ADD Man

This man is who I lovingly refer to as ADD man. This is how he is listed in my contact list on my phone. At the time I was trying to think of something that started with an "A" so he would be the first to come up on my contact list. "M" for Mike was just to far down on the contact list. Suddenly it just came to me, ADD man, which refers to my husbands Attention Deficit Disorder (he does not have the HD, the hyperactive part).

The other day, the Today Show did a little segment on ADD/ADHD and marriage. I was so impressed that someone was willing to tackle this issue, and I had to see for myself how it was affecting other marriages. Thus, the inspiration for this post.

When dating, I really did not see signs of ADD, but was also not as knowledgeable on mental health issues as I am now. It was not until the birth of our son that Mike's ADD took on a new life. It seemed that he forgot everything and did not listen. He would go out to the garage to paint at night and honestly did not hear that our son was having a crying fit.

I went to a therapist at the time to talk about my feelings about his participation in our marriage. He also went and saw the doctor when we truly decided he had ADD. A time later we did not see a great change in his ADD symptoms with medication, so he went and consulted a psychiatrist and he gave him a stimulant medication that made him angry, and impatient. That was a horrible medication, I still clearly remember the day he almost verbally lost it at Albertson's grocery store. Going back to his primary care doctor he was tried on a non stimulant medication which he has been on since.

It has taken me almost seven years to adjust to our ADD marriage. I now see every moment when my husband is over stimulated and disappears into his own world, or "Mike land" as I refer to it. Loud noises make him jump, crowded stores like Wal -Mart are only done on a "have to" basis. Both kids trying to talk to him at once, while the dog is trying to get his attention does not work well. He cannot have the TV on and try to have a conversation with me, and oft times he has stopped talking in the middle of a conversation when something has distracted him. Not to count the number of impulsive comments and actions.

Interestingly enough though, as distracted as a person with ADD is there is this extreme ability they have to hyperfocus. Mike has had many "passions" to focus on over our 10 years together. It was wine making, for a time, movie watching on Netflix, painting, tap dancing and currently math. He will start reading his math books, and calculating out problems and not hear a thing going on around him.

Mike comes home some days and states that his brain is spinning and he can't slow it down. He describes his ADD brain as trying to focus on a playing card, like the queen of hearts, while the whole deck is thrown into the air and your job is to keep your eye on queen of hearts as all the cards are fluttering to the floor.

Over the years I have learned that I cannot expect more then he is capable of. I am very sensitive to his point of over stimulation, his need to sometimes leave the house even if it is just for a drive around the city. I currently watch my son like a hawk for signs of ADD. It is familial and one of our two kids genetically should be ADD.

Everyone is dealt their cards in life and this is one of the hurdles to my marriage and also our family. We learn to function and cope with what our family "normal" is.