New Year, New Life (19 months)

[adinva]

So I have been diagnosed with ADD. That's not a very big surprise to me, but I've been connecting dots and I feel ADD played a role in my marriage breaking down. Not all of it or even most of it, but enough of it that I'm disappointed I didn't see I needed help.

In all the struggles we've had with S12 I could relate with him and teach him coping skills that I used, but since I was able to pull it off in school and do pretty well, I didn't need as much help as S12 has needed. He is just not succeeding in school and it's affecting his self esteem, whereas my ability to pull an A out of a hat at the 11th hour increased my self esteem, rightly or wrongly. But going through the screening with S12 and seeing how immediately some medication helped him get through the static and be functional in a classroom where he was constantly hearing OMG why can't you just... x or y or z that everyone else was doing...... I thought, why didn't I get that kind of help, and why don't I now?

I mean, gee, when H was so mad about the dog poop and I first criticized his being anal or not helping himself or not realizing I'm also busy and being more supportive and, a million other things, and then I made a calendar entry that auto-emailed me about dog poop, and then STILL forgot, that's what we're talking about. And he got so mad and so frustrated and so "why don't you just...." and I thought he was being so mean. That's just one thing, there's the piles of paper in the kitchen, the inability to put away my clothes he cleaned and folded, on and on and on.

I'm not saying this is a scapegoat I can hang my marriage problem on. But it made maintaining my good marriage and my husband's goodwill an uphill battle and I didn't know why it was so hard and why if it was so hard he couldn't just let it go like I did.

With the bomb and separation and the meetings with financial advisors and lawyers and my normal job and the teenagers and now the household and financial worries, and being behind at work and behind with my company and behind with the boy scouts and more I won't bore you with, I'm in a hole so deep I'm looking potentially at serious trouble if I don't start digging right now, and I still have trouble filtering out the extraneous.

So this is just a label, but it explains why a smart capable strong independent person can be seen by her h as lazy irresponsible incompetent and just plain no-good. I always thought he was wrong...which allowed me to feel fine...but kept me from accepting the truth that was under his complaints.

My Family Communication book teaches you to allow your spouse to speak truth to you, that it's part of their right and role as a spouse. I got defensive, made excuses, and went on the offensive accusing him of being petty. It's hard to get past that and ignore the hurt feelings of it and get right down to, hey, what CAN I do about that?

I feel like getting treatment for ADD to get my life back in order is just another way of taking what this sitch taught me about myself and doing something to make myself better. It's not a magic bullet.

But at least in my next relationship I won't have to ask him to overlook the 25 piles of paper in my kitchen because if I want to I can keep from accumulating them. That didn't seem to be within my power before.

I hope this is a step forward for me, I think it is.