ADHD Women

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A community for women to find support and discuss living with ADHD.

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ickplant@lemmy.world

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Wife was just diagnosed (sopuli.xyz)

submitted 7 months ago by Klanky@sopuli.xyz to c/adhdwomen@lemmy.world

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Hello all, I am a 39M whose wife (42F) was just diagnosed with ADHD. We’ve had a suspicion ever since our 6 year old was diagnosed and we started doing a deep dive into it and realizing a lot of the symptoms fit her. Even some of the memes from this community helped her to start looking into it herself. She is relieved to find out she’s not just ‘a disorganized slob’, that there is a reason for her struggles, but now the real work begins.

My question is: what do you wish your partner would have known/done for you? I want to be as supportive as possible and make sure I’m not contributing to any negative feelings, and help her find ways to build coping mechanisms. Just looking for any advice!

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[–] ickplant@lemmy.world 2 points 7 months ago

Do you have any suggestions on how to help support her straightening up her items without making her feel judged or pressured?

What helped me was having a designated place for all of the important things and things I tend to displace often, but that's something I had to initiate on my own. Maybe you can suggest that and help her actually come up with specific places. Like, we had to mount some small shelves and a jewelry organizer and a peg board to organize some things, but it was well worth the effort.

How does he help you organize your thoughts?

He starts out by just making himself available and listening, which solves the problem for me like 70% of the time because I process things externally aka verbally, so as I talk, I solve my own problems. In the other 30%, he just sort of reflects on what I'm saying, first asking me what solutions I already thought of (this is crucial because then it doesn't seem patronizing when he offers solutions). And then, he is a quasi-engineer, and he is great at triage and decision-making, so he will throw out ideas but he will never force me to go a specific way, just make suggestions and let me decide.

I hope this helps!