For the past several months, I was involved with a man who had been diagnosed with ADHD not long prior to our meeting one another. He initially presented as a well-adjusted, educated, self-aware man who had just happened to have experienced a number of challenging life experiences in his adult life. However, over the course of my relationship with him, it became more and more apparent that his ADHD traits were taking over the relationship despite my best efforts to understand his newly minted diagnosis. Out of nowhere, his deceptively guised self-awareness quickly turned into self-absorption, unable to regulate his emotions or maintain a shred of social consciousness. He'd call me awful names and make hurtful comments in a 'joking' manner, he'd mock me when I expressed my frustration over his unabashed offensiveness, and it seemed as if I was walking on eggshells and feeling overwhelmed with anxiety in the moments before seeing him out of fear that I'd say something that he'd misinterpret as hurtful or impatient. I made efforts to understand his diagnosis, his inherent lack of ability to self-regulate and marginal attempts to take his meds on a consistent basis, but I ultimately recognized that his lack of awareness for how his behaviors affected me would continue to decimate our relationship, further punctuating my mounting anxiety. Not long ago, I finally told him that I was unhappy, and he accused me of having the "problem," and I ended it. Sad as I am at the loss, I'm actually quite relieved that it's all over. Ultimately, I couldn't see myself taking on the responsibility of having to think for two people because he didn't want to accept responsibility for his behavior. Even so, what hurts the most is knowing that he's likely to look back and paint a picture of me that is so far removed from the truth: that I made him feel like he was doing everything wrong, that he was "defective," and that I couldn't accept him for who he was. What he doesn't recognize, however, is that he's not at a point in his life where he is ready to accept full responsibility for his ADHD, which surprises me since he's the one who initiated treatment for it to begin with. He doesn't make the connection that his words and actions have consequences, and he's adamant that I'm the only one who has had a problem with it. I haven't had any previous experience with ADHDers prior to this, so I guess in writing this post, I'm trying to find some validation for my experience, and a few reasons to reassure myself that I'm not the monster he's likely to paint me as.