ADHD And Relationship Issues – 11 Ways to Fix Them

I'm Dr. Tracey Marks a psychiatrist and in this video I talk about some of the ways ADD can affect relationships this is part of a series of videos that I've done on ADD so for more information about ADD as a brain disorder and some of the symptoms check out the playlist that I reference in the top corner. to see what kind of impact your ADD is having on relationships here's a series of ten situations that are pretty typical for a person with ADD. I'll present the situation and you think about whether it's something that happens at all, just rarely or pretty frequently. Here we go. My partner says that I zone out instead of listening. I forget the things that I agreed to do. My partner complains that I never finish what I start. we argue about how I spend money or pay bills. my partner says I can't be trusted to do what I say. the clutter in my office shop or garage is a point of contention for us. we fight about my losing track of time. My partner nags me a lot. I often wait until the last minute to get things done which causes problems for us. I lose my temper when we argue. So how do you fare? Or are you on the receiving end of some of this stuff? a person who does not have ADD and in a relationship with someone who does and dealing with these kinds of issues it can be very difficult and frustrating. and if you're a parent with ADD your inattentiveness or forgetfulness can be hard on your children or hard from them them to understand. your child may think you just don't care and that's the impression they're left with because people with ADD can appear to be aloof and it comes from not always being clicked in and involved in the moment. I want to give a few tips to help work through some of these problems from both sides. I have six tips for the partner with ADD and five for the person without. first for the partner with ADD number one if your relationship problems seem to be caused by your ADD, recognize that you have a disorder that can be helped. Not everyone with ADD needs medication, but some people really do need help to reduce the dysfunction that the ADD causes. number two use alarms and reminders on your phone or calendar for medication and appointments. number three if you are on medications take your medications on the weekends if you're having problems or these kinds of problems on the weekends. I usually advise my patients to skip days with the stimulant medications like Adderall and Ritalin. ideally this would be on the weekends or vacations for the person who works Monday through Friday. the purpose of this is to slow down the tolerance that you can develop from taking these medications daily. however for people who have car accidents and are so impaired that they're extremely disorganized, these people usually need to take their medications every day whether or not they're working. number four the best way to prevent nagging is to follow through and I know this is easier said than done and what it means is you have to prioritize doing whatever it takes to get the task completed all the way through. number five when your partner is talking try to make sure to listen all the way through to the end of their sentence and their thoughts. That means giving them a chance to stop talking before you comment. if you can't tell if they're done, a moving mouth means they're still talking. an open mouth means they're talking and probably not done with their thought. so let the mouth close and stay closed for at least ten seconds and this means you got to look. You got to look at them while they're talking to you. You can't be on phone, you can't be multitasking when someone's talking because then you're not gonna know whether their mouth is opened or closed sometimes it's very hard not to interrupt when you feel like you've heard enough and you want to get your point in before you forget, but don't just blast in with your point. if you have a thought that comes up while you're talking, see if you can make a note of what you want to say even if it means asking the person to pause to let you write down a quick thought before they continue. the person shouldn't mind pausing if they know they'll be able to finish. number six create time buffers. Often being late is because you underestimate how long things will take or you just don't think about timing at all. well with GPS on our phones is easy to see how long a trip should take but you also have to take into account the amount of time it takes for you to put on your shoes gather your belongings and get in the car. do you usually have to go to the bathroom before you walk out the door? Do you have to spend time looking for your keys? All of those things have to be taken into account time wise. Impatience is a feature of a ADD and often a person with ADD would rather walk into an event late then arrive early and have all this idle time to waste. So if the idea of wasting time being early sounds painful, plan to take something with you to keep you occupied. Catch up on your Instagram feed. Here's an example. if you need to be somewhere at 11 o'clock and your GPS tells you it's a 30-minute drive, you need to have your key in the ignition at 10:25 just to give yourself five extra minutes of wiggle room. but then you need to allow for 15 to 20 minutes of looking for your keys and other getting out of the door stuff. so now when we look at the time that you need to stop all activities, you need to stop that stuff by 10:05 to get ready to leave this is in contrast to you thinking that you'd only take 230 minutes to get there so at 10:30 you'll start getting ready you to add in your time buffer. Now for the partner without ADD. I have five tips. the first thing to establish is recognizing that your partner's brain is wired differently. The forgetting and the not paying attention is not intentional they have a problem and they need your help keeping their lives running smoothly. number two don't get in the cycle of relating to your partner as a parent instead of a partner. no one wants to be talked to like a third grader except a third grader. I'm not a third grader. so you may say well if you do what you're supposed to do then I don't need to speak to you that way. No, you have to remember that they really do want to do things correctly they just aren't because they don't have all the tools to do it. number three if you need a task completed by specific time write it down and be specific. you probably also need to anticipate the consequences for them because remember the person with ADD also has trouble with planning and foresight. so here's a personal example of what I mean. suppose I say to my husband do you want to go to this party on Saturday at two o'clock? now I know that he may not want to go because that time interferes with his regular gym workout in fact he has a class that he's probably not gonna want to miss. but he says of course I want to go honey I just want to be with you. So I RSVP yes that we'll be there. Then on Saturday at 11:30. the party's at 2:00 I see him walking out the door to go to the gym and I say well don't forget we need to leave for the party at 1:30 and he says "What party?" I say it's the one that I asked you about and you said yes you were going to go he says I got my class, I can't go to the party. I get angry because I think you should have thought about that when I asked you. I gave you the opportunity to think that through you should have told me then that you didn't want to go. mm-hmm don't do that. a redo of that scenario would be for me to say ahead of time do you want to go to the party on Saturday at 2 if you go it means missing your gym class? see I need to say all of that because he's not thinking about how the party will impact his daily routine so when I ask I need to anticipate what his objections may be and put it out there for him so that he can make an informed decision. Number 4 try asking for what you want instead of telling and you can use please and thank you but watch the tone and don't beg or imply that you've already asked 50 times and you know he's probably not gonna do it. so for example if your partner forgets to take out the trash on trash day remind him or her the night before and maybe even make a note and put it on the door or something to help them remember to take out the trash. but you don't want to say are you gonna take out the trash this time? Reminding your partner that they always mess things up doesn't motivate them to try harder the next time. you have to remember they unintentionally forget things. Things just slip their minds super easily. number 5 ask for one thing at a time lists can be difficult for people with ADD. now of course there's always the option of getting professional help if things become too difficult and having a professional independent person can help you navigate through some of these issues to help strengthen your relationship. they could do it in a similar way that I'm talking now whereas now I'm talking generically but your own therapist can help you work with specific issues in your relationship. Thanks for watching this video. cClick the like button if you liked it and leave me a comment if you have any questions.

Channel: Dr. Tracey Marks

Views: 298,045

Keywords: adhd and relationship issues, adhd and dating problems, adhd and forgetfulness, adhd and marriage, adhd and relationships, adhd and responsibility, adhd in real life, adhd in relationships, adult adhd, dating someone with adhd, how adhd destroys relationships, attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, dr. tracey marks, mental health channel, mental health education

Id: 9oGKKLEWiY0

Length: 10min 35sec (635 seconds)

Published: Wed May 02 2018