Six Dangerous Myths About Anger and ADHD
Submitted by MelissaOrlov on Sun, 07/11/2010 - 18:48
My new book is about to be released, and it contains a significant section on overcoming “obstacle emotions” that keep you from improving your relationship (anger, fear, denial and hopelessness). I’ve reprinted a very small portion of that section here for those who feel mired in anger. This section is about the “myths” I sometimes hear people fall victim to about the “usefulness” or justification for their anger.
Six Dangerous Myths About Anger and ADHD
“If you are a non-ADHD partner, you may be having trouble envisioning how you might be able to overcome your anger. If so, you may be falling victim to these destructive myths about anger and ADHD:
Myth #1– I Can’t Help It – My Spouse Drives Me To It
Sure you can! There is no doubt that your spouse’s ADHD symptoms can create a huge burden. But as Harriet Lerner, author of The Dance of Anger points out, anger is the result of our taking too much responsibility for our spouse’s feelings and reactions and not enough responsibility for our own life. You can address the root causes of anger in your relationship by giving back the responsibility for fixing ADHD to the partner who has it, while at the same time taking charge of your own happiness again. You can also train yourself to express your anger in positive and useful ways.
It can be scary to give back the responsibility for ADHD to an ADHD partner whom you suspect is incapable of successfully navigating that responsibility. Hopefully, you are beginning to see that the non-ADHD spouse can’t “fix” a partner’s ADHD no matter how much she might wish to. Although scary, the only real choice is to have the ADHD spouse responsible for his or her issues and you responsible for your own. You can (and should) be loving and supportive, and can give the “gift” of assistance when appropriate, as long as you are not the one responsible. But as soon as you feel you “must” take certain things on and don’t really want to, resentment and anger will follow.
Myth #2– My Anger Will Force Him to Change
No it won’t – it hasn’t so far. The things that you are angry about are the result of dealing with ADHD symptoms, which take time, effort and support to manage. You can scare an ADHD person into changing temporarily, but you can’t force it to last. You win the battle, but lose the war. Nature’s response to anger is defensiveness and more anger. The poisonous environment that anger creates is just the opposite from the supportive/safe environment that an ADHD person needs in order to be successful. Not only will your anger not force him to change, it will virtually assure that he can’t.
Myth #3– He Deserves It
Anger is a sign that things are out of balance, and this can (and should) serve as a signal that things must change. On the other hand, verbal abuse, screaming, belittling, shutting down and shutting out are forms of punishment and bullying. No one “deserves” to be punished by their spouse.
Myth #4 – “Getting it All Out” Will Make Me Feel Better
Releasing a short burst of anger can be an effective way to release bad feelings. But we’re not talking about a short burst of anger. We’re talking about pervasive, “can’t get it out of my system” anger. And the reason that releasing the anger doesn’t make you feel better over time is that the underlying reason why you are angry has to do with how you are both reacting to ADHD symptoms and how you are interacting as a couple. If you don’t fix the problem (and by “problem” I mean your joint ability to deal with symptoms and each other) releasing anger won’t make either of you feel better…it will just repeatedly return and make you both feel worse.
Myth #5 – If I Feel Hopeless, I Should Disconnect
You may be utterly exhausted, but disconnection isn’t the solution. Although some claim it is the only way to bear the pain, the downside is that the pain is still there. And disconnection never makes a good marriage. Don’t disconnect, seek help.
Myth #6– If I Deny My ADHD, The Problems Will Go Away
No. ADHD is built into your body. The symptoms will persist until you deal with them effectively with treatment, preferably with multi-pronged approach.”
Reprinted from The ADHD Effect on Marriage: Understand and Rebuild Your Relationship in Six Steps by Melissa Orlov, copyright 2010.
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Comments
Thank You
by robinshusband - 07/19/2010 - 12:19
Melissa,
The last thing I should do is post on this forum, I am going against my commitment to my wife about us giving each other space because she could read this.
I just want to say thank you for writing what you have written, there is so much anger on not just her part but also my part. We are both doing the only thing we know how and that is not working very well, that is my fault. I have finally agreed to give her the time and space she needs to work through her trying to find herself. It has not been easy and for whatever reason I haven't able to do it when she has been asking me to do all along. It has taken over a month to get my medications in balance and I think my psychiatrist and I are very close. The Concertta mixed with the Clonazepam has been life changing in the last 3 -5 days. I can finally get some balance and keep my emotions under check, and starting thinking about my future. I am the ADHD partner, and it hurts me that I have caused so much anger.
I won't be following up on this post, I just wanted to say thank you and I do hope somehow both of us can now start the process of getting past some of the anger, I know it will take a lot longer then I had hoped, I also understand it may never happen.
New Beginning for robinshusband
by MelissaOrlov - 07/20/2010 - 22:37
Thanks for taking a chance and posting your "thank you." It's always great to hear the beginning of a turn around story. And I think that you may have the opportunity to be at a new beginning if you can both hang in there and approach your issues from the new perspective of having ADHD be a factor. It's hard to come to grips with the extent that ADHD affects your partner, but once you do, and once you start to effectively treat it, life can really change for the better.
Remember as you go through this that good intentions are not the same thing as actions that communicate a positive message. Most likely you'll start to feel more pulled together, and you will intend to do things that help, but you won't yet have the systems in place to support you as fully as you want. It takes time and effort to create the external structures that will help you stay organized, help you find new ways to constructively talk with your wife, etc. So actively seek out these new ways and experiment together on what makes things better (and, yes, there is specific advice on that in my upcoming book but there are also other resources - see the books in my resource section, particularly the Tuckman and Ratey books.)
Don't forget to ask your wife what changes in your relationship would be most meaningful to her. Out of all the things you can work on, why not work on something that's really important to her and sends a signal that you are listening to her pain and needs?
Good luck with it.
To be honest
by robinshusband - 07/20/2010 - 23:32
Find Yourself
by MelissaOrlov - 07/21/2010 - 07:30
Ned Hallowell once gave me very good advice - in essence don't think about a specific outcome, think about making yourself whole. He said "don't think about saving your marriage, bring yourself to a happier place and see what happens." The idea of "marriage" can have a lot of baggage attached to it that people aren't aware of. Your challenge now is to bring yourself to a place in which you like yourself better and are acting as the good person you wish to be. Also, you will have a relationship with your wife forever due to having kids together, so think about cultivating that relationship so that it is good, respectful, thoughtful and, yes, attentive within the boundaries of what she is interested in.
It's a good path even though the situation is a bad one (I'm an optimist - I believe that people don't want to be self-centered but that when they "find" themselves there is a core element of selflessness in it, along with being a good person).
Exactly What I'm doing - It just took awhile
by robinshusband - 07/21/2010 - 12:40
Melissa,
That is exactly what I'm doing, my wife kept/keeps telling me I don't get it and even though I think I do I get "more" of it each day. My counselor and therapist are telling me exactly the same thing, and that is to make myself whole. I wasn't able to really start doing that until late last week, part of the reason is we are in a 30 day hiatus from discussing anything with our relationship. We've been able to do it some but not 100% on either part. I'm very proud I'm now starting that process. One of the most difficult things for me to do is to stop thinking about saving my marriage, I know I can't be the only one to save it. If it is to be saved then it will be both of us who do that, as a result of both of us getting whole again. I do know I can start healing and making myself better, in the process of healing myself I also have to find out if the marriage can be a healthy one for all of us, my wife and children. I pray it will be, but that something I can't control.
It seems to go against everything that an ADHD person has been accused of there entire life but I now do have to think about myself...strange how thinking about myself for 20 years got me here and it seems to be the only thing that can get me whole either...go figure.
I so wish you were my therapist, I'm not sure he really gets the "ADHD" thing. I've had 12-14 sessions with no diagnosis. My psychiatrist diagnosed me in 20 minutes and started me on Concerta and and another drug to kick in about 3:00, now he has me taking anxiety meds 3 times per day to balance out the Concerta. It is working wonders.
Introduce Your Therapist to ADHD
by MelissaOrlov - 07/21/2010 - 21:35
If you have a diagnosis of ADHD from a psychiatrist then your therapist needs to be taking that into account. If he/she isn't doing so, find a new therapist. It's too big a part of what you are going through to be ignored in therapy. CHADD has lists of folks familiar with ADHD and your psychiatrist will also probably know people in the area who are good.
I do work with couples as a marriage consultant, but generally work with both members of the couple simultaneously as that works best for what I do.
Again, Thanks Melissa
by robinshusband - 07/22/2010 - 10:23
Melissa,
My therapist has made some progress with me. I have a tremendous amount of difficulty with being abandoned by my mother when I was 8 years old, add to that my adoptive mother was never home when I was a child and I've never had a father figure teach me how to love a woman. My "safety net" has always been having the ability to "manage" (most would say control) things around me in order to protect me from that feeling of being abandoned, when I had that abandoned or not needed feeling my ADHD would find other obsessions to fill that void...to protect me. I thought I was over it 23 years ago when I went through a few sessions during college. Only did I learn a few weeks ago that I associated my wife wanting time and space and to be left alone accompanied with no time line of working on our issues or even knowing if she wanted to work on them as the same as me being abandoned, this was devastating to me. In the last several days I've come to grips with this and now am preparing for my future by learning to discover what makes me happy, if I'm happy then others around me can be happy. I was not happy in my old world of finding "things" to replace the "love" I needed. I know what it is but if others can't be a part of that, or they prevent me from having that balance then that is something I feel will have to be worked on or I'll have to figure out how to put those things behind me. By no means am I making permanent decisions, but what I feel like I'm doing is preparing myself so when the time does come for that I am in a better place to do it. I know I can be a better man, spouse and father, I feel this is what my wife is trying to do also, I hope she is having success with this as well...I really do. I love her very much and want to spend the rest of my life in a relationship with her that makes us both happy, I know neither of us can go back to the way it was. I "believe" (my new tattoo says as much) we can do that, she can do that. But I also "believe" if she can't then in time I will be whole and happiness will soon follow.
My therapist is telling me his is trying to gather complete info so he can make sure his diagnosis is "complete" and not limited to just the ADHD (shouldn't 16 sessions be enough?) In the last week between the drugs and having to put my feelings aside in order to help my friend whose father died (she found out while we were working on a project) I was able to understand better what was going on in my head and get myself back to a place where I can think clearly. It is so refreshing and exciting to not have this heavy cloud over me all day long. Anymore the smallest thing no longer breaks me down, I feel when I do have to deal with my wife I can do so in a productive non threatening way. Now granted it has only been a few days and I'm afraid she can't see this calmness but the good thing is I see it and feel it.
My therapist told me yesterday when I had to change into the caregiver instead of the one being cared for by my friend it put things in perspective, I all of a sudden had to comfort and put her needs first, who she had been doing this for me for the last two months. Just so it is clear, she works with me and is happily married. There is nothing between us but a great friendship, she is also ADD so it helps us working on these things together.
I don't know if this makes sense, but now with the anxiety lifted due to drugs and a better frame of mind I feel like the ADHD meds are really working. My last several days at work have been incredibly productive, I'm getting a good nights sleep, and can actually think for moments what life might be like if things go the way I want or the way I don't want. Either way, I know I can be happy.
I "believe!"
Anger definitely opened the eyes of my ADHD husband
by banaany - 07/24/2010 - 14:42
In the beginning, when we faced troubles in our relationship and my partner walked over me against my wishes, I was very calm and patient with him. I talked normal to him and tried to let him see how it made me feel. I've had communication classes during my education and I brought all the correct ways to interact in our relationship, although I tried. The problem was, that at that time, my partner had very much difficulty with empathy. If he had broken my trust or some sort then I wanted to make him see how it hurt me with correct words. His responses were NONE, ZERO. At some point I started getting really angry about him telling me a huge amount of lies and I yelled, cried and started to rant in an angry way. My partner was shocked at some times, because it is totally out of character. And he could SEE how I was feeling and what his actions had done to me. When he feels that way his natural response is to shout, place negative comments and raise his voice and curse. I think it clicked because he recognized how I felt. We are now communicating better than before and there is no need for me to yell and shout. But it was absolutely necessary that I unconsciously 'mirrored' him. I think that if I had had my temper in check our whole relationship that we weren't together anymore.
Greetings from the Netherlands
But that won't work for long
by shore - 08/05/2010 - 18:21
It's true that anger, etc. can get attention for a short time.
But it's not a good long term strategy. It's dysfunctional, it causes other damage, and it will lose its effect before long.
WOW! Really?
by smbclipper - 08/03/2010 - 20:40
It surprises me that people who visit this site would be angry and/or say angry things. My mom sent me a text today and suggested I visit this site and try to Save my marriage (I use that word loosely). I have been married to this man (once again, I use this word loosely) for 16 years. We have 2 children, our son has ADD. Our teenage daughter has ADHD and I'm fairly confident that both my husband and I have ADD. However, I have tried and succeeded at many attempts to overcome and bypass the negative effects. I have been to adult ADD/ADHD support groups. My husband on the other hand does NOT try to change or get help. I have helped my children and continue to. The thought of saving my marriage is far from my mind. My one and only focus is on how to get out of it and preserve what little dignity I have left and make a good home for my daughter. She has seen and continues to see so much Cr*p, that she is loosing respect for me. I have also looked into other sites about video game addiction. I have been in counseling for 15 years and have had all of them, probably 4 different ones(men & women) over the years, tell me to leave. I keep changing counselors to get a different response, but it's always the same. I have been on all sorts of medications myself to try to get through this. I'm done poisoning my body and I'm done making sacrifices, I'm done trying. Many of you make think this is harsh, but I have pretty much allowed my sons life to be destroyed by the negative influence my husband has spewed and I regret that I didn't listen to the advice I got in the very begining of this marriage. Not only that but I have Wasted so many valuable years of my life. Now I have to waste more constructing my exit plan. Good Luck with the book, my advice, however, to your readers is to get out early.
SORRY
Take some time
by shore - 08/05/2010 - 18:27
Lots of us have been in places like where you are now, though not nearly so long or so bad.
But be careful about what you're planning, because it might not be the best thing for you. What makes me think that is your saying, " I'm done making sacrifices, I'm done trying." Not to say you should stay together, but only to try to make the right decisions for you and your children.
You say "I'm fairly confident that both my husband and I have ADD," maybe you can find someone to help sort that out for you.