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Does anyone have a partner or a friend with ADHD?

epath13

epath13

the Fool.The Magician.The...
V.I.P Member
I've been wondering if any of you guys who are on the spectrum have partners, relatives or friends with ADHD (without Autism)? Or the other way around somebody with ADHD have relationship with a person on the spectrum. My husband has ADHD, and as my counselor says, he's a very typical one :) I believe my mom if not ADHDer but ADDer for sure. My dad is most likely on the spectrum. I find we are very similar, but at the same time an extreme opposites... I know it's weird, but that's how it feels. I know my thoughts can spin and rush but it seems different. It's like my thoughts are in chunks and usually dedicated to one subject at a time, and it's hard for me to switch from one subject to another. Their thoughts are "speeding" at 200 miles per hour, and sometimes in opposite directions and those thoughts could be about completely different subjects. One thing I have problem with, they wonder why I'm so slow, while I'm wondering why can't they take it easy. We also can flip pretty quickly but for different reasons. My reasons mostly sensory, their reasons emotional... or maybe they make it emotional while in reality, the real reason is inability to be patient, to slow down and chill. I find that this difference is hardest to deal with because it's not easy for both sides to understand, the only thing you can do here is to accept without understanding. One more thing that bothers me a little (not as much any more) their organization system: to stuff everything in closets so when you open them, everything falls out, or just leaving stuff lying around because, one day they'll get to it :) I think, from my experience, people with ADHD a lots of fun, they are challenging and creative. But sometimes they both get on my nerves, just like I'm sure, I get on theirs :)
Does anybody else have similar experience?
 
Yes, actually I do have a friend with ADHD and a whole other series of disorders.

I suspect some other people also have ADHD, but they never got tested. It's kinda taboo subject here.
 
I have a friend with ADHD...on meds for it, which somewhat help. He and his wife are about my age. One of his sons is an aspie.

We haven't known each other for very long, but work together for some stuff at church. I really enjoy working with him and his wife and getting to know their family, but I don't think he's the kind of person I could ever be deeply involved with, like as coworkers in an intense job or married or whatever. His wife has my sympathies, lol. And yet I admire him a great deal, and we actually have a lot in common.
 
Balkan1996 said:
Yes, actually I do have a friend with ADHD and a whole other series of disorders.

I suspect some other people also have ADHD, but they never got tested. It's kinda taboo subject here.
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Where is it a taboo subject? If you font want to answer, it's totally fine. :) I'm just curious.
 
DogwoodTree said:
I have a friend with ADHD...on meds for it, which somewhat help. He and his wife are about my age. One of his sons is an aspie.

We haven't known each other for very long, but work together for some stuff at church. I really enjoy working with him and his wife and getting to know their family, but I don't think he's the kind of person I could ever be deeply involved with, like as coworkers in an intense job or married or whatever. His wife has my sympathies, lol. And yet I admire him a great deal, and we actually have a lot in common.
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What's up with your friend? :) Is it because of the ADHD or his personality?
 
epath13 said:
What's up with your friend? :) Is it because of the ADHD or his personality?
Click to expand...

He's a live wire, that one. He dreams big, and is always going-going-going, but not very predictable except in his unpredictability. His wife is a very stabilizing force in his life, and he willingly cooperates with her in that, knowing that he needs her to keep him grounded. He's very passionate, but not very reliable. For someone like me who really needs to have some solid plans to depend on, I think it would drive me crazy to have to depend on him repeatedly for anything really important to me. Once I figured out that's the way he operates, I was able to back my feelings away from events we do together enough so that, if he canceled, I wasn't really hurt by it. That helped. And I do want to get to know both him and his wife more.
 
epath13 said:
Where is it a taboo subject? If you font want to answer, it's totally fine. :) I'm just curious.
Click to expand...

I don't live in a very liberal country. I'd say 50% of people here don't believe psychological disorders even exist and they see psychologists as some voodoo thing... And answer to all the pain you face in the world is - "pray to God".
So, people usually tend to be silent about their problems. If you tell someone you have ADHD, you have a pretty good chance of being 'left out' (newer generations are a lot more liberal tho).

You probably wanted to hear something about my friend as well. Well, he is a problematic person. Divorced family, unstable mother. I'm pretty sure he gets medications for ADHD and several other things (I'm not sure what he has). He is the most severe case of ADHD I've ever seen. When I eat a piece of chocolate, I go hyper but he goes freaking insane. Above all that, he is generally a good person. Boredom gets the worst out of people.
 
Sometimes I wonder, people with neurological disorders should be able to communicate better, simply because we are all in a boat (maybe not exactly in the same one) in the middle of a neurological storm, but it's not quite the case. It more feels like we are all aliens but from different planets :)
 
Has anyone noticed if your ADHD friends like active "discussions", while it's actually mostly them actively talking for extremely long time about their favorite subjects, often switching from one thing to another while another person may not even be able to say anything because it's very hard to insert a word into a non stop speech? :D
 
Actually, with my friend, he is really good about asking my opinion on things and actually listening. I don't know if that's natural to him, or if he's worked on it. His wife, though...that stabilizing force in his life...is the one with the tendency to start talking about all her stuff and not stop, even when he reminds her to let someone else talk. The first evening I went to their house where we really started getting to know each other...it was fascinating to watch the two of them interact and cover for each other's idiosyncrasies.
 
epath13 said:
Sometimes I wonder, people with neurological disorders should be able to communicate better, simply because we are all in a boat (maybe not exactly in the same one) in the middle of a neurological storm, but it's not quite the case. It more feels like we are all aliens but from different planets :)
Click to expand...

Yeah, but I think we are more empathical to others. We don't understand each other quite well, but we are aware of that and more considerate.
 
epath13 said:
Has anyone noticed if your ADHD friends like active "discussions", while it's actually mostly them actively talking for extremely long time about their favorite subjects, often switching from one thing to another while another person may not even be able to say anything because it's very hard to insert a word into a non stop speech? :D
Click to expand...

I love constant digressions! They keep conversations interesting!

Non stop speech? I don't have it, my brain processes information very slowly. He doesn't have it either, but it's definitely an ADHD trait!
 
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