I dont know what to do anymore... I'm tired of wanting to talk to him so badly and being cut off midsentence cause he isnt paying attention... i'm tired of feeling like he squeezes me in to his busy schedule for 2 mins a day to check in... i feel very unimportant, but i know it's the ADD... i know the man adores me, i'm just finding dealing with the day-to-day stuff really hard. i've considered leaving so many times...

i'm glad i found this site, i've already ordered some of the books listed for the non-add partner, hoping that helps :)

thanks

hi payattention,

glad you found this site and hope you find some useful info.

I understand what you mean, my best friend who is also ADHD has a really tough time giving me any time.

It is difficult when you realize that OF COURSE it is not on purpose, and yes he definitely values the relationship and all, but there are so many things to do and so many things to distract, but at the same time, you experience something that tells you otherwise.

It's like constantly living in conflict with the impact of "action speaking louder than words".

Your intellect argues with your emotions...what you know vs what you feel.

You might find it helpful to make a series of appointments with your bf for together time so he knows to expect it, and you can both decide on some interesting things to do.

Another thing might be to develop a mutual hobby, possible of the active kind if that's what your bf really responds to, so that you have a structure around your time together.

It is not uncommon for ADD folks to not do well at managing time, and to experience time as happening all at once rather than in sequence as most nonADDers do. You can imagine how this might really make one's perception of time different from the nonADDers.

Keep up your spirits, payattention, the more you know about ADD the easier it is to accept some of the different behaviour without becoming upset or feeling TOO left out.:)

"It's like constantly living in conflict with the impact of "action speaking louder than words".
Your intellect argues with your emotions...what you know vs what you feel."

crime-scene: You explain perfectly what I have been trying to describe to my ADD husband! It's hard to stay in the middle of the conflict between my understanding/emotions, when what I value so highly and crave is his attention/interaction.

"It is not uncommon for ADD folks to not do well at managing time, and to experience time as happening all at once rather than in sequence as most nonADDers do. You can imagine how this might really make one's perception of time different from the nonADDers."

Can you describe what it feels like to an ADDer for time to happen all at once? Thanks for your insight! R

Hi Redhead,

In regard to your question about describing how time might happen all at once, my ADHD friend described it as being at the centre of the universe with all the events that occur intersection at point of yourself.

I have tried really hard to understand how it might feel and have talked to him a lot without being able to really get it into my head, because how it feels to him is really substantially different from how it feels to me.

The nearest I can even come to conceiving it is when you are in a situation that you have many many tasks to do at once.

For example, say you are under the gun at work for completing a presention for a meeting tomorrow and if everyone left you alone you just MIGHT get it done by then. Imagine also that you have 5 requests from people for information that are due NOW and that you dont' really have time to deal with. Imagine also that as you are writing your presentation or trying to, people keep sending you emails that need your response. At the same time, as you try to deal with these and get rid of them, imagine that you have a couple of people standing waiting to catch your attention to ask what they should do next on their assignments. Imagine that just then your boss calls and wants to have a meeting with you right then.

So imagine your mind bouncing from one thing to the next over and over with everything being equally important and urgent at the same time. Imagine you are kept at that level all afternoon. Would you even know when to go home, whether anything was finished or not, where you were in the process, what is left to be done, who still needs what, what to have for dinner.....

Any ADD folks out there who can help further with this description, hop in.

Anyway, Redhead, I did experience a time like that this year and I immediately thought - maybe I'm getting close. Hard to know but I think, yes, it's worth it to try and understand.

crime scene

I had an extremely patient and in-depth discussion with my hubby last night about his failure to "get it" (10 year old and I are just LOADED with ADD). This is his "spin" on things after the two of us struggled mightily to "relate" :D...this is a bit OT from the time issue but still valid and comes from the nonADD party in my household:

"Ok this is my spin on it. You are like a flashlight, the type that can narrow the beam when the end is twisted. Sometimes, to me, you look like somebody twisted the end way to much, trying to get a wider angle of light and instead went too far and now the light is too diffuse to see anything at all.
And if I am understanding you here, then hyperfocus is when the beam is so narrow that all you can see is that tiny area of light.
NonADDers have selfregulating flashlights, and you don't, and the medicine lets you "see", provides proper lighting but you don't know what to make of what you see then because you are so used to inconsistant lighting."

HTH! As for me? Time is a veeeeery elastic substance, would be difficult to define how it feels to me.

thanks for sharing that crazy~feet, its so helpful to have lots of different perspectives when it comes to trying to understand ADD from the non side.

You are welcome crime_scene. I wanted to share because he deserves credit for that analogy...it could not have been easy for him! I hope his spin on it, as he puts it, will be helpful to other partners of ADDers.

And heck, I couldn't see things from his perspective since its me that's the ADDer.

thanks so much everyone :)

Hey, going to add my two cents in here. This is how I see things in the ADD world. For me, whatever is in front of me right now, in the present, is the most important thing in the world. It is a great feeling. Everything is wonderful. You are totally focused on what you are doing. Okay, now lets make this greatest thing in the world change every 1-5 minutes. Lets make sure the person has no control over how long before something changes, lets make sure they don't have control over what the new thing is. Welcome to my mind. Now lets imagine that you know that you will be distracted, just not by what exactly. Now go ahead and interupt me. :) The feeling of being interrupted is so frustrating, because you know that the most important thing in the world will be gone before the person has stopped talking. The frustration comes out as anger at the person and yourself. Sounds like fun!

Back on topic. You say you don't get the attention that you need from your bf. Either he isn't right for you and you will never get the amount of attention you desire/require. Or you figure out ways to become the most important thing in his life more often. This means finding a way for his unmedicated mind to come back to you more often. (I am assuming he is unmedicated.) This might mean that you need to get him to a doc and get him some help, meds. Once on meds then the behaviour modification can start. It sounds ugly but it isn't. What I mean by behaviour is to unlearn some coping mechanisms, and to learn some new ways of living. New ways of living without trying to hold on to the most important thing in the world.

I would also like to say, just because there is something that is the most important thing in the world, it doesn't mean that you are less important. It is a matter of priorities, that he can't necessarily control, or control for very long.

I hope this helps.

Twist.