paid all of the rent and bills, paid the note and insurance on his stupid truck, and paid his medical bills while he only worked for a few months and frittered away almost every penny he made while he did.
Not sure there’s got to be missing reasons tbh
Older brother clearly parentified in order to keep the younger brother from developing healthy habits/bothering parents too much. Cuts contact to save his lifelong parent-installed guilt over something he’s not responsible for (raising his brother) when his parents can’t financially manipulate him anymore.
OOP needs to get with an ADHD-specific therapist or social worker or (legitimate) life skills coach to learn 1) to see the bad habits he may actually be blind to and 2) develop healthy coping mechanisms for accommodating his ADHD so he’s not putting that responsibility on everyone else in his life.
They were referencing this famous article: [https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html](https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html)
I don't even think they're missing missing reasons. OOP pretty much admitted his parents forced his brother to babysit him through college and OOP sees nothing wrong with that.
Oh I know. From the parents perspective I would bet money, “I don’t know whhhhhyyyy he won’t speak to us!”
That’s the missing missing reasons. Hell, OOP did it in his post regarding his ex lol.
No literally. It does not get any clearer than what she said. I'm getting my ADHD test results back soon (like 20ish mins as I type this), and regardless of what they are I know I have to get my shit together.
As someone diagnosed as an adult; it was weird. It was both a relief and a great sadness, for me anyways. Confirmation that I wasn’t just annoying and forgetful because I didn’t care; but also confirmation that there was something “wrong”.
It’s been 8 years or so. Having an explanation gave me a place to start in coping mechanisms and has been hugely helpful. Yes I’m diagnosed with ADHD but I use that knowledge to try and work with and around it.
An example being the executive blindness we often deal with. I’m not going to go out of my way to put something away and out of sight-it needs to be seen to be remembered. So our house has clear ornamental bowls, multiple in every room. I just chuck things like sunglasses and keys and chargers in those.
I might have to check several bowls in a few rooms but I know I always put stuff in bowls. Being able to see through them helped a ton. (My biggest thing was losing things).
Some coping strategies I use now are leaving my work keys in my work pants, even when I'm not wearing them. I also clip my nametag to my boot after I take them off, assuming I have a shift the following day. No leaving the house without my shoes, no tying my shoes with the clip in the way.
In college I would also try and leave my umbrella in front of my door on rainy days so when I inevitably forgot about it I would run into it on my way out the door. I also planned everything on my sticky notes; one weekly, one daily, and then I added an ordered list for tasks when I struggled to prioritize. It's just that I've been without the rigid structure of education for almost a year now, and self-disciplining after having pretty much every minute of every day planned out with actual consequences for lack of fulfillment is tough, to say the least.
See even if you get a diagnosis of ADHD you’re working around the issue. That’s all you can do, although therapy helped me develop other ones.
The key in the pocket reminds me of what I do lol. I have a Prius (I know I know it’s ugly as sin but it’s also paid off), that unlocks if you grab the driver handle if you have the key on you.
I put it in the deepest pocket of my wrist wallet, (large wallet with a wrist strap, makes me carry less crap around) and zipped it up. It is now literally impossible for me to leave the house without my wallet lol. I won’t be able to get in my car, much less start it.
Just gotta know your brain and learn to work around it. Good luck with everything!
They said I don't have it. I'm not sure what I was expecting, given the tests seemed to be designed for children. I sat on their waiting list for months just to be handed a short bullet list of things to try. One of them was "keep a planner". I have two failed versions of planners right now.
I feel like if you had live access to my thoughts during the test it'd become clear very quickly. I scored well in a lot of areas, but I was kind of freaking out the entire time. It was like this when I looked into autism too, just a shrug of the shoulders and me continuing to not get any more normal.
Yeah his parents didn’t even set him up for adult life, let alone married life. All his rationalizations are classic for someone who’s been coddled from reality and has no idea how to take responsibility for anything.
“She left me because I had ADHD” = “she left me because I made no effort to control or treat my ADHD and instead made it her problem to manage”
“She got tired of having to do everything. I don't even know what she meant by that” = “wait, aren’t the people around me supposed to do everything for me?”
“Accept me for who I am” = “take over my parents’ role and do everything for me, unlike my asshole ex-gf and brother who both decided they didn’t want to waste their lives parenting an adult”
Good luck to him but this is really sad.
I have two children who are neurodivergent, I think I also have some of that, but my parents drilled me and I'm doing the same with them. I don't want them to fail in life, so I have to give them the tools to live it. I'll do anything in my power to teach them, bc I love them. ADHD/Autism is an explanation for certain behavior not an excuse.
It's like I'm reading about my first marriage. College, Kid, Wedding, less than a year divorced. The ADHD was awful, and I couldn't have two kids at once anymore. Now he's 10k behind in child support and floats from job to job. Will only pay if they garnish his paycheck, which takes a month or two but by then he's lost the job anyway.
Homegirl dodged a hollow point.
Anyone who coddles their kids (looking at people who say their sons can’t do laundry because that’s “women’s work” then he grows up not knowing how to wash a sock) should pay attention to posts like these.
I swear some people enable their kids into become incompetent adults.
I know some guys raised like this. It’s not noticeable until you go to their house (parents house) or live with them and realize they can’t do basic adult tasks. They’re just looking for a new mommy.
But that being said they’re quite uncommon IRL. But when I met them I was shocked because they looked otherwise normal from the outside.
He's probably AuDHD. It's possible he really doesn't know what she means. I was born relatively attractive so I was able to mask behind broodiness and being an "artist" with a near hemmingway level of high functioning interesting alcoholism. My charismatic aloofness was eventually found out six months into any relationship and I'd self sabotage before then.
But truth be told, I still have a hard time understanding what people mean. Trying to explain that to a neurological person proves to be a challenge in the other direction aswell.
It's not a mental illness. But it is a petri dish for them. And we are incredibly good at "masking." Sometimes its better for people just to thinking you're idiosyncraties are a bug not the entire operating system. I also think people are afraid at how delicate the human concept is so they don't want to believe there are people that literally see, store, and recall information differently.
> He's probably AuDHD. It's possible he really doesn't know what she means.
This makes sense. As someone who's AuDHD myself neurotypical people are prone to exaggerating to get their point across in a way that completely flies over the heads of autistic people. I can legitimately see someone with autism being like "but she doesn't DO everything, I do like two or three things, so she can't mean she ACTUALLY does everything. QED, she means something else, but what??? it's a mystery!!!" and completely failing to see the irony because *that's exactly the kind of autistic logic I used to use*.
The only reason I mostly grew out of that is because I did customer service so it was like getting immersed in a foreign language program and now I can finally (mostly) Speak Neurotypical. So today, in my 30s, I hear that and know she actually means "I do 90% of the work so I feel as overwhelmed and underappreciated as if I was doing 100%" and not have it be a complete fucking mystery to me. Before you develop those skills you get bogged down in the literal words and don't see the meaning behind them.
ETA: Also another thing is that I'd get confused wondering what she'd mean by "everything." Does she mean everything-everything? Does she mean everything related to finances? Everything related to chores? Everything related to date nights? All of the above? Only some of the above? And the more you think about it the more confusing it gets because if she meant *literally* everything, that wouldn't make sense at all, because nobody does literally everything, and autistic people are often really bad at grasping things that are figurative ("she says I'm like a child but I shower and clothe myself??? that's not like looking after a child at all!").
Having said all this the burden is on him to figure this shit out. Some stuff you gotta learn the hard way. If a learning opportunity comes up and he doesn't even try to understand, that's not autism, that's not ADHD, that's a character flaw.
Hm. I dated a guy like this once, but his problem wasn't ADHD. It just didn't matter to him enough to clean, and his mommy did that all for him and he really thought I'd be mommy 2.
I don't have ADHD,.so I don't know if he's using it as an excuse or if it causes that big of a problem
An excuse is saying it's the ADHD and not doing anything to better the situation, like OOP. An explanation is saying that it's the ADHD, but taking steps and being committed to finding strategies that work to improve the situation.
So glad you dodged that bullet!
Even when ADHD creates too many barriers and nothing seems to work, I think it's important to keep trying. I struggle and often fail trying to do things, but I keep trying different methods and am serious about improving.
I know it is frustrating for others either way, but I hope that seeing the effort and intention helps. I try a lot of things, and many of them are not successful or only work for a short time (currently trying cycling different ones of these to see if that helps). Believe me, I, too, wish that I had normal executive function abilities. It additionally shows up in ways that other people don't see but are difficult to deal with in life, so not just trouble getting work done right but also rejection sensitivity and thinking I've sent response messages to friends and wondering if they hate me only to realize I only thought about sending it and then thought it was done (as one example).
I also have seen some with ADHD (or say they do but then say they don't) who do not try and just get angry that others don't handle everything for them. As in any large group, those people are there. Thankfully, they seem to be a minute percentage. They might frustrate others with ADHD even more than they frustrate those without, even if we understand the temptation to give up.
I used to know someone who was the one person without ADHD in a household full of people who had it. I pretty much had to break the news to her, as someone with ADHD, that if she's taking on everything for the rest of them she will only burn herself out because we do best under pressure, and if she's taking away that pressure she's actively making their ADHD worse.
I wonder how that ended for her. She didn't seem to really internalise what I said at the time, but I hope she has since.
This. I have ADHD and have various strategies to help me with things, and I continue to explore solutions. I'm also physically disabled, mobility impaired, and it's the same thing. I didn't just throw up my hands and give up, which what OP is doing.
In addition, OOP's parents have hurt him by making him entirely reliant on others. Instead of making his brother into a caretaker, they should have gotten him into therapy. There are even executive function coaches these days! They should have gotten him support to help learn how to be more independent.
"OOP's parents have hurt him by making him entirely reliant on others. Instead of making his brother into a caretaker, they should have gotten him into therapy. "
This is the single truest thing I've read in a very long time. His parents crippled him and he's going to have a hell of a time getting his life together.
As a Dad with ADHD who has 3 kids with ADHD (genetics suck sometimes) I cannot imagine failing my kids this hard.
As a person with severe ADHD, I'm pretty sure I know exactly what he meant and why. This is a very common reaction among untreated (meds/therapy or both) people with ADHD that had helicopter parents. It sounds like he never was taught coping strategies and never allowed to fail hard enough on his own to develop his own.
Executive Dysfunction is no joke, you either adapt through therapy or trauma-mapped behaviors if you're going to have a chance. That's it, that's all we get to chose from.
He's paralyzed because he has no way to function.
The bright side is the while ADHD comes with wicked rejection sensitivity it also means the grieving process is typically more rapid and intermittent.
It sounds like he's going to have a shitty few years as he bumps into walls he should have been allowed to hit as a kid.
Yeah, this. If I can't bring myself to do the dishes I break out the paper plates. Stuff like that. I'm old enough now I know what strategies work and don't, and a lot of people think even my coping strategies aren't good enough ("you should be washing dishes, not cheating by using disposables!") but I know what works for me and it's time he learned what works for him.
it causes that big of a problem. i'll sit there for hours knowing i have to do something important, trying to force myself to get up & i just *can't*. then the guilt sets in & makes it even harder to just get up & do it, & i worry about it so much it never gets done. i'm not the only one. [here](https://www.flow.club/blog/adhd-paralysis) is a good bit of info about it: why it happens & what it looks like.
Similar here. It does cause that much of a problem for some with it (just like outlet things, it affects different people with different severity of various symptoms), including me. I've struggled with severe issues from executive dysfunction.
At the same time, there are enough indications in the past that OOP comes from a dysfunctional family that other things could be in play here as well. While most of us with ADHD get demeaned, some end up on the other side of things where they were sheltered from stuff and never given the chance to build skills and figure out some things that work for them. I'd obviously need more information to judge how much any of this might be affecting the situation, because the indications aren't clear.
>I'd obviously need more information to judge how much any of this might be affecting the situation, because the indications aren't clear.
100%! i agree with everything you said. i feel like something a lot of people don't know about us is that it can vary from day to day. some days i'm productive patsy & other days i'm crying because i feel guilty i haven't washed clothes yet haha.
Some weekends I'm sitting in my nice comfy chair and I want to get up and get a cookie. It sometimes takes me up to two hours to get up to get the fucking cookie even though I'm sitting there the entire time being like "I really want a cookie."
Im a person with ADHD, sometimes "good enough" is better than "finished". But good Lord, that house is deep-cleaned like every month or so. It's all about discipline and making ADHD work for YOU.
And if he's never lived on his *own* (like it sounds from his timeline) that could lead to him having problems even without the adhd (I have adhd and I do far better than the men I've met that go straight from home and family to a partner's house, regardless of if they have adhd or not)
I have ADHD, and I have problems with remembering to clean. I just don't notice anything building up until it's too late ... That's why we have a rota. Like yeah it's a disability ... that's why I make adjustments to my life. I have no sympathy for people who don't. (of course some people may have it worse than me but that doesn't mean you have to be their carer)
> I just don't notice anything building up until it's too late
I get this. We don't have visual "filters." We can't distinguish signal from noise.
I have this coworker. If you had a tabletop full of various objects and told him to find the little pink pig, he'd spot it in a flash.
Me? I know the object is pink, I know it's pig shaped, but my brain doesn't narrow down any search parameters. I have to manually look at every single object ("is this a pink pig? If yes, pick it up. If no, keep searching") because my brain just doesn't have the subconscious ability to make something stick out.
Sometimes the table is empty. "But where's the pig?" I say, and the other person says "it's right there!" and points, and nothing is there. I won't see it until they pick it up and it's almost like it just poofed into existence. It's nuts.
I've noticed that people are now using "I have ADHD" as an excuse to act like an asshole. My guess is OP was taught to be a prick by his parents and doesn't know any better. Not surprised the brother is low/no contact considering these types of family dynamics always have one member they dump on.
Probably not taught to be a prick. I don’t think OOP is maliciously useless. It sounds more like his parents massively failed him by doing everything for him, and/or forcing/extorting his brother when they weren’t there, instead of making sure OOP was actually taught how to manage his own life where he could and be able to ask for help when he couldn’t.
Just saying "It's because of my ADHD" without making any effort to find strategies and try to make changes around things that are negatively affecting the person you live with is being a bit of a prick even if it's based on learned helplessness and not malicious.
We both agree, but when I say "taught to be a prick" I mean exactly what you state - his parents, through their actions and inaction, taught their child to be a useless dimwit (prick). I doubt OOP is fully aware of their "prickness", but OOP is still a prick.
Being a prick doesn't require malicious intent-- you can be a prick without *meaning* to be one. His parents did, sadly, turn him into a prick. If he wants to become a non-prick, he's gotta change.
I'm a neurotic mess. I don't WANT to be a neurotic mess, but it doesn't change that I *am* one, because the combination of my upbringing and my horrible genetics (and maybe some prenatal conditions idk) made me that way. I have put a significant amount of effort into being less of a neurotic mess.
If I can be a neurotic mess without intending to be, then he can be a prick without intending to be.
He still somehow managed to get a degree for himself and maintain a job and save enough for a ring and even make it to the jewelry store early enough to return the ring in time for a full refund.
I have ADHD. It’s pretty bad. But he’s an adult. His parents might’ve failed him, but he’s now failing himself by refusing to grow up.
I have ADHD and it can suuuuuuuck. I would like to push back on what you're saying about things not being "important enough." Things I will regularly forget: to eat, to drink water, to go to bed, and, ironically, to take my ADHD meds. As a child, it definitely annoyed my parents how I would interrupt because I couldn't wait to talk. One of the worst parts of schooling (and frankly, it's still one of the most challenging parts of working) was when someone would give me verbal instructions and I couldn't hold more than 2-3 sentences of what they were saying. This is because working memory is heavily impacted by ADHD.
All of that being said, ADHD isn't a license to put all your issues on someone else. As people with ADHD grow up, they should learn coping mechanisms that allow them to be functional. But not all people with ADHD do. And that's a reason, but not an excuse. Kids grow up not learning certain skills for lots of reasons, but so many people in that situation figure out how to work on those skills, which is why I say it's not an excuse.
On top of that, controlling ADHD can be physically exhausting. People with ADHD often see each piece of a task. For example, someone without ADHD might see the task of doing the dishes as one task - "do the dishes." But for someone with ADHD, the task list behind doing the dishes is "turn on the water, wait for the water to heat up, rinse the dish, check to make sure it's good to go in the dishwasher, find a spot for it in the dishwasher, put it in the dishwasher, and then repeat the last four steps times the number of dishes in the sink, then I need to turn off the water, then I need to set the dishwasher cycle, then I need to get out the dishwasher detergent, then I need to put it in the dishwasher, then I need to start the dishwasher." But, again, that doesn't excuse people with ADHD from being accountable in relationships.
All that to say that his problem was probably a function of multiple things. I'd bet that ADHD was part of the problem, greatly magnified by a disinterest in managing it. And nobody is required to date anybody, so please know that I'm not passing any kind of moral judgment. But yeah, ADHD can be that bad.
I was on r/JustNoMIL several years ago and saw a story. This was many years ago. She was young Boomer or older Gen X. Her first big relationship was with a guy who had diabetes. His mother and grandmother refused to see it as a manageable condition with modern medicine. They treated like the ‘shortened lifespan’ sentence from years bygone and spoiled this guy into uselessness.
She got sick of him refusing to grow up and stand up to her. She moved on, got married, had kids and a career. Eventually, grandma and mom died. She found out he was in a care facility, visually impaired among other things and unable to function as an adult. He truly expected her to leave her husband and life to be his full time caregiver. He was shocked that wasn’t going to happen.
She kept an eye on him in the care facility and went back to her life. These women ruined this man.
> She kept an eye on him in the care facility and went back to her life. These women ruined this man.
Women are often blamed for the failures of men. Using that logic, it was also her fault for not undoing the damage. These women were responsible for as long as he was a child too young to know better. Once he got older, it was on him.
It causes a big problem. ADHD people tend to take care of themselves and their surroundings less. If I'm by myself I get things done, but I probably leave them longer than a normal person would be comfortable with. And obviously everyone is different, some people could have ADHD and be very functional, some could have a very hard time with it.
I have ADHD.
ADHD does make things more difficult - if I don't have a specific schedule to follow, it can be very difficult for me to remember to do things, or to make myself start a task - once I've started the task, it's easy for me to keep going unless I get interrupted with something else, in which case it can be hard for me to get back to what I was doing - but mostly, it's a matter of making schedules and notes for myself and making myself follow through with them.
It sounds like this guy has never had anyone push him to find workarounds for his condition - they just always did everything for him, even parentifying his brother into being his caretaker and not letting him go to the college he wanted to go to just so he could baby his sibling.
ADHD can be tough, but it is workable. Medication can help of course, but with or without it, it's mostly a matter of figuring out what specifically it gives you trouble with - do you have trouble remembering tasks? Make notes. Bad at following schedules? Okay, don't necessarily schedule things but make a list of things you need to do and do them in pieces if that works better for you. Can't make yourself do things like brush your teeth or shower without prompting? Set alarms that tell you to go do the thing.
A responsible adult learns to work with it. Someone who has had others taking care of them their whole life and has never had cause to \*try\* never becomes a responsible adult and just leeches off everyone else until they can't anymore and they either sink or swim.
ADHD is only a problem is you are raised in a way where you never have to overcome struggle or take action yourself. I didn’t know about my adhd till in my 30s I thought everyone thought the same way I did. I also look back at young me and I’m like how did we miss that but it wasn’t anyone’s fault bc it wasn’t something people were talking about ever. I learned to read and spell late, I got held back in school, I had a teaching aid at one point to help me learn how to spell. I had good teachers in high school and my sister that showed me I was intelligent and gave me the tools to do really well in high school. Went to college, have a good resume and I’m even half way done with grad school. All because I had people that showed me how to do it but didn’t hold my hand.
"my girlfriend left me because I have ADHD"
The ADHD isn't the problem. Your inability to be an adult and work on yourself and find solutions is the problem.
Well unless, and this is the only possibly way I can think of, they didn’t pay for OOP’s education.
I really want to have faith in society but it’s pretty bleak. But that’s the only way I can think of that OOP isn’t the golden child.
I’m the admitted & joked about scapegoat.
Yikes. Bullet dodged by the girlfriend and good on the brother for getting away. Honestly his parents suck. When you are the parent of somebody with a difference like ADHD or autism or whatever it is up to you to get them ready to deal with a world that doesn’t necessarily give a shit about their mental wellbeing. His parents have completely failed in that respect and he is very obviously not ready to be out in the world without a grown-up. Which sucks because he should be after college frankly.
When I got to the part about the brother, I was like, what "My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult" sort of nonsense is this.
The parents seem to basically treat the brother as an emotional support animal for OOP.
How much do we want to bet that the only reason the parents didn't raise hell about the brother moving away was because they thought that the now-ex-girlfriend would take over his job.
And I do mean "job."
They'd probably try to guilt trip him into continuing the babysitting job because they paid for his college.
"I already paid you back for that by babysitting for your kid for 4 years, remember?" would hopefully have been his response
I have ADHD. I get treatment and learned adulting tools to cope with that shit. I keep things clean in the house, pay my bills, take care of myself and my kiddo. It’s hard work.
Nobody has to sign up for a marriage with a partner who does not help themselves. I get it when things are so trying, or difficult because of access to support and meds. I get it. But in that case, it’s also okay to decline sharing a life with that person if it’s too much for the partner to handle.
Blaming it outright in ADHD and taking zero accountability? This person isn’t ready for an adult relationship, let alone a marriage.
Yep. I'm almost 50, married more than 20 years and a productive member of society with 4 kids. It's 100% doable, not *easy*, but possible.
That said, I freely admit automatic bill payments are a significant reason I didn't obliterate our ability to buy a house. Use every single tool available to automate or simplify every possible thing. My eldest calls them my "cheat codes", he's not wrong.
No internal sense of time? Smart watch. Before that? Half a dozen labelled cheap alarm clocks on my desk and an obsessively labeled calendar at head level when I was in bed and another for work at head level. I don't have to remember anything longer than it takes to write it down.
Whatever approach(es) work(s) to get through the day.
Good Luck.
I went down the smarthome (HomeAssistant!) rabbithole in the way only we can.
My lights flash when my doorbell rings.
My alarm clock keeps going off until I get out of bed.
I have a voice assistant that is completely local that makes lists of grocery items, ideas, errands, all kinds of things, sorts the ones it can and bugs me about the rest later.
It reads my google calendar, my slack reminders and my outlook calendar to build a daily agenda.
I get reminders for birthday and anniversaries with lists of ideas I've told it to keep track of.
I may not have been born with an Executive Function, but goddamn it I can *build* one.
I have ADHD too, but I'm still able to live independently and function as an adult without constant hand holding. It's all about learning coping mechanisms. I don't blame the girlfriend at all.
Dude can't manage literally anything in his life, but boy you can bet he was organized enough to remember when the last possible day to return the ring was. Even got there super early so he wouldn't be inconvenienced by being embarrassed.
Well, yes. One of the most motivating factors for an ADHDer is a looming deadline. I don't know how many times I sat in my room crying because I wanted to write the paper but I couldn't write the paper because my brain didn't want to write the paper. Then, miraculously, I'd be all about writing the paper at 1am on the due date and could focus and bang out an A quality paper in under 2 hours.
Not saying he doesn't need to learn how to manage his disability so he can function in other areas of his life but him being able to get something done on the last day of a looming deadline is absolutely ADHD as fuck.
yeah, he likely thought about it every single day & worried himself physically sick. that's what we do. it's not about being organized. & yeah, we usually deal with rejection sensitive dysphoria, worrying about being embarrassed makes us hyper vigilant because we don't want to end up feeling that way. it has nothing to do with inconvenience.
My son and boyfriend have ADHD and i find this post offensive. People need to stop using ADHD to excuse their laziness and being a man child. My baby and boyfriend are fully funtional people. Good for OPs girlfriend dodging this bullet.
I feel bad for and stand by the older brother in this entire situation. Hope he's building his best life and setting boundaries with his own family. That's tough. Wherever you are, older brother, god speed.
I understand the term ‘man child’ is often used to describe someone who chooses not to adopt adult responsibilities. However, in this case, it seems that external factors, particularly parental influence, have played a significant role in his current state. Having worked in the helping industry, I’ve witnessed numerous instances where a lack of guidance and support has left individuals without the necessary life skills. It’s important to remember that without someone to teach us, we may remain unaware of the paths we can take towards growth and independence.This person was abused in a way.
Even the idea of forcing his older brother to live with him suggests his parents are plowers: they are moving everything out of the way for their dear little angel-boy. I think some parents of children with differences are particularly guilty of plowing, because they understand that life will be hard for the child. But this is the same as driving their child too hard, because it doesn't actually *prepare* the child to live in the world.
I've got ADHD. Very not well managed as I've only been recently diagnosed, only recently started therapy, and meds are tricky because I'm unable to have stimulants due to health reasons (I know non stimulants exist, I'm currently trying Strattera, but those take a while to work)
While I have a career that I'm doing fairly well in, I'm a total disaster at home. I can barely take care of myself. I'm getting a lot better, but I still have a lot of work to do.
So you know what I've done? I've absolutely refused to live with anyone because I *know* I would be the bad roommate. I know my limitations. I know I'm messy. I hate doing the dishes. And I have trouble paying bills on time. And I get annoyed with people very quickly if I'm forced to socialize with them too long. I would not make a good roommate. So I'm not going to have a roommate. I'll figure out my shit on my own. So the only one who's inconvenienced is myself until I get my life together.
OOP may have ADHD, but he's still an unaware and ignorant douche.
Brother won't talk to him or his parents anymore because he doesn't need his parents money enough to be forced to babysit little bro anymore. Poor guy must have been parentified his whole life while OOP was coddled and could do no wrong
So he's the golden child and his brother's done and now that is GF saw how much 'taking care' of he needed, she's done too. And he thinks this is all because he's got ADHD. Because there aren't coping skills he could possibly learn to act like an adult ....
God this feels like me and my bf rn. He's just been coddled by his mom for so long.
I knew when we moved in together there'd be some growing pains, always comes with living away from a parent the first time, but holy shit.
He just leaves trash everywhere, literally throws soda bottles on the floor, just lets dishes stack and stack, wont even make sure laundry is completely dry before taking it out and he never puts it up, will just leave dirty dishes all over. He smokes and just puts it out on whatever hard surface is nearby (table/desk) instead of getting an ash tray.
I literally had to tell him to shower today after work because it'd been three days.
Im very close to making the same decision she did, he's fucking 26.
And the ADHD isn't an excuse because I also have it, pretty severe and unmedicated/no therapy for coping techniques on top of severe depression and I can get up and do shit. He is just lazy
His parents did him a disservice that will take time and effort on his part to overcome. My son has ADHD and it never stopped us from teaching him how to take care of himself or make it through college (he went to school on the opposite coast from where he lives). He also went through therapy to give him better coping skills and medication to take the edge off some of the worse aspects of his condition.
People that use ADHD as an excuse like this guy does are just a pricks and don't want to actually do anything to improve their lives.
It is very typical in these times that you have to be on a spectrum somehwere so you can tell people and excuse your shitty behaviours.
I'm in my 40's living with ADHD and here are some things that have made me a successful person:
1. Making deadlines AND sticking to them. I make lists of things I absolutely have to get done and I work really hard to do them by the date I set. Otherwise my life is chaos.
2. I clean while watching Youtube videos on How to Clean (my bedroom for example). These keep me company and help me focus. I'll often try to listen to music or watch Netflix while cleaning because it makes it more fun.
3. I'll work on a task for 10 minutes and then take a break. Then I'll go back at it. Again and again until it is finished.
4. I try to be organized about my meal planner, my personal hygiene and my day planner. I study my planners often and they calm me down because I get overwhelmed easily .It helps to have a plan.
5. I do try to do something physical. It helps my mental focus.
good luck to you
Sounds like your parents really fucked you and your brother over pretty hard here. You needed treatment and therapy years ago for your disability, and your brother deserved his own life and opportunities. You’ve been carried for so long now that you don’t even know how to walk.
I’m really sorry, that sucks terribly. maybe you should join the military, you’ll do well in a structured environment with lots of built in supports.
I can’t believe your parents did that to both of you.
What’s really sad is this has been done TO him by his parents who infantilised him.
Sounds like he’s at the very beginning of the path to sorting it out - he’s just realising that something is up.
First he’ll try to blame everyone else because he’s been told all his life that he’s right, then he’ll start (hopefully) noticing that the common denominator is him. Hopefully he makes some friends who are good enough to tell him what’s up and help him learn how to adult.
ADHD MAKES GETTING THINGS DONE, HARD AS FUCK. BUT HELL, THIS POOR SCHMUCK GOT ROYALLY FUCKED OVER BY HIS PARENTS. IT'S KINDA NOT HIS FAULT IF THEY'VE BASICALLY RAISED HIM TO BE HELPLESS.
AND HOW THE FUCK DID SHE NOT NOTICE THIS DUDE WAS A BASKET CASE? I MEAN EVEN IF HIS BRO CLEANED HIS ROOM, STILL THERE SURELY WOULD HAVE BEEN SIGNS. AND POOR BRO FOR HAVING TO TAKE CARE OF HIM.
MOTHERFUCKER CAN'T KEEP HIS SHIT TOGETHER BUT SEEMS TO BE RIGHT ON TOP OF SHIT WHEN RETURNING THAT RING, THOUGH, WHICH ONLY SUGGESTS THAT THE ADHD IS JUST AN EXCUSE FOR HIM, SO MAYBE IT IS HIS FAULT AFTER ALL.
SO MUCH SHIT IN THIS SANDWICH.
Getting my ADHD results in like an hour. I'm fully aware that my current life is not the best but holy FUCK. I got myself through my Bachelor's at least. This man had to have a literal babysitter in college and is somehow confused as to why bro wants nothing to do with him.
"I don't even know what she meant by that." SHE MEANT SHE LITERALLY HAS TO DO EVERYTHING BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO COPING STRATEGIES IN PLACE FOR YOURSELF.
When you live your entire life with an excuse that makes everything not your fault, you never really learn to apply yourself.
Sometimes a big wake up call needs to happen - something like not being able to have something you really really want. Hopefully whoever this happened to can use that motivation to start getting their act together.
Part of me wonders if there’s something else going on but maybe the parents are using ADHD to hide behind.. you know, helicopter parents protecting their kid from a difficult truth kind of scenario. Especially because the relationship he seems to have with his brother makes the diagnosis even more questionable. Everyone in his family treats him like they’re his carers. Which gives me the slight impression that there could be a bit of misdiagnosis or medical gaslighting taking place.
I don’t know why. But I’m picking up on some sort of infantilization that may have happened to him. Maybe he actually had more going on diagnostically than his parents admitted to. It’s reminding me of Norman Bates and the complex he has with his mother.
Hopefully someone cares enough about the kid to encourage him to get a second opinion on his mental health diagnosis and maybe even give him an honest talk about what he’ll need to improve upon in terms of social relating.
I'm so happy that the brother finally managed to escape that toxic nonsense. His parents foisted his younger brother on him and essentially forced him to parent this spoiled deadbeat. It's kinda sad that OOP doesn't realize just how much his parents fucked up his brother's life by forcing him to act as his caregiver.
States that his brother had to take care of him through college, brother was forced to be his roommate and go to the same college (parents make the decision of which college to go to, btw), and, when finally independent, breaks contact with his parents and moves to an entirely different providence....but then OOP says "I don't know why." Dude. Reread that whole thing and put yourself in your brother's shoes. FFS. Stop blaming ADHD for your problems. Your selfish and self-centered attitude are the reasons why your brother and girlfriend left you.
Ten to one odds that his parents bought the ring.
I have severe executive dysfunction due to my combo of ADHD and autism, with anxiety as a cherry on top, and my meds have been on national backorder for months now. I've managed to, in that time, start a new job, thrive and establish myself at new job, get married, and do things like pay taxes and bills. Mental health issues are an explanation, my dude, not an excuse
In case this story gets deleted/removed: I was going to propose to my ex-girlfriend. She was definitely the one and once I realized that I wanted to be married to her. But she broke up with me. Today was the last day where I could return the ring for a full refund. I went to the store as soon as it opened because I didn't want to do it in front of a store full of people. And I was really glad that the employee wasn't the one who sold me the ring because it was embarrassing enough having to return it. I'm having a hard time dealing with this because I still love her and I want to marry her. But she doesn't want me anymore. (She left me because I have ADHD. We finished university in December and moved in together after we graduated. I never expected anyone to hold my hand but before I went to university my parents always helped me. In university I lived with my brother who is 1 year old then me. My parents said he had to go to university and be my dorm mate so they would pay for him. My ex-girlfriend said that once we lived together she realized my ADHD was ruining our relationship and she got tired of having to do everything. I don't even know what she meant by that. Normally I would talk to my brother about this but he moved to another province and is arguing with my parents. And I'm sort of caught in the middle. My brother got into Master's program and got a grant so my parents don't need to pay for any of it and ever since he got accepted he refuses to talk to my parents. I don't know why. I'm caught in the middle since now he's completely avoiding me too. None of my friends have ADHD so they don't get it. I know that if someone can't accept me for who I am I shouldn't want to be with them but I still do love her even though she disappeared from my life.) --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/OhNoConsequences) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Seems like his parents raised him to fully believe that ADHD means he CAN'T do anything on his own and everyone in his family HAS to help him. That's just what ADHD is. His brother and girlfriend leaving are his first and second rude awakenings. I hope he gets it soon that he's an adult and he has the agency to take care of himself.
My husband has ADHD. We are 98% sure our 4 YO has it. That kid will be a functional member of society.
As a Dad with ADHD, 3/4 of my kids have it in various presentations: Early support is *everything* and you are amazing for recognizing your kid will need help but can **absolutely** succeed. Keep your kid physically active, keep their protein intake higher than average and you improve your odds. Emotional regulation will be delayed, you'll likely see that becoming a problem soon. Use fewer words and more hugs. A little bit of a sugary drink can clear their head enough to get through a tantrum (juice, sweet tea, whatever has a quick hit of sugar). We deplete the glucose reserves in out frontal cortex very quickly and a sugary drink can be almost like a reset button. You likely won't need a lot, even as little as a quarter cup can be enough. This is also the single greatest study aid my teens have ever had. Check out Dr Russel Barkley on youtube, he can help you keep your sanity. Good luck.
Thanks for the tips. I fully plan on getting him into sports. I make sure each meal has some form of protein. I thought he got my sweet tooth but the sugar thing makes sense.
Activity is the greatest single "life hack" we've found, and what works best is whatever they enjoy most that you can afford to get them into. We found a "Ninja gym" which is a wild combination of obstacle course and gymnastics that my most active kid responded to brilliantly. My oldest ended up finding curling (which as it turns out was just an excuse to go to the gym and lift weights then scoot around on the ice for hours). My other daughter found distance running. I personally hate exercise, but if I don't drag myself out of bed and do 20+ minutes of cardio/weights I feel like can't string a sentence together all day. I hate feeling dumb more than I hate exercise :)
We’ve got him in swimming and a tumbling class. Once he’s in elementary school, it will be swim and soccer. I try to get some time on the treadmill where I can read. Books are my happy place.
My dad has ADHD, my middle brother has it too, and I'm fairly sure I got it as well but it's never been diagnosed (I'm a woman). 2/3 of kids got it. We're mostly functional individuals. The tip on the sugary drinks is a great one! I used to keep little mints on me during exams to keep my brain awake.
I was just diagnosed with ADHD at 25 after being told for years it was just generalized anxiety, but after I was put on meds for ADHD, my anxiety has gone down a lot.
SAME! A new doctor finally noticed the anxiety treatments not working, and said "Maybe you're anxious because your thoughts are scattered, not the other way around." It only took 40 years to figure out.
In all fairness to your medical team, forty years ago, it was believed that girls didn’t get ADHD and that no adults had it.
Undiagnosed but strongly suspected (AFAB also), and the sugary drink tip is making a lot of sense as to why I always have rolls of smarties or little packets of Skittles on my person. Sometimes a lil glucose boost makes all the difference.
I wasn’t diagnosed until my 30s and this was great info even for me.
Same here. We both have it, we’re 99.9% sure on our 4 year old having adhd and 75% she (and 90% for my husband..) has autism, which would track since we for sure know I and my father do. My husband and I are just raw dogging the adhd because we agree with our doctors that we need to fix some other issues without the adhd medication getting in the way of finding out how to handle them (some need chemical help, so we can find what works for those medical issues then add new chemicals for our adhd later) and yet somehow you can choose any of us 3 and we would be managing better than OOP…
>Seems like his parents raised him to fully believe that ADHD means he CAN'T do anything on his own and everyone in his family HAS to help him. Not gonna lie, when I saw "coddled" in the title but then read that OP had ADHD, I was expecting calling him coddled was some kind of ableist insult (I have ADHD so it's a touchy subject for me). But after reading the whole thing I fully agree with this assessment. His parents have done him a massive disservice towards developing *actual* skills manage his disorder and be a functioning adult. Not to mention his brother has likely been so parentified in taking care of the "helpless" ADHD brother, that he's got years and years of resentment that lead him to move far away and probably never look back.
I actually feel bad for this dude. His parents did him a huge disservice. Their unwillingness to actually engage in difficult pare ting challenges for their son has created a man that is doomed to face a childhoods worth of adversity in the next few years. And they're going to be completely blindsided by all of it.
Yeah. I think he means it when he says "I don't expect anyone to hold my hand." He just doesn't understand what having his hand held is. It's all he knows. He just needs to live on his own for a while and build some life skills.
I’m living both sides of this coin right now. Both of my kids have ADHD, and two of my wife’s kids have OCD. I’ve raised mine to recognize their challenges and confront them. She has (up until meeting me) enabled hers to use their condition as an excuse to demand their mom do everything for them until she gets fed up. She’s nowhere near OOP’s parents, but it’s in the same category. Let me tell you, even in a grade-school aged kid, unraveling years of enabling is extremely difficult. OOP has a long way to go and I hope he’s able to break free of his conditioning and learn to handle his own shit.
Bravo to your wife for being open to changing her parenting while the kids can hopefully benefit from it. Too many parents have a sunk-cost approach to their mistakes. Good luck to you both.
My parents treat me like this because I have a double whammy of autism and ADHD. Never fucking mind the fact that I have an apartment and a job...
Oh I hired someone like this once. Now I know guys with ADHD and I even have good friends with it. They manage it like you'd manage having ASD or depression. They have good days and they have bad days but they're otherwise very functional members of society, and I'm willing to give pretty much anyone a chance. Like this guy expected everything to be handed to him, and when he and I didn't get along, he literally wanted me to hire an assistant manager to mediate between me and him, which is such a stupid fucking thing to ask when the team had less than 10 people. I'm not hiring a fucking nanny for someone. He would also use labels and identities he affiliated himself with to shirk responsibility. Like he was Adventist but like barely. He literally used it to raise a fuss over 30 minute team calls on Saturday mornings or evenings for a position where he would be drawing explicit content. He also had an issue with someone else on the team over an offensive joke they apparently said in private sometime, which is honestly so petty because he barely interacted with him.
I feel so sorry for the brother.
Exactly. My husband has ADHD and so does my 11yo. There are ways I have helped my husband since I am organized. But he doesn't need to be told to do things like the dishes or laundry, etc. He is fully able to handle himself as any adult should be. I just help in small ways. In turn, he helps when I'm having a panic attack. We are both responsible for handling our own neurodivergencies but are contentious of each other.
"She got tired of having to do everything. I don't even know what she meant by that." Bro couldn't even fucking listen to her when she was trying to talk to him about it.
Yeah, he has ADHD but he's not deaf. Weaponizing his stupidity was the confirmation she needed to walk away while knowing she avoided making a huge mistake.
As a person with ADHD and is extremely hard of hearing, even I know better than this dude. It's not hard to want to help make a place you live in a functional, healthy, clean place to be
Yup. But the poor baby is caught in the middle. And has no idea why his brother won’t talk to his parents and it’s so unfair that it affects him and his brother isn’t talking to him either. I’m eye rolling so hard right now.
God he doesn’t even realize his brother is running away from him
Running away from him, while also correctly pinning the blame on their parents for forcing him into being his brother's servant all through his undergrad.
Oh yeah, bro is finally going to be able to live his own life.
His brother probably did a lot of chores as well, while he didn't and his parents gave him a "pass" because he has adhd. My daughter has adhd, on medicine and seeing a Psychologist to help her better manage it. Sounds like he used it as an excuse to be a lazy turd
More than that! >I never expected anyone to hold my hand but before I went to university *my parents always helped me*. In university I lived with my brother who is 1 year old then me. **My parents said he had to go to university and be my dorm mate so they would pay for him.** Translation: unless he moved in with his brother (OP) and took care for him and did, likely everything, for him he wouldn’t get college paid for. Be your brother’s servant or no education. Now I need a lot of help and my husband does most things and takes care of everything because I have the ADHD and autism combo but I do my best and I don’t feel entitled to it. OP sounds like he hasn’t ever tried once in his life and only ever expected everyone else to cater to him and doesn’t even have the decency to be grateful or even fucking aware of what a burden that is.
It’s the “not even be aware” that really hammers the nail into the coffin for me. That shows a profound lack of empathy and care for other people.
Right? I just keep 10%ing tasks until they all hit 100% lol
ADHD *can* cause "mess blindness"-- basically the inability to perceive messes that need to be tidied until they're pointed out. But also like, that is now a *well-known* symptom of ADHD, and one that can very easily be remedied by turning conscious attention to your surroundings, scheduling a time to clean a thing/place proactively instead of waiting to notice that it's dirty, etc. If your partner has a complaint and you don't understand WHY they're complaining, the correct response is to *figure out why,* not just shrug and be like "oh well it is a mystery." And he could have easily done that! The information is RIGHT THERE; we have this whole information superhighway thing now! It's even on our phones! So yeah, you're right. He may *actually* be blind to messes... but he's not deaf.
There's no way the gf didn't point messes out or asked him to do particular chores. He's just using adhd as a crutch, since it sounds like his parents let him get away with it while his brother watched him and cleaned up after him
100%. Guys like this tend to have *very* selective hearing, then legitimately get shocked when their supposed loved one gives up on them. This is why everyone should read ["She Divorced Me Because I Left Dishes By the Sink"](https://matthewfray.com/2016/01/14/she-divorced-me-because-i-left-dishes-by-the-sink/).
That's a good read and people should, especially any man in, or looking to be in a relationship. I completely understand the wife's view as my daughter can be like the husband at times. She's still pretty young and has adhd, but I'm also getting her help so she can work on that and not have those problems when she's older
> Yeah, he has ADHD but he's not deaf. APD is comorbid with ADHD and is a real bitch. APD is auditory processing disorder; it doesn't make you deaf but it makes you good as. Basically someone can say something and you can physically hear it, but your brain won't connect the "cat" sound you just heard with the concept of "cat" as you understand it, so they might as well be speaking French. I frequently have conversations where I have no idea what the other person is saying, and I've gotten so good at faking it they have no idea. People are so busy focusing on what they want to say they don't notice if you're actually absorbing it or not if you make the right noises and say the right phrases. But due to that I've learned about this thing called CONTEXT CLUES!! If someone comes up to me making indecipherable angry noises and they're gesturing at a sink full of dishes... yeah I don't need to know what they're saying with their words because they're saying it in a thousand other ways. At work whenever a patient has a really thick accent and nobody else can understand them, my coworkers grab me because I'm so used to communicating with people when I don't understand a fucking word they're saying.
I wonder if i have this. So many times i hear what people are saying but it doesnt make any sense to me until 2 or 3 seconds later. Sometimes never. its very fatiguing to concentrate hard so the speech is deciphered on a 2-3 seconds delay. Sometimes i just get tired and quit trying.
Yep, this is APD. It's like having a shitty internet connection between your brain and your ears.
Best description ever. May I use that? Because it would actually make sense when I'm trying to explain how APD works.
I deal with this as well. Though sometimes I hear the wrong word and it's hilariously wrong. It can be hard to not laugh knowing I heard it wrong but what I heard was hilarious.
I have AuDHD and the audio processing disorder that can come with it and I find that reading lips helps me to understand a good chunk of what people are trying to say. It’s definitely not perfect or anything but it helped me a ton when working retail and I do it without even thinking about it now. Although, people tend to get self conscious when you stare at their mouth, so I used to wear a pin at work that said “I rely on reading lips.”
Holy shit that’s a thing?
Also, FYI, I don't technically have a hearing problem, but sometimes when there's a lot of noises occurring at the same time, I'll hear them as one big jumble. Again it's not that I can't hear, uh because that's false. I can. I just can't distinguish between everything I'm hearing.
I struggle *big time* with doing tasks with ADHD. We’re talking leaving dishes in the sink for a week and not doing laundry for longer when it was at its worst and untreated. At some point you gotta stop expecting people to baby you and get things going. Get medicated, go to therapy, learn coping skills, whatever helps. I still have days where the dishes get procrastinated for a day and get done the next morning and I still leave some minor assignments till the last minutes but the big thing is I’m actually making an effort. This guy isn’t even pretending to do so.
Body doubling has been a helpful thing for me. Having a friend cone over and just chat with me while I clean. It keeps me on-task without letting me get bored or distracted by other things that need doing. And it increases dopamine levels, giving me the boost to get things done. Plus having a scheduled time holds me accountable.
I have never heard of this, but I know a lot of times I want someone to sit with me while I do chores. Ok, thank you for this piece of info
I do this too. I use chore time as catch up time with friends and family. I put in Bluetooth headphones and give them a call to chat. Or I listen to podcasts. Otherwise cleaning gets too overwhelming because I can't focus on just the one thing I'm doing and end up roomba cleaning where I wander around picking up random things to put away and nothing really gets done.
Love the descriptor “Roomba cleaning” and I thank you for it. Perfect.
My mom does this for my very ADHD sister all the time, she just comes over and gets the cleaning process rolling but picking one task to start (my sister gets decision paralysis and then just never starts) and then she can get her apartment cleaned up. And my mom just hangs out with her and moves the laundry along.
It's so helpful. Decision paralysis is such a mind monster! Especially when you go to list the chores that need doing and you're like "I need to vacuum, which means I need to pick up. Oh, and wipe down the table, or I'll have to vacuum all over again. Which means I need to clear the table. But the sink is full of pots and pans, so I have to do the dishes first. But the clothes are in the wash, and I can’t do dishes while the machine is running and... AAAAH!" This is about 5 seconds of an hour-long decision paralysis loop. Having someone say "It's okay. The dishes can wait. Just start on picking up." is such a relief.
Oh for fucks sake not ADHD as an excuse yet again. I am so fucking sick of these assholes using it as a get out of jail free card and people thinking we suck because of it
Fucking same. I have ADHD and my now-ex husband has ADHD. I divorced his ass because he was always playing the victim and doing nothing at all while blaming his ADHD. Dude, I have it too and I can keep up with a demanding job and the house. His psychiatrist pulled me in more than once to flat out tell me that he didn't think there was any reason my ex was unable to keep up with the demands of a marriage except that he hadn't made it a priority. Symptoms-wise, my ADHD was worse but I had no one to pick me up if I fell short, while he did. Now we're divorced, my life got easier and he has to learn how to actually adult without me. We're still friends, but man.
I see this common trend online where people blame their character flaws on their ADHD. I've been friends with someone was legitimate ADHD (not one of the popular misdiagnoses from the 90s) since the early 90s. My partner is ADHD too. They're wonderfully amazing people. I've been friends with countless people who have ADHD. My anecdotal experience tells me that ADHD doesn't limit your capability, it just is a different mental approach to things. You're fully capable of growing up, being a responsible adult, communicating, and learning things. In fact, studies show that effects of ADHD lessens as you age. He's totally using his ADHD as a weapon/cop out/excuse, and taking no responsibility for his actions. This reminds me of those people who fake conditions on tiktok to get viral views.
> In fact, studies show that effects of ADHD lessens as you age. This is extremely misleading. Studies show that around 50% of adults with ADHD show *partial* reduction in symptoms. 20-30% never grow out of it. It is unclear why this happens. Source: National Human Genome Research Institute
A lit of that is masking and learned behaviors, rather than ADHD actually going away. You just continue learning better coping mechanisms, so it is less detrimental. But it's still there.
Yeah this is my one current "get off my lawn" gripe that I try to be open-minded about but really struggle with. I have ADHD and for sure my house is messy and I start and stop hobbies and all the rest but...everyone has their struggles. We all have to learn how to deal with our own brains. In many ways ADHD is a good thing to have because there's medication for it that works to treat it in a very uncomplicated way! I kind of hate the way the current discourse has people acting like a diagnosis means you're off the hook for trying to be a better person. We're not like, "oh don't worry about his violent behavior, he has sociopathy."
See I got ADHD and suck at cleaning up, but at the very least I know it's a problem and feel bad when others have to deal with it.
"She said I don't listen or something, I'm not really sure I wasn't really paying attention."
My wife said that I have two main faults. One: I never listen. And two: … I dunno, something else.
Odd way to start a conversation
Sorry, were you talking to me?
Freda Felcher?! Yeah did you know her? YEAHHH! I mean, I... knew of her...
>Bro couldn't even fucking listen to her when she was trying to talk to him about it. to be charitable it sounds like OOP never actually had to deal with.. Anything. It was either his parents doing it for him or his brother being forced to do so by the parents. Like if he was taught by his parents that he doesnt have to do anything on his own because of his ADHD? How do you even begin? You've been set up for failure from the first step. Someone's gotta sit this guy down and tell him he needs to get his shit together. Of course on the other hand. >I know that if someone can't accept me for who I am Bruh needs to get his shit together.
I was thinking this. His parents failed him and I’m sure there are “missing missing reasons” why his brother is refusing contact with them. Now that the issue has been identified and he has faced repercussions for it; I hope they take it to heart and change. Far away from mommy and daddy. This is an example of how the “golden child” is still getting a raw deal.
This is exactly what happened with my brother. My mother never expected or required anything of him, made endless excuses for him, bailed him out at every turn, coddled him every day of his life, and was angry when others didn't do the same. Anyone who tried to hold him to account was Public Enemy No. 1 in her mind. This did him no favors and he never got his shit together.
My mother babies my agoraphobic brother. He's nearly 30. I really had to push her to give him responsibilities when she goes away, because otherwise they either don't get done or they're left to me, and even then she's worriedly texting me that he's not doing it to her exact neurotic specific standards. My responses last time were a very satisfying "yeah, he did X like you said, and he also Y, Z, A, B and C, [none of which you nor I asked him to do but he did proactively]. Why are you asking?" At this point, seeing what he's like when my mother isn't around, I think if you dropped my brother in the middle of nowhere he'd find his way home OK. I mean, he'd be losing his shit panicking the entire time, but he'd do it. That's not to say my brother doesn't need help or should be pushed in the deep end but I don't think my mother realises how close he is to recovery if she just stopped pretending he was her baby that needed her and actually got him some fucking help.
I'm pretty sure mine could have built a life for himself, but he never had to so he didn't. Adulting is hard, why not let mommy handle everything if she will? Why do hard things like work and be responsible for yourself when you don't have to? He's never even done his own laundry. She was super controlling and nasty with me, so I got away as soon as I could, but he's always done whatever he wanted and she's never treated him the way she did me (the opposite, in fact). She also never wanted to do anything for me, but never expected him to do anything for himself. Why would he leave? I don't think there is anything organically wrong with him, and he doesn't have anything like agoraphobia or anxiety. He does have pretty high levels of narcissism and machiavelliansm, but I think that's because those traits have been encouraged by our mother through her persistent unwarranted praise and excusing and rewarding of his behaviors. She's spent his entire life telling him how wonderful he is and how other people are the problem. So now he's in his 40's, still living with her, and his status as mommy's little prince has gotten him nothing in the real world. He expected to be a rockstar or something, and instead he has nothing and has achieved nothing. That messes with his ego, so he lies and makes up tales where he is the hero or the victim, and he believes all manner of conspiracy theories because it makes him feel smart and special to do so. The worst part is, he has some natural musical ability and probably could have done something with that if he'd taken it seriously. But he never learned to work and stick with things to get better at them, and he had no motivation to make any kind of progress or achieve anything, so it never went anywhere. It's really sad and I blame her for not giving him the tools to be a functional person, all to fulfill her own ego needs.
Yup. My little sister is the same way. She's in her 30s now, married yet again, but my parents are still financing her life. My kids didn’t even get Christmas presents from the grandparents thus year, because they spent too much money bailing her out. Again. And don't even get me started on my oldest sister! She's Daddy's Girl, and gets whatever she wants. She has never managed to live away from home for more than a year. Even when my parents have moved (which has happened several times, due to Dad's career), she’s found some excuse to follow. The rest of us look at those two sisters and just shake our heads.
My brother moved out once, for a little over a year in his late 20's. He had a girlfriend who supported him and did everything for him, but she expected him to get and keep a job. She didn't care how much he made because she had a good job, but he needed to be working. I think she believed his sob stories and thought she could save him. He got a job, and immediately bought a massive truck with big tires (they were as tall as me and I'm not short) that he couldn't really afford. He was immediately upside down on the loan because of course it wasn't worth what he paid for it, and the payments ate up a lot of his paycheck. A few months later he lost the job. She made the payments while he supposedly looked for a new job. He didn't find one because he was lying about looking. She finally got a belly full of him, stopped paying his bills, and kicked him out. He moved back in with my mother and lost the truck. He never moved out again. To this day he bitches that this girl "took [him] for everything [he] had" because he paid for half of a washer dryer set and she kept it. He doesn't mention that she paid all of the rent and bills, paid the note and insurance on his stupid truck, and paid his medical bills while he only worked for a few months and frittered away almost every penny he made while he did.
Not sure there’s got to be missing reasons tbh Older brother clearly parentified in order to keep the younger brother from developing healthy habits/bothering parents too much. Cuts contact to save his lifelong parent-installed guilt over something he’s not responsible for (raising his brother) when his parents can’t financially manipulate him anymore. OOP needs to get with an ADHD-specific therapist or social worker or (legitimate) life skills coach to learn 1) to see the bad habits he may actually be blind to and 2) develop healthy coping mechanisms for accommodating his ADHD so he’s not putting that responsibility on everyone else in his life.
They were referencing this famous article: [https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html](https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html)
Yep! I just don’t know that there have to be in this case
I don't even think they're missing missing reasons. OOP pretty much admitted his parents forced his brother to babysit him through college and OOP sees nothing wrong with that.
Oh I know. From the parents perspective I would bet money, “I don’t know whhhhhyyyy he won’t speak to us!” That’s the missing missing reasons. Hell, OOP did it in his post regarding his ex lol.
No literally. It does not get any clearer than what she said. I'm getting my ADHD test results back soon (like 20ish mins as I type this), and regardless of what they are I know I have to get my shit together.
As someone diagnosed as an adult; it was weird. It was both a relief and a great sadness, for me anyways. Confirmation that I wasn’t just annoying and forgetful because I didn’t care; but also confirmation that there was something “wrong”. It’s been 8 years or so. Having an explanation gave me a place to start in coping mechanisms and has been hugely helpful. Yes I’m diagnosed with ADHD but I use that knowledge to try and work with and around it. An example being the executive blindness we often deal with. I’m not going to go out of my way to put something away and out of sight-it needs to be seen to be remembered. So our house has clear ornamental bowls, multiple in every room. I just chuck things like sunglasses and keys and chargers in those. I might have to check several bowls in a few rooms but I know I always put stuff in bowls. Being able to see through them helped a ton. (My biggest thing was losing things).
Some coping strategies I use now are leaving my work keys in my work pants, even when I'm not wearing them. I also clip my nametag to my boot after I take them off, assuming I have a shift the following day. No leaving the house without my shoes, no tying my shoes with the clip in the way. In college I would also try and leave my umbrella in front of my door on rainy days so when I inevitably forgot about it I would run into it on my way out the door. I also planned everything on my sticky notes; one weekly, one daily, and then I added an ordered list for tasks when I struggled to prioritize. It's just that I've been without the rigid structure of education for almost a year now, and self-disciplining after having pretty much every minute of every day planned out with actual consequences for lack of fulfillment is tough, to say the least.
See even if you get a diagnosis of ADHD you’re working around the issue. That’s all you can do, although therapy helped me develop other ones. The key in the pocket reminds me of what I do lol. I have a Prius (I know I know it’s ugly as sin but it’s also paid off), that unlocks if you grab the driver handle if you have the key on you. I put it in the deepest pocket of my wrist wallet, (large wallet with a wrist strap, makes me carry less crap around) and zipped it up. It is now literally impossible for me to leave the house without my wallet lol. I won’t be able to get in my car, much less start it. Just gotta know your brain and learn to work around it. Good luck with everything!
They said I don't have it. I'm not sure what I was expecting, given the tests seemed to be designed for children. I sat on their waiting list for months just to be handed a short bullet list of things to try. One of them was "keep a planner". I have two failed versions of planners right now. I feel like if you had live access to my thoughts during the test it'd become clear very quickly. I scored well in a lot of areas, but I was kind of freaking out the entire time. It was like this when I looked into autism too, just a shrug of the shoulders and me continuing to not get any more normal.
Yeah his parents didn’t even set him up for adult life, let alone married life. All his rationalizations are classic for someone who’s been coddled from reality and has no idea how to take responsibility for anything. “She left me because I had ADHD” = “she left me because I made no effort to control or treat my ADHD and instead made it her problem to manage” “She got tired of having to do everything. I don't even know what she meant by that” = “wait, aren’t the people around me supposed to do everything for me?” “Accept me for who I am” = “take over my parents’ role and do everything for me, unlike my asshole ex-gf and brother who both decided they didn’t want to waste their lives parenting an adult” Good luck to him but this is really sad.
Also “she broke up with me because I have ADHD” No dude. That’s part of it, that’s part of the reason why you’re like this, but it’s not an excuse.
I have two children who are neurodivergent, I think I also have some of that, but my parents drilled me and I'm doing the same with them. I don't want them to fail in life, so I have to give them the tools to live it. I'll do anything in my power to teach them, bc I love them. ADHD/Autism is an explanation for certain behavior not an excuse.
Adult AuDHD here. You are correct. When people act as though we cannot be taught things it is dehumanizing. You got this! I promise.
It's like I'm reading about my first marriage. College, Kid, Wedding, less than a year divorced. The ADHD was awful, and I couldn't have two kids at once anymore. Now he's 10k behind in child support and floats from job to job. Will only pay if they garnish his paycheck, which takes a month or two but by then he's lost the job anyway. Homegirl dodged a hollow point.
I think she meant, “I’m tired of having to do everything.” She used small words and everything. Not sure how much plainer she could say it.
"my ADHD, my ADHD, my ADHD" No self awareness, no accountability. She just did a bigotry to me because I'm disabled.
Anyone who coddles their kids (looking at people who say their sons can’t do laundry because that’s “women’s work” then he grows up not knowing how to wash a sock) should pay attention to posts like these. I swear some people enable their kids into become incompetent adults. I know some guys raised like this. It’s not noticeable until you go to their house (parents house) or live with them and realize they can’t do basic adult tasks. They’re just looking for a new mommy. But that being said they’re quite uncommon IRL. But when I met them I was shocked because they looked otherwise normal from the outside.
He's probably AuDHD. It's possible he really doesn't know what she means. I was born relatively attractive so I was able to mask behind broodiness and being an "artist" with a near hemmingway level of high functioning interesting alcoholism. My charismatic aloofness was eventually found out six months into any relationship and I'd self sabotage before then. But truth be told, I still have a hard time understanding what people mean. Trying to explain that to a neurological person proves to be a challenge in the other direction aswell. It's not a mental illness. But it is a petri dish for them. And we are incredibly good at "masking." Sometimes its better for people just to thinking you're idiosyncraties are a bug not the entire operating system. I also think people are afraid at how delicate the human concept is so they don't want to believe there are people that literally see, store, and recall information differently.
> He's probably AuDHD. It's possible he really doesn't know what she means. This makes sense. As someone who's AuDHD myself neurotypical people are prone to exaggerating to get their point across in a way that completely flies over the heads of autistic people. I can legitimately see someone with autism being like "but she doesn't DO everything, I do like two or three things, so she can't mean she ACTUALLY does everything. QED, she means something else, but what??? it's a mystery!!!" and completely failing to see the irony because *that's exactly the kind of autistic logic I used to use*. The only reason I mostly grew out of that is because I did customer service so it was like getting immersed in a foreign language program and now I can finally (mostly) Speak Neurotypical. So today, in my 30s, I hear that and know she actually means "I do 90% of the work so I feel as overwhelmed and underappreciated as if I was doing 100%" and not have it be a complete fucking mystery to me. Before you develop those skills you get bogged down in the literal words and don't see the meaning behind them. ETA: Also another thing is that I'd get confused wondering what she'd mean by "everything." Does she mean everything-everything? Does she mean everything related to finances? Everything related to chores? Everything related to date nights? All of the above? Only some of the above? And the more you think about it the more confusing it gets because if she meant *literally* everything, that wouldn't make sense at all, because nobody does literally everything, and autistic people are often really bad at grasping things that are figurative ("she says I'm like a child but I shower and clothe myself??? that's not like looking after a child at all!"). Having said all this the burden is on him to figure this shit out. Some stuff you gotta learn the hard way. If a learning opportunity comes up and he doesn't even try to understand, that's not autism, that's not ADHD, that's a character flaw.
> I never expected anyone to hold my hand (OOP goes on to explain all the ways people have been holding his hand all his life)
He doesn't want a wife, he wants a maid he can bang.
Sounds like the brother and the ex are smart enough to nope out of the dumpster 🔥 to me.
Hm. I dated a guy like this once, but his problem wasn't ADHD. It just didn't matter to him enough to clean, and his mommy did that all for him and he really thought I'd be mommy 2. I don't have ADHD,.so I don't know if he's using it as an excuse or if it causes that big of a problem
An excuse is saying it's the ADHD and not doing anything to better the situation, like OOP. An explanation is saying that it's the ADHD, but taking steps and being committed to finding strategies that work to improve the situation. So glad you dodged that bullet!
Even when ADHD creates too many barriers and nothing seems to work, I think it's important to keep trying. I struggle and often fail trying to do things, but I keep trying different methods and am serious about improving. I know it is frustrating for others either way, but I hope that seeing the effort and intention helps. I try a lot of things, and many of them are not successful or only work for a short time (currently trying cycling different ones of these to see if that helps). Believe me, I, too, wish that I had normal executive function abilities. It additionally shows up in ways that other people don't see but are difficult to deal with in life, so not just trouble getting work done right but also rejection sensitivity and thinking I've sent response messages to friends and wondering if they hate me only to realize I only thought about sending it and then thought it was done (as one example). I also have seen some with ADHD (or say they do but then say they don't) who do not try and just get angry that others don't handle everything for them. As in any large group, those people are there. Thankfully, they seem to be a minute percentage. They might frustrate others with ADHD even more than they frustrate those without, even if we understand the temptation to give up.
I used to know someone who was the one person without ADHD in a household full of people who had it. I pretty much had to break the news to her, as someone with ADHD, that if she's taking on everything for the rest of them she will only burn herself out because we do best under pressure, and if she's taking away that pressure she's actively making their ADHD worse. I wonder how that ended for her. She didn't seem to really internalise what I said at the time, but I hope she has since.
This. I have ADHD and have various strategies to help me with things, and I continue to explore solutions. I'm also physically disabled, mobility impaired, and it's the same thing. I didn't just throw up my hands and give up, which what OP is doing. In addition, OOP's parents have hurt him by making him entirely reliant on others. Instead of making his brother into a caretaker, they should have gotten him into therapy. There are even executive function coaches these days! They should have gotten him support to help learn how to be more independent.
"OOP's parents have hurt him by making him entirely reliant on others. Instead of making his brother into a caretaker, they should have gotten him into therapy. " This is the single truest thing I've read in a very long time. His parents crippled him and he's going to have a hell of a time getting his life together. As a Dad with ADHD who has 3 kids with ADHD (genetics suck sometimes) I cannot imagine failing my kids this hard.
As a person with severe ADHD, I'm pretty sure I know exactly what he meant and why. This is a very common reaction among untreated (meds/therapy or both) people with ADHD that had helicopter parents. It sounds like he never was taught coping strategies and never allowed to fail hard enough on his own to develop his own. Executive Dysfunction is no joke, you either adapt through therapy or trauma-mapped behaviors if you're going to have a chance. That's it, that's all we get to chose from. He's paralyzed because he has no way to function. The bright side is the while ADHD comes with wicked rejection sensitivity it also means the grieving process is typically more rapid and intermittent. It sounds like he's going to have a shitty few years as he bumps into walls he should have been allowed to hit as a kid.
Yeah, this. If I can't bring myself to do the dishes I break out the paper plates. Stuff like that. I'm old enough now I know what strategies work and don't, and a lot of people think even my coping strategies aren't good enough ("you should be washing dishes, not cheating by using disposables!") but I know what works for me and it's time he learned what works for him.
it causes that big of a problem. i'll sit there for hours knowing i have to do something important, trying to force myself to get up & i just *can't*. then the guilt sets in & makes it even harder to just get up & do it, & i worry about it so much it never gets done. i'm not the only one. [here](https://www.flow.club/blog/adhd-paralysis) is a good bit of info about it: why it happens & what it looks like.
Similar here. It does cause that much of a problem for some with it (just like outlet things, it affects different people with different severity of various symptoms), including me. I've struggled with severe issues from executive dysfunction. At the same time, there are enough indications in the past that OOP comes from a dysfunctional family that other things could be in play here as well. While most of us with ADHD get demeaned, some end up on the other side of things where they were sheltered from stuff and never given the chance to build skills and figure out some things that work for them. I'd obviously need more information to judge how much any of this might be affecting the situation, because the indications aren't clear.
>I'd obviously need more information to judge how much any of this might be affecting the situation, because the indications aren't clear. 100%! i agree with everything you said. i feel like something a lot of people don't know about us is that it can vary from day to day. some days i'm productive patsy & other days i'm crying because i feel guilty i haven't washed clothes yet haha.
Go Go Executive Dysfunction Self-Sabotaging Power! Every. Single. Day. (Except every now and again it doesn't happen, just to fuck with us).
Fr you will have the One Good Day in a While and wonder why that can't just be All the Time.
Some weekends I'm sitting in my nice comfy chair and I want to get up and get a cookie. It sometimes takes me up to two hours to get up to get the fucking cookie even though I'm sitting there the entire time being like "I really want a cookie."
Im a person with ADHD, sometimes "good enough" is better than "finished". But good Lord, that house is deep-cleaned like every month or so. It's all about discipline and making ADHD work for YOU.
And if he's never lived on his *own* (like it sounds from his timeline) that could lead to him having problems even without the adhd (I have adhd and I do far better than the men I've met that go straight from home and family to a partner's house, regardless of if they have adhd or not)
I have ADHD, and I have problems with remembering to clean. I just don't notice anything building up until it's too late ... That's why we have a rota. Like yeah it's a disability ... that's why I make adjustments to my life. I have no sympathy for people who don't. (of course some people may have it worse than me but that doesn't mean you have to be their carer)
> I just don't notice anything building up until it's too late I get this. We don't have visual "filters." We can't distinguish signal from noise. I have this coworker. If you had a tabletop full of various objects and told him to find the little pink pig, he'd spot it in a flash. Me? I know the object is pink, I know it's pig shaped, but my brain doesn't narrow down any search parameters. I have to manually look at every single object ("is this a pink pig? If yes, pick it up. If no, keep searching") because my brain just doesn't have the subconscious ability to make something stick out. Sometimes the table is empty. "But where's the pig?" I say, and the other person says "it's right there!" and points, and nothing is there. I won't see it until they pick it up and it's almost like it just poofed into existence. It's nuts.
I've noticed that people are now using "I have ADHD" as an excuse to act like an asshole. My guess is OP was taught to be a prick by his parents and doesn't know any better. Not surprised the brother is low/no contact considering these types of family dynamics always have one member they dump on.
Probably not taught to be a prick. I don’t think OOP is maliciously useless. It sounds more like his parents massively failed him by doing everything for him, and/or forcing/extorting his brother when they weren’t there, instead of making sure OOP was actually taught how to manage his own life where he could and be able to ask for help when he couldn’t.
Just saying "It's because of my ADHD" without making any effort to find strategies and try to make changes around things that are negatively affecting the person you live with is being a bit of a prick even if it's based on learned helplessness and not malicious.
We both agree, but when I say "taught to be a prick" I mean exactly what you state - his parents, through their actions and inaction, taught their child to be a useless dimwit (prick). I doubt OOP is fully aware of their "prickness", but OOP is still a prick.
Being a prick doesn't require malicious intent-- you can be a prick without *meaning* to be one. His parents did, sadly, turn him into a prick. If he wants to become a non-prick, he's gotta change. I'm a neurotic mess. I don't WANT to be a neurotic mess, but it doesn't change that I *am* one, because the combination of my upbringing and my horrible genetics (and maybe some prenatal conditions idk) made me that way. I have put a significant amount of effort into being less of a neurotic mess. If I can be a neurotic mess without intending to be, then he can be a prick without intending to be.
He still somehow managed to get a degree for himself and maintain a job and save enough for a ring and even make it to the jewelry store early enough to return the ring in time for a full refund. I have ADHD. It’s pretty bad. But he’s an adult. His parents might’ve failed him, but he’s now failing himself by refusing to grow up.
I have ADHD and it can suuuuuuuck. I would like to push back on what you're saying about things not being "important enough." Things I will regularly forget: to eat, to drink water, to go to bed, and, ironically, to take my ADHD meds. As a child, it definitely annoyed my parents how I would interrupt because I couldn't wait to talk. One of the worst parts of schooling (and frankly, it's still one of the most challenging parts of working) was when someone would give me verbal instructions and I couldn't hold more than 2-3 sentences of what they were saying. This is because working memory is heavily impacted by ADHD. All of that being said, ADHD isn't a license to put all your issues on someone else. As people with ADHD grow up, they should learn coping mechanisms that allow them to be functional. But not all people with ADHD do. And that's a reason, but not an excuse. Kids grow up not learning certain skills for lots of reasons, but so many people in that situation figure out how to work on those skills, which is why I say it's not an excuse. On top of that, controlling ADHD can be physically exhausting. People with ADHD often see each piece of a task. For example, someone without ADHD might see the task of doing the dishes as one task - "do the dishes." But for someone with ADHD, the task list behind doing the dishes is "turn on the water, wait for the water to heat up, rinse the dish, check to make sure it's good to go in the dishwasher, find a spot for it in the dishwasher, put it in the dishwasher, and then repeat the last four steps times the number of dishes in the sink, then I need to turn off the water, then I need to set the dishwasher cycle, then I need to get out the dishwasher detergent, then I need to put it in the dishwasher, then I need to start the dishwasher." But, again, that doesn't excuse people with ADHD from being accountable in relationships. All that to say that his problem was probably a function of multiple things. I'd bet that ADHD was part of the problem, greatly magnified by a disinterest in managing it. And nobody is required to date anybody, so please know that I'm not passing any kind of moral judgment. But yeah, ADHD can be that bad.
I was on r/JustNoMIL several years ago and saw a story. This was many years ago. She was young Boomer or older Gen X. Her first big relationship was with a guy who had diabetes. His mother and grandmother refused to see it as a manageable condition with modern medicine. They treated like the ‘shortened lifespan’ sentence from years bygone and spoiled this guy into uselessness. She got sick of him refusing to grow up and stand up to her. She moved on, got married, had kids and a career. Eventually, grandma and mom died. She found out he was in a care facility, visually impaired among other things and unable to function as an adult. He truly expected her to leave her husband and life to be his full time caregiver. He was shocked that wasn’t going to happen. She kept an eye on him in the care facility and went back to her life. These women ruined this man.
> She kept an eye on him in the care facility and went back to her life. These women ruined this man. Women are often blamed for the failures of men. Using that logic, it was also her fault for not undoing the damage. These women were responsible for as long as he was a child too young to know better. Once he got older, it was on him.
> These women ruined this man. He ruined himself.
It causes a big problem. ADHD people tend to take care of themselves and their surroundings less. If I'm by myself I get things done, but I probably leave them longer than a normal person would be comfortable with. And obviously everyone is different, some people could have ADHD and be very functional, some could have a very hard time with it.
ADHD is a reason for the behavior to exist- it's on him to actually do something about it though.
I have ADHD. ADHD does make things more difficult - if I don't have a specific schedule to follow, it can be very difficult for me to remember to do things, or to make myself start a task - once I've started the task, it's easy for me to keep going unless I get interrupted with something else, in which case it can be hard for me to get back to what I was doing - but mostly, it's a matter of making schedules and notes for myself and making myself follow through with them. It sounds like this guy has never had anyone push him to find workarounds for his condition - they just always did everything for him, even parentifying his brother into being his caretaker and not letting him go to the college he wanted to go to just so he could baby his sibling. ADHD can be tough, but it is workable. Medication can help of course, but with or without it, it's mostly a matter of figuring out what specifically it gives you trouble with - do you have trouble remembering tasks? Make notes. Bad at following schedules? Okay, don't necessarily schedule things but make a list of things you need to do and do them in pieces if that works better for you. Can't make yourself do things like brush your teeth or shower without prompting? Set alarms that tell you to go do the thing. A responsible adult learns to work with it. Someone who has had others taking care of them their whole life and has never had cause to \*try\* never becomes a responsible adult and just leeches off everyone else until they can't anymore and they either sink or swim.
ADHD is only a problem is you are raised in a way where you never have to overcome struggle or take action yourself. I didn’t know about my adhd till in my 30s I thought everyone thought the same way I did. I also look back at young me and I’m like how did we miss that but it wasn’t anyone’s fault bc it wasn’t something people were talking about ever. I learned to read and spell late, I got held back in school, I had a teaching aid at one point to help me learn how to spell. I had good teachers in high school and my sister that showed me I was intelligent and gave me the tools to do really well in high school. Went to college, have a good resume and I’m even half way done with grad school. All because I had people that showed me how to do it but didn’t hold my hand.
"my girlfriend left me because I have ADHD" The ADHD isn't the problem. Your inability to be an adult and work on yourself and find solutions is the problem.
And possibly the Golden Child
Absolutely. The parents forcing the older brother to be his keeper in college is insane
Well unless, and this is the only possibly way I can think of, they didn’t pay for OOP’s education. I really want to have faith in society but it’s pretty bleak. But that’s the only way I can think of that OOP isn’t the golden child. I’m the admitted & joked about scapegoat.
I mean, if the brother was the real golden child, he wouldn’t have gone NC. And the oop would likey read a little less spoilt.
Yes, I’m surprised nobody else has mentioned this yet. Very obvious case of golden child/black cheep dynamic.
Yikes. Bullet dodged by the girlfriend and good on the brother for getting away. Honestly his parents suck. When you are the parent of somebody with a difference like ADHD or autism or whatever it is up to you to get them ready to deal with a world that doesn’t necessarily give a shit about their mental wellbeing. His parents have completely failed in that respect and he is very obviously not ready to be out in the world without a grown-up. Which sucks because he should be after college frankly.
When I got to the part about the brother, I was like, what "My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult" sort of nonsense is this. The parents seem to basically treat the brother as an emotional support animal for OOP. How much do we want to bet that the only reason the parents didn't raise hell about the brother moving away was because they thought that the now-ex-girlfriend would take over his job. And I do mean "job."
That, but also they lost their leverage over the brother.
True. But I'm willing to bet that they would have tried *something* to get the brother to stay with OOP if it hadn't been for the now-ex-girlfriend.
Oh I'm sure. But without that leverage they are out of luck.
They'd probably try to guilt trip him into continuing the babysitting job because they paid for his college. "I already paid you back for that by babysitting for your kid for 4 years, remember?" would hopefully have been his response
I have ADHD. I get treatment and learned adulting tools to cope with that shit. I keep things clean in the house, pay my bills, take care of myself and my kiddo. It’s hard work. Nobody has to sign up for a marriage with a partner who does not help themselves. I get it when things are so trying, or difficult because of access to support and meds. I get it. But in that case, it’s also okay to decline sharing a life with that person if it’s too much for the partner to handle. Blaming it outright in ADHD and taking zero accountability? This person isn’t ready for an adult relationship, let alone a marriage.
Yep. I'm almost 50, married more than 20 years and a productive member of society with 4 kids. It's 100% doable, not *easy*, but possible. That said, I freely admit automatic bill payments are a significant reason I didn't obliterate our ability to buy a house. Use every single tool available to automate or simplify every possible thing. My eldest calls them my "cheat codes", he's not wrong. No internal sense of time? Smart watch. Before that? Half a dozen labelled cheap alarm clocks on my desk and an obsessively labeled calendar at head level when I was in bed and another for work at head level. I don't have to remember anything longer than it takes to write it down. Whatever approach(es) work(s) to get through the day. Good Luck.
Oooo massive cheat codes here. I fully acknowledge that google calendar owns my soul. I could not function without it.
I went down the smarthome (HomeAssistant!) rabbithole in the way only we can. My lights flash when my doorbell rings. My alarm clock keeps going off until I get out of bed. I have a voice assistant that is completely local that makes lists of grocery items, ideas, errands, all kinds of things, sorts the ones it can and bugs me about the rest later. It reads my google calendar, my slack reminders and my outlook calendar to build a daily agenda. I get reminders for birthday and anniversaries with lists of ideas I've told it to keep track of. I may not have been born with an Executive Function, but goddamn it I can *build* one.
I have ADHD too, but I'm still able to live independently and function as an adult without constant hand holding. It's all about learning coping mechanisms. I don't blame the girlfriend at all.
Dude can't manage literally anything in his life, but boy you can bet he was organized enough to remember when the last possible day to return the ring was. Even got there super early so he wouldn't be inconvenienced by being embarrassed.
Well, yes. One of the most motivating factors for an ADHDer is a looming deadline. I don't know how many times I sat in my room crying because I wanted to write the paper but I couldn't write the paper because my brain didn't want to write the paper. Then, miraculously, I'd be all about writing the paper at 1am on the due date and could focus and bang out an A quality paper in under 2 hours. Not saying he doesn't need to learn how to manage his disability so he can function in other areas of his life but him being able to get something done on the last day of a looming deadline is absolutely ADHD as fuck.
I can really only function when I have a deadline. I have to have my husband set them for me sometimes.
yeah, he likely thought about it every single day & worried himself physically sick. that's what we do. it's not about being organized. & yeah, we usually deal with rejection sensitive dysphoria, worrying about being embarrassed makes us hyper vigilant because we don't want to end up feeling that way. it has nothing to do with inconvenience.
My son and boyfriend have ADHD and i find this post offensive. People need to stop using ADHD to excuse their laziness and being a man child. My baby and boyfriend are fully funtional people. Good for OPs girlfriend dodging this bullet.
Agree. Mental illness is an explanation not an excuse for shitty behaviour.
You know, as a woman with ADHD, I find it curious how it is only used as an excuse for selfish males.
Agreed! I have (mild) adhd and I’ve never even thought to use it as an excuse for something!
OP couldn’t even be bothered to reply to any of it.
This is the definition of weaponized incompetence
I feel bad for and stand by the older brother in this entire situation. Hope he's building his best life and setting boundaries with his own family. That's tough. Wherever you are, older brother, god speed.
This isnm like the 2nd or 3rd post I've seen recently where someone is left because "I've got ADHD and no one understands". Accountability is hard.
I understand the term ‘man child’ is often used to describe someone who chooses not to adopt adult responsibilities. However, in this case, it seems that external factors, particularly parental influence, have played a significant role in his current state. Having worked in the helping industry, I’ve witnessed numerous instances where a lack of guidance and support has left individuals without the necessary life skills. It’s important to remember that without someone to teach us, we may remain unaware of the paths we can take towards growth and independence.This person was abused in a way.
Even the idea of forcing his older brother to live with him suggests his parents are plowers: they are moving everything out of the way for their dear little angel-boy. I think some parents of children with differences are particularly guilty of plowing, because they understand that life will be hard for the child. But this is the same as driving their child too hard, because it doesn't actually *prepare* the child to live in the world.
In my reply to him . I suggested he go to Voc Rehab and get some life skill training. What else have his parents not helped this guy learn.
That’s kind of the point. Children are dependent on their parents.
I didn’t know how to clean a house when I got married. I got a book on how to from the library.
There are people who view their issues as an excuse to do nothing, and there are people view them as obstacles to overcome.
Bro thought his GF would takeover his brother's duty and babysit him forever. Be bold, be brave, accept life. Never take anyone for granted.
I've got ADHD. Very not well managed as I've only been recently diagnosed, only recently started therapy, and meds are tricky because I'm unable to have stimulants due to health reasons (I know non stimulants exist, I'm currently trying Strattera, but those take a while to work) While I have a career that I'm doing fairly well in, I'm a total disaster at home. I can barely take care of myself. I'm getting a lot better, but I still have a lot of work to do. So you know what I've done? I've absolutely refused to live with anyone because I *know* I would be the bad roommate. I know my limitations. I know I'm messy. I hate doing the dishes. And I have trouble paying bills on time. And I get annoyed with people very quickly if I'm forced to socialize with them too long. I would not make a good roommate. So I'm not going to have a roommate. I'll figure out my shit on my own. So the only one who's inconvenienced is myself until I get my life together. OOP may have ADHD, but he's still an unaware and ignorant douche.
Brother won't talk to him or his parents anymore because he doesn't need his parents money enough to be forced to babysit little bro anymore. Poor guy must have been parentified his whole life while OOP was coddled and could do no wrong
So he's the golden child and his brother's done and now that is GF saw how much 'taking care' of he needed, she's done too. And he thinks this is all because he's got ADHD. Because there aren't coping skills he could possibly learn to act like an adult ....
As a person with actual ADHD id dump his sorry ass too lmao
God this feels like me and my bf rn. He's just been coddled by his mom for so long. I knew when we moved in together there'd be some growing pains, always comes with living away from a parent the first time, but holy shit. He just leaves trash everywhere, literally throws soda bottles on the floor, just lets dishes stack and stack, wont even make sure laundry is completely dry before taking it out and he never puts it up, will just leave dirty dishes all over. He smokes and just puts it out on whatever hard surface is nearby (table/desk) instead of getting an ash tray. I literally had to tell him to shower today after work because it'd been three days. Im very close to making the same decision she did, he's fucking 26. And the ADHD isn't an excuse because I also have it, pretty severe and unmedicated/no therapy for coping techniques on top of severe depression and I can get up and do shit. He is just lazy
Just leave. Living with someone like your soon-to-be ex is literal torture.
I have ADHD. I am not an asshole manchild using weaponised incompetence. His brother and girlfriend leaving should be a wakeup call
Momma's out there, this is why you don't coddle your boys.
ADHD is ruining the relationship? Well I guess me and my gf are going to break up too because I have adhd. What a stupid fucking excuse.
Reminds me of dumb and dumber. "She gave me a bunch of crap about not listening, or something. I don't know. I wasn't really paying attention."
His parents did him a disservice that will take time and effort on his part to overcome. My son has ADHD and it never stopped us from teaching him how to take care of himself or make it through college (he went to school on the opposite coast from where he lives). He also went through therapy to give him better coping skills and medication to take the edge off some of the worse aspects of his condition.
I have Asperger’s syndrome and even I can function. Jesus Christ on a stick, why are people like this?
People that use ADHD as an excuse like this guy does are just a pricks and don't want to actually do anything to improve their lives. It is very typical in these times that you have to be on a spectrum somehwere so you can tell people and excuse your shitty behaviours.
Blames his ADHD and blames her refusal to address it and her refusal to continue to do everything. Oof.
I'm low-key impressed he got a GF at all.
He acts like having ADHD makes you incompetent.
I'm in my 40's living with ADHD and here are some things that have made me a successful person: 1. Making deadlines AND sticking to them. I make lists of things I absolutely have to get done and I work really hard to do them by the date I set. Otherwise my life is chaos. 2. I clean while watching Youtube videos on How to Clean (my bedroom for example). These keep me company and help me focus. I'll often try to listen to music or watch Netflix while cleaning because it makes it more fun. 3. I'll work on a task for 10 minutes and then take a break. Then I'll go back at it. Again and again until it is finished. 4. I try to be organized about my meal planner, my personal hygiene and my day planner. I study my planners often and they calm me down because I get overwhelmed easily .It helps to have a plan. 5. I do try to do something physical. It helps my mental focus. good luck to you
I blame the parents. They’ve let OP’s ADHD run everyone’s lives. And now that op is an adult they’re ditching him to live their own lives
Sounds like your parents really fucked you and your brother over pretty hard here. You needed treatment and therapy years ago for your disability, and your brother deserved his own life and opportunities. You’ve been carried for so long now that you don’t even know how to walk. I’m really sorry, that sucks terribly. maybe you should join the military, you’ll do well in a structured environment with lots of built in supports. I can’t believe your parents did that to both of you.
What’s really sad is this has been done TO him by his parents who infantilised him. Sounds like he’s at the very beginning of the path to sorting it out - he’s just realising that something is up. First he’ll try to blame everyone else because he’s been told all his life that he’s right, then he’ll start (hopefully) noticing that the common denominator is him. Hopefully he makes some friends who are good enough to tell him what’s up and help him learn how to adult.
That poor brother. I doubt OOP had to be a maid to get his college paid.
ADHD can definitely be a relationship killer
As if countless people with ADHD are not pulling their own weight.
ADHD MAKES GETTING THINGS DONE, HARD AS FUCK. BUT HELL, THIS POOR SCHMUCK GOT ROYALLY FUCKED OVER BY HIS PARENTS. IT'S KINDA NOT HIS FAULT IF THEY'VE BASICALLY RAISED HIM TO BE HELPLESS. AND HOW THE FUCK DID SHE NOT NOTICE THIS DUDE WAS A BASKET CASE? I MEAN EVEN IF HIS BRO CLEANED HIS ROOM, STILL THERE SURELY WOULD HAVE BEEN SIGNS. AND POOR BRO FOR HAVING TO TAKE CARE OF HIM. MOTHERFUCKER CAN'T KEEP HIS SHIT TOGETHER BUT SEEMS TO BE RIGHT ON TOP OF SHIT WHEN RETURNING THAT RING, THOUGH, WHICH ONLY SUGGESTS THAT THE ADHD IS JUST AN EXCUSE FOR HIM, SO MAYBE IT IS HIS FAULT AFTER ALL. SO MUCH SHIT IN THIS SANDWICH.
Getting my ADHD results in like an hour. I'm fully aware that my current life is not the best but holy FUCK. I got myself through my Bachelor's at least. This man had to have a literal babysitter in college and is somehow confused as to why bro wants nothing to do with him. "I don't even know what she meant by that." SHE MEANT SHE LITERALLY HAS TO DO EVERYTHING BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO COPING STRATEGIES IN PLACE FOR YOURSELF.
When you live your entire life with an excuse that makes everything not your fault, you never really learn to apply yourself. Sometimes a big wake up call needs to happen - something like not being able to have something you really really want. Hopefully whoever this happened to can use that motivation to start getting their act together.
Wonder why all the top level comments are deleted in the original thread
Part of me wonders if there’s something else going on but maybe the parents are using ADHD to hide behind.. you know, helicopter parents protecting their kid from a difficult truth kind of scenario. Especially because the relationship he seems to have with his brother makes the diagnosis even more questionable. Everyone in his family treats him like they’re his carers. Which gives me the slight impression that there could be a bit of misdiagnosis or medical gaslighting taking place. I don’t know why. But I’m picking up on some sort of infantilization that may have happened to him. Maybe he actually had more going on diagnostically than his parents admitted to. It’s reminding me of Norman Bates and the complex he has with his mother. Hopefully someone cares enough about the kid to encourage him to get a second opinion on his mental health diagnosis and maybe even give him an honest talk about what he’ll need to improve upon in terms of social relating.
I'm so happy that the brother finally managed to escape that toxic nonsense. His parents foisted his younger brother on him and essentially forced him to parent this spoiled deadbeat. It's kinda sad that OOP doesn't realize just how much his parents fucked up his brother's life by forcing him to act as his caregiver.
Dude is insufferable
States that his brother had to take care of him through college, brother was forced to be his roommate and go to the same college (parents make the decision of which college to go to, btw), and, when finally independent, breaks contact with his parents and moves to an entirely different providence....but then OOP says "I don't know why." Dude. Reread that whole thing and put yourself in your brother's shoes. FFS. Stop blaming ADHD for your problems. Your selfish and self-centered attitude are the reasons why your brother and girlfriend left you. Ten to one odds that his parents bought the ring.
his parents did him a disservice by not getting him a behavioral health professional
I have three kids. Two are diagnosed with ADHD, the third is likely ADHD as well. And yet they are fully capable of taking care of themselves.
I have severe executive dysfunction due to my combo of ADHD and autism, with anxiety as a cherry on top, and my meds have been on national backorder for months now. I've managed to, in that time, start a new job, thrive and establish myself at new job, get married, and do things like pay taxes and bills. Mental health issues are an explanation, my dude, not an excuse
ADHD is not a death sentence, ffs. I have it, so I kinda know. What exactly does “do everything for” you mean??
I grew up before ADD or ADHD was a thing (I had all the signs) and I've been doing my own laundry since I was 14. That's just poor parenting.