Being in a relationship with ADHD
Hi everyone I wanted to come on here and get some advice about something that’s been bothering me and I just want to know whether im just overthinking things and reading too much into it.
So to start this off, I have struggled my entire life with doing the simplest day to day tasks and I have also struggled with school quite a bit. I was put down a lot by my parents saying I was stupid, lazy, using them, didn’t have any drive or discipline. Once I started college these were things I truly started to believe and I went into a very low state of depression. I barely ever got out of bed, didn’t eat much (also because my mom kept commenting on my body and still does), barely attended classes and I could never start on any homework or especially projects no matter how much I knew I needed and wanted to. I saw everyone around me doing so much better than me and I just thought I wasn’t smart enough. I have failed so many classes and and I have lost many relationships in my life.
It wasn’t until recently Ive started to consider the possibility that I might have ADHD by hearing about the experiences from a few people I have met in school. I started reading up on how this might affect women and almost everything described me to a T. Rejection sensitivity, emotional dis regulation, unable to focus or process information, head filled with thoughts and not being able to think a single one of them all the way through, moments of hyper fixation at the most inconvenient times, etc. So I started seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist to figure out what was going on with me. I was prescribed anxiety, depression, and bipolar medication to see if those were the causes of my inability to focus, and everything else going on. So far they have not helped and I am almost 100% certain I have ADHD.
I’ve tried telling my boyfriend about what’s been going on and a part of me thinks he doesn’t believe me. A few weeks ago we both were talking to a few friends of his and they were talking about a professor they had that was very talkative and bubbly. My boyfriend looks at me and says, “he has ACTUAL ADHD,” laughed it off and went back to the conversation. This really put me off and I didn’t know what to say or do. I tried contributing to the conversation but I was already in my head. Whenever I try to talk about something that I’m really interested in and fixated on, he kind of brushed me off and interrupts me like he doesn’t want to hear it. A few nights ago I had a very low low where I barely ate and got out of bed and I had been crying. He was busy studying but once he was done we checked up on me asking if I ate or drank anything. He was starting to get concerned about me once I talk him the only things I did that day. I told him about the obsessive negativity thought going through my head. He tried to give me advice telling me the mind is a powerful thing and basically told me to stop the negative thoughts. I tried to explain to him that its not that easy. I gave him a long explanation as to what was going on and I told him if he really wants to know, to do some research on how ADHD affects women. He told me he was doing it right then and there but by the end of the conversation he simply said, “I don’t know what else to say baby.”
He tries to be supportive but I honestly don’t think he believes me. I don’t know what to say or how to bring it up to him. Im scared of what he might say. Im really sensitive to sly comments and I’m worried I’ll start avoiding being around him and talking to him as much if the conversation doesn’t go well. I know this might all be in my head but I just need some advice from other woman struggling with ADHD.
Thank you so much for reading this far. All of this is so new to me I don’t know how to navigate through this.