Hello!
My partner (I am a lesbian) of 3 years was diagnosed with ADHD & Generalized Anxiety Disorder. She has not yet started medication or treatment yet but will soon! I am 32 and she is 30.
I am trying to come up with some different ways of dealing with her moods.
The main obstacle I face is that she gets so easily overwhelmed, and that causes her to panic. She relies very heavily on me. If she can't find something in the house, she will call or text me. If she has a panic attack, she will call me and ask her to walk her through it, which I have gotten really good at. Little things like that, I don't mind helping.
The problem is that if even the smallest thing goes wrong, it sends her into catastrophization mode. She will say things like "everything is ruined", or have a panic attack.
- If she gets lost while driving (very often) she will go into panic, and call me.
- If she messes up while cooking, she gets down on herself and thinks "everything is ruined" and just throw everything away, and then expect me to help her clean it or find more food.
- If she wakes up too late and had plans that day, she will say she's "worthless" and that she "can't do anything right" and then panic (and call me).
- The few times she's needed to switch jobs in our relationship, she gets scared, anxious, and depressed, saying she has no skills because she had a hard time in college and works in restaurants. Then I have to shoulder the financial burden for a while.
I keep telling her that it is normal for women with ADHD to have low self-esteem (I was diagnosed ADHD as well and have done a lot of research).
This is hard on me. If I don't do something just right it makes her very upset. I feel like I am walking on eggshells with everything I do. If I help her cook, I have to help her cook perfectly or she will snap at me. If I don't respond to her immediately, she thinks I'm ignoring her. I never know what will set her off. This is constant.
Just wondering if any of you have tips for dealing with walking on eggshells, and someone who has a hairtrigger anxiety response and immediately catastrophizes.
Thanks!
Walking on eggshells
Submitted by I'm So Exhausted on
justanothercatlady
"Just wondering if any of you have tips for dealing with walking on eggshells, and someone who has a hairtrigger anxiety response and immediately catastrophizes."
If you check out the thread in this section entitled "I'm New Here" , there is an active discussion on the subject of walking on eggshells.
I just used the forum search - on the toolbar to the far right, - and typed in eggshells. Wow! It ame up with lots of discussions.
Welcome to the forum. Hope you find information that helps you. Over the past 5 years I have participated here, I have consistently found information that has been insightful for my own life.
Very truly,
Liz
The problem is that if even the smallest thing goes wrong, it se
Submitted by overwhelmedwife on
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The problem is that if even the smallest thing goes wrong, it sends her into catastrophization mode. She will say things like "everything is ruined",
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I think that other mentally unhealthy people react the same way. I don't know if that's ADHD, anxiety or something else....or a little bit of both.
I do think that some of the "now, not now" aspect is going on, but also combined with anxiety, depression, and something else.
I think some of this is Black/White thinking.....also called Splitting.
Today, H and I had to drive to another town about 170 miles away for his doctor's appt. We were gone all day. Each time a VERY MINOR normal life hiccup happened, H would say, "and the hits just keep on coming." (a red light, a small delay at the doctor's office, the pharmacy not immediately filling his prescription, one of our tires needed air, needed to get gas, etc....none of these things are really "hits"....none of these things warrant a second thought....but to H, these things are an affront to him, they're an "insult" to him.....seriously.
When our kids were little, we'd go to Disneyland quite often...we had season tickets. During the day, we'd have a great time, but then, if a TINY thing happened towards the end (like can't quickly find our car), then H would say, "The whole day was awful." He didn't say, "This one thing ruined a good day." NO, he'd say, "The WHOLE DAY was awful. I had a miserable time." He'd completely forget that he had had lots of fun for 8+ hours. (This is the now, not now thing going on.)
So....after this happened a few times, I tried another approach. Throughout the day while at the theme park, whenever I'd see H having a good time (which was multiple times a day), I would say, "Are you having fun?" And of course he'd say something like, "Yes" or "having a blast," or "this is the best show/ride" etc. So, over a period of several hours, H would verify and verify that he was having a great time.
THEN, if a minor hiccup happened, (dirty diaper, rain, etc) and H would start to say, "The whole day was awful," I would jump in and say, "Wait, when we were running around Tom Sawyer's Island, you said that you were having a great time. When we were on the Matterhorn ride, you said you were having a great time. When we were having dinner, you said you were having a good time. This (sudden issue) isn't great, but do you really believe that the whole day was awful?" H's face would literally freeze while he remembered all those events and his words (he didn't try to deny his own words). I think it helped him realize that his words don't always match reality.
I think sometimes they have this "everything is bad" "day is ruined" attitude because they have to justify the level of their emotions. They can't justify being super-upset over dropping their ice cream cone on the ground, so they justify being super-upset because THE WHOLE DAY WAS AWFUL....so, in their head, they've given themselves a justified excuse for being ridiculously upset.
H would also do this once he was mad at me about something (MINOR). To justify his over-the-top reaction to some minor thing that I did (like coming home a few minutes later than I said...likely due to a very real excuse), H would then say, "You deserve this anger because you've been a selfish bitch all month. One time he said this to me after I had been gone for 3 weeks visiting my family. "lol...uh, how have I been a bitch all month? I haven't even seen you." Oops!!! H had just been so used to pulling that excuse out of his butt to justify his level of anger.
The above makes it very difficult for H to deal with therapists or when he talks to his family. They hear words like, "my wife has been a selfish bitch all month," and naturally they're going to think that their is at least SOME truth to it.
When my H had hip replacement surgery several years ago, I waited on him hand and foot. Seriously. It was during Christmas vacation and our kids were out of school, so they saw how much I did for H. Some time later, H was angry at me and was complaining to his family that I didn't help him at all. Our kids overheard and quickly corrected him and said something like, "Mom did everything for you. She bathed you, brought your food to you, brought you your coffee, dressed you, changed your bandages, drove you to therapy sessions, etc." In H's mind, because he was angry at me for something, he managed to convince himself that I had abandoned him during his time of need.