momo from livingwithadd.com
Untruth response is common behavior? Posted 7-8-2002 23:11

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Hi,

My husband has ADD.
Because I'm not quite sure that one of his behavior (that makes me nuts) is caused by ADD, I need some advice if it is.

He quite often to say "Yes, I did. It's done." even though he didn't do anything, and he lost my camera, lost his contact lens, and lost a bank card....etc.

Now I can't trust anything what he says and can't rely on him.

Do you think this type of untruth response is related with ADD?
If so, what suppose I do?

Thank you for your advice.

ncgordon from livingwithadd.com
Yes and no Posted 7-9-2002 23:26

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Momo Lieing is sometimes easier than admitting that once again, one hasn't done what one promised to do. I've done it, but not regularly, and I don't like to do it. No, it's not okay to lie. However, not following through and hiding the fact from oneself and others are strong symptoms of ADD. In the end, the two of you need marriage counseling, and he needs both counseling and medication.
In our couple counseling, we were told that it is difficult to live with a partner who has ADD and will take patience and constant work to achieve progress, both in the marriage and in the ADDer's life.

I know I need my wife's help. I hope you two can find a way to work with the monster

Tara from livingwithadd.com
ADD & lies Posted 7-10-2002 17:02

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Many ADDers do lie. Sometimes we do this because non-ADD people won't accept the truth. When we are asked why and say I don't know many people won't accept that answers. Also many time when we tell the truth the reaction from non-ADD people is not positive. Sometimes we try to hard to fit in to the non-ADD world and it seems like our whole life is a lie.

I'm not trying to say lying is ok. How do you react when he tells you the truth? Do you keep on him to do things? Sometimes it's just easier to lie to have a moments peace.

Communcation is something most couple need to work on and sometimes when one of the partners is ADD it can make it even more challenging...

I would suggest looking at your reactions when he does tell the truth and you don't like it.

Maybe it's not even you maybe it stems from his parents ans school, etc.

Momo from livingwithadd.com
...I made him a liar. Posted 7-11-2002 03:28

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Thanks for the advice, ncgordon and Tara.

My husband has been taking a pill and weekly counseling, but I'm not. Maybe I need to talk with his counselor also. I want to listen some lively tactics or secret of the life with ADD.

Tara, I think you are right. I didn't accept his truth. So that why he lied maybe unconsciously. And also I kept on him to do things. Is this okay? or should I stop asking?

I'm really afraid of having a kid. If the kid has ADD, I will treat like my husband and he/she is going to be a liar because of me. It's a huge responsibility.


Thanks, again.
Momo

jun from livingwithadd.com
one thing every non-ADD parter should know Posted 7-12-2002 16:31

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...is that, ADD people struggle to be consistent. I am one. On the contrary to what people might find out about me, in my heart, I don't want to cause any trouble in the real world.

However - sometimes things go out of our control. We can't remember thing, including what we said 5 minutes ago even. So, there's conscious effort to be consistent to counterattack that trait.

What follows is a constant lie. Let me explain what a typical ADD/ADHD person's lie gets created.

Someone asks a question about something, forcing our thoughts to change abruptly. We know the person expects an answer. We either panic (in the mildest form) or start assembling the most appropriate answer.

Either way, the primary goal is to come up with an answer that is acceptable. We want to please whoever ask the question and appear like a non-ADD in a sense.

Lie comes in, sometimes knowlingly. Whether our answer is true or not doesn't carry much weight in the process of thoughts. Rather, we want to smoothly carry on the conversation without flaw. Sometimes, comming up with an acceptable fake answer suits that purpose. We don't want to say, "To make the long story short, err....um....this is kinda embarassing but truth be told, I lied to you before..."

Once a lie gets created, we're trapped in it.

Some of us might repeatedly lie just because we want to be consistent with previous lie, and there is no end to that loop.

So.. when you get tired of your ADD paterner's lies..listen to your guts and see if he's a bad person wanting to hurt someone by lying. Most of the time it's not. Ironically, many lies come from desparate, serious and energy-consuming attempt to blend in the real world. It just does't work all the time, and when it doesn't...it ends up in some form of lying, suspicious silence, awkward moments, etc.

Especially spouses and parents can ease things for the one suffer from ADD: make it as easy as possible for him to be consistent and stick with the truth. That's what most lying ADDers want after all.

For example, we don't want to hear:

"Did you lose the key to the van AGAIN?"

We might say "Oh, I guess Christina has it, don't ask me." when we know we misplaced it like 2 minutes ago, even when Christina isn't in the house! Giving the false answer is easier on our nerves. We want to answer the question and be done with it. Later, we might say "Christina always loses the keys.." or whatever, blaming everything on the poor innocent sister, just to be consistent with what we said before..and we usually feel horrible about it.

There's a tendency that ADDer's dogs take lots of blames for what they didn't do! They eat our homeworks, they withdraw $40 and don't remember, they poop on the clean laundry (our excuse for laundry that not done on time) etc, etc.. Regret upon regret. ADDers have great deal of creativity when it comes to creating stories, an dit just fuels it.

Instead, we want to hear: "You seem to be having trouble with that key..how about making another copy of the key so you can keep it in your wallet? I have a coupon for free keys! *smile*" then we know the person shares the problem and willing to cope it together. We'd be like, oh, what a wonderful world!!

Please remember: most of us suffering from severe cases of ADD/ADHD don't want to hurt anyone. It just turns out that way as a result of somewhat clumsy effort.

Oops, I took too much time answering this, I'm missing an appointment or two, gotta go! Hope this helps..

-Jun (a typical ADHD)

Momo from livingwithadd.com
Thanks for the advice, Posted 7-13-2002 14:33

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jun,

You explained exactly about my husband and me. Yes, I said "Did you lose the key, again?"

But I supposed to say "You seem to be having trouble with that key..how about making another copy?" with smile!

Wow, I need some training to be like that...


Thanks,
momo

jun from livingwithadd.com
yeah I know it gets hectic, but it's worth the trouble. Posted 7-15-2002 07:47

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Momo,

I really do hope that you two will work out a wonderful marriage. Yes, I understand that it takes a great deal of effort on your side.

I know it's difficult, but try thinking of it as a handicap. In fact, most ADHD comes from mulfanction of frontal lobe (2 inch deep from the forehead) where EXECUTIVE FUNCTION resides. You can see irregular patterns in PET scans of the brain. Simply put, I'd venture to say it's a piece of hardware missing.

Executive function prepares course of actiuon for various goals, set priority on tasks, manage different threads of thoughts simultaniously, etc.

My point: expecting an ADD/ADHD person to manage things and take appropriate course of action is like expecting people on wheel chair to run.

Since it is

Tara from livingwithadd.com
Difference Posted 7-15-2002 09:08

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I don't really like to think of ADD as a handicap. Jun is right that our brains are set and work a bit differently than those with out ADD though. I view ADD as a difference that can sometimes be a disorder due to the world around us.

Marriage isn't supposed to be easy. If it was, there wouldn't be so many divorces. Men and Women have different thought processes in addition to that your husband all has even more differences due to ADD.

It won't be easy but you can both learn to understand each other and communicate better. In the long run it will be worth it.

merrie from livingwithadd.com
Add partner Posted 8-1-2002 01:07

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Jun

It is really helpful to me to hear the 'inside story' from ADDers. Intellectually, I know this condition needs patience and understanding, but gosh it's hard. Hearing from the ADDers helps me a lot - it confirms what my partner says and provides a different perspective. Thanks much.

Tara from livingwithadd.com
ADD & lies Posted 7-10-2002 17:02

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Many ADDers do lie.
Tara,
Do ADDers lie more or less than the general population?

For me the lies were a from of self protection. I grew up with a lot of negitive messeages... " Why are you such a screw up" "why can't you keep up with anything...are you stupid?" So for me I learned that the lies prevented more pain. I am not saying it is right. What I am saying it is a more deeply rooted problem. My husband and myself are learning how to handle this. For me I need to trust him enough to be honest and for him he is working on maintaining a safe enviroment for me to be honest in.

For me the lies were a from of self protection. I grew up with a lot of negitive messeages... " Why are you such a screw up" "why can't you keep up with anything...are you stupid?" So for me I learned that the lies prevented more pain. I am not saying it is right. What I am saying it is a more deeply rooted problem. My husband and myself are learning how to handle this. For me I need to trust him enough to be honest and for him he is working on maintaining a safe enviroment for me to be honest in.
I lie all the time. I lie like crazy. I keep a fantastic amount of stuff to myself, because ever since I was about eight years old, I got good and sick and tired of getting verbally slapped around by people, particularly my mother, when I lost stuff, was late, and so on. My wife is exactly like this, and if you think I'm going to tell her, say, that I managed to lose an iPod, you're crazy. If she made some effort to understand what it's like to be me, I'd be happy to share this with her. In fact, I wish I could. But I can't. My rule is that if people want the truth, they're going to have to demonstrate to me that they're willing to respect it, and to honor it, and me. If they don't, they don't get it. Simple as that. And I will never, ever feel guilty for this. Trust is something people have to earn, and if they don't earn it, they don't get it. Otherwise, basically, you're telling me I don't have the right to protect myself.

MrBulky, I can understand your point. YOU LOST AN IPOD!!! :faint:

Don't the lies make life more complicated for you?

Generally, I'm a very truthful person. I don't even like to embellish stories to make them more interesting.

-but-

When it comes to this, if confronted with something that I haven't done (yet), it's almost reflexive to lie and say that I have to avoid a confrontation. Or if I lose something. My justification is that I figure I can complete the project or find the object before the other person knows any different. I'd also prefer to put my energy into finding the object or completing the task than into an argument about it.

My wife hates it, but like I said, it's almost reflexive. I usually don't plan to lie, but when put on the spot, it just comes out.

Do the lies create anxiety?

The thought that struck me when reading this thread is that, though I believe these 'little white lies' to be a defense mechanism for many of us, is it not also possible for them to be used to create the necessary stress we need to get started on something? Subconciously we choose to lie smply because we know we will then get the necessary adrenalin to get started?

I'm wrong a lot. A whole lot. And I am constantly apologizing for my actions or lack thereof. My friends in High School even noticed I asked for forgiveness more than anybody they knew. At some point it became easier to lie than to apologize again. I think. Argh. Truth is vitally important to me too. I hate to be lied to. I hate that I have this double standard.

Interesting topic.

Craig

MrBulky, I can understand your point. YOU LOST AN IPOD!!! :faint:

Don't the lies make life more complicated for you?



They make it more complicated, but less stressful.

I read a great book probably thirty years ago called "Me, Cassie" that was written for adolescents. In it, the author described a wonderful summer, in a house that was full of teenagers, and did not have a lot of rules, deadlines and so on. And at the end of the description, she wrote that a summer like that would never come again, because "Next time, someone's going to care if there are ants in the salad."

All kinds of people are going to raise a ruckus over ants in the salad, even if they hate salad, are never going to eat it, and it doesn't affect them at all. I absolutely hate discussions about things I forgot, or didn't do right, or whatever, when they make no difference, but someone feels compelled to dissect it anyway. Lying prevents that.

As an example, several years ago, I failed to withold any income tax, and ended up having to pay a tax bill at the end of the year of about $5,000. There was little or no penalty -- it was just paying later instead of earlier -- but my wife was enraged.

So, screw it. Keeping track of the lies isn't simple, but it's much better than enduring another painstaking, agonizing discussion of every step in something I did, and why I didn't do it differently, or at all, or why I forgot, and on and on and on.

My kindest regards to your wife.