Hi everyone I'm a newbie – this’ll sound like a familiar story: yes I’ve been reading these boards for a while and now ready to make my first post. Hope it's in the right place...

I’m 40 year old UK male, came across ADD when experiencing increasing problems concentrating at work, decreasing self-esteem, mild depression. Have been to my doctor who’s referred me to a specialist who I’m waiting for an appointment with. Like many people on here I have many but not the full set of traits and I’m certainly inattentive type only. Whether I get diagnosed or not, I’m experiencing what everyone else says on here – huge relief at realising what on earth’s wrong with me and understanding why I have always felt different from everyone. I found the quiz in “Driven from Distraction” great – even down to loving bicycles!

I have a girlfriend who I’ve been with for 5 years and a 7 year-old step-daughter. I’m not married but have legal parental responsibility for my step-daughter. My vague plan has been to get diagnosed and then talk to my girlfriend about myself and how it’s going to be great to know there’s a reason why I’m like I am and why we have certain issues in our relationship (communication, intimacy etc) that we might at last be able to do something about. She’s a fairly strong, controlling type (sound familiar?), and although compassionate and loving she has firm views on many things. She thinks my under-achievement, poor concentration and depression are just a negative loop I’ve got stuck in and need to work my way out of. So I know it will be a tricky business explaining my situation to her and and convincing her it’s real, but I think I can handle it.

Anyway the stuff about me all feels unimportant now – because as I’ve been reading about ADD for myself I’ve become increasingly convinced that my step-daughter is also somewhere on the ADD spectrum, although I of course could be wrong and I’ve been very careful not to jump to conclusions and fall into the trap of seeing ADD in everyone. I won’t go into all the reasons why I think she has ADD right now - my main problem is that my girfriend won’t accept anything other than that we need to “take a hard line” on the increasing behavioural problems that my step-daughter is showing (schoolteacher just phoned my girlfriend about one of these). From what I’ve read so far this is going to be completely unhelpful and possibly do more damage to a child who’s getting unhappier by the day and although she needs structure and firmness also needs them applied in the right way along with lots of encouragement. So this week I dipped my toe in the water by mentioning ADD (about my step-daughter, not me) in a very tentative way and my girlfriend made it very clear that this was a ridiculous idea because we had already had her assessed (she has been diagnosed with slight learning difficulties, but ADD was not mentioned in the report – I don’t know what the assessor’s track record is on girls with ADD). My girlfriend doesn’t deny that ADD exists completely as her nephew has it.

Among the traits I have (and I never knew it was common among ADDers til I read the thread on here about it) is hating confrontation, and my girlfriend is kind of intimidating when she feels strongly about something. So I know what I should do is say “LISTEN, THIS is what I think is wrong with our daughter and what we should do about it,” but I am 99% sure that she will blow up, not to mention the fact that I will have to drop into conversation why I know all this stuff (ie my own ADD) which she will also disagree with. And then I won’t be able to carry on putting my argument together and she will get angry and have a go at me for being weak and not caring enough and avoiding dealing with the issue etc. Originally I wasn’t even going to mention my step-daughter until I’d “done” my own ADD but I don’t think I can have many more conversations about the behavioural problems knowing what I know without saying something and when we could be starting to help my step-daughter, who I love and have a strong bond with, not make her get worse.

Phew. I expect this has mainly helped to get this off my chest, but if anyone has any advice on how I might approach this I’d love to hear it.

Welcome to the Forums! I think it's very cool that your care so much about your step daughter!:) I would recommend getting the book by Russell Barkley Taking Charge of ADHD: The Complete Authorative Guide for Parents. He describes what ADHD is and gives lots of concrete behavioral strategies to use with kids. Maybe reading it and leaving it around where your girlfriend could see it might pique her interest. Plus sharing what you're learning about yourself and ADHD through your diagnostic process might also enlighten her. My husband also didn't want to see ADHD in our daughter, but over time and without lots of pushing (which doesn't work) he is coming around and admitting it now. Girls are frequently missed, because they present differently that boys.

Take care,
Scattered

I had a similar experience w/my husband over treatments for our recently-identified 8yo son. DS hasn't seen a doc yet (soon), but has been through all the stuff at school.

You probably think avoiding confrontation is a poor choice, but it isn't. Going in with guns blaring will only make your fragile GF take a defensive stance.

DH didn't deny ADHD or even deny it in our son, but he was under the impression that the accomodations at school were his "treatment". He thought that Ritalin & other meds were only for hyperactive kids (DS is PI). He also didn't realize just how severely DS is impaired. As you can imagine, he's been very resistant to discussing medication for DS.

He knows that I'm generally better informed than him, being both a consumer (bipolar & ADD myself) and a psychologist, and that I've done a lot of research on it. But, when it comes to your kid, you're going to be distrustful -- I don't take it personally; I understand how he feels.

Here's what I did. This week is parent-teacher conference week. I usually handle these things on my own, but DH agreed that it he needed to come to this one and made it a priority. Since DS has been going through testing and IEP program evaluations and such, I've spoken with his teacher enough to know that she would be direct about his problems. In the conference, I let the information come from her. DS is doing his VERY BEST to get his work done, but he can't. He's gotten his assignments cut in half because he understands the concepts, but he still can't work fast enough to get even that much done until all of the other kids have been playing waiting for him for a while. He never gets to participate in interesting activities because he can't get through the other stuff. He tries to follow instructions but can't remember more than one at a time and forgets to look at the board (where she's written them down) to figure out what to do next. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Coming from the teacher, DH got a better idea of how serious this is and how hard DS is trying. He was confused because the teacher would not/could not come out and suggest medication; she would say, "He has to do more," then she'd say, "He's doing as much as he can." So, after the conference I suggested that his pediatrician will most likely recommend a trial of meds. DH agreed to try it.

That your child might have such a disability is not a fun prospect to face. It's a lot easier to take in bits than all at once. First, get her thinking about it. Get other opinions; request that she be tested again, this time more extensively.

That's my advice. Slow, subtle. Especially since you may very well be wrong!

Hi and welcome to the forums!

I have a suggestion, and hope I can put it into words properly :)! What I have found over the years in dealing with my ADHD/ODD son is that the suggestions for dealing with them work well for ALL children whether they are ADHD or not. So, reading up on how to deal with ADHD children will only be of benefit in dealing with your SD problems regardless if you address the issue "head-on" or not.

The other idea is that you can apply these changes to yourself and your SD without actually "presenting" the idea of ADHD to your girlfriend. What's wrong with simply saying "I have an idea about how we could try something different to encourage her to change", making a couple of small changes based on what you've learned about how to better deal with life with ADHD, and seeing how it goes?

The plus to this is that if the changes work you can eventually start talking to your girlfriend about where you came up with the suggestions. It also shows her (if you've also tried making a couple of changes yourself) that you are seriously looking at working on this problem, not just defining it as an explanation for some of your problems and your SD's problems.

Hope that all made sense...feel free to comment, if it didn't! :)

Kim

Thank you all very much for taking the time to reply – I’ve seen how much help and support is provided on this forum and I am thrilled to be benefiting from it (and hope to be able to give some back when I learn a bit more).

I think it’s going to be quite an emotional weekend, but the advice from all three of you included “do it gradually” when I had got into an “all or nothing” state of mind.

Now back to the (adult ADD) business of trying to do my job rather than wasting all day on the internet.