Yesterday, as I posted elsewhere, my wife was diagnosed with ADD overlapping with Asperger's and OCD.
Today, my wife took the initiative to email her close blood relatives, her close friends and my close blood relatives about her diagnosis. She asked me for my opinion on her email before she sent it, so I suggested a few edits. I also said, "While I support you in this, I expect some of your relatives will probably react badly." My in-laws have scapegoated me for nigh on 20 years now, to the point where I decided to have little contact with them, so I'm well-experienced in how intrusive and abusive their behaviour can be.
Sadly, I wasn't wrong. I'm grateful that almost all my wife's relatives who received her email replied supportively - with surprise and questions, but supportively.
One of my sisters-in-law (a professional in her mid-40s), however, replied to everyone who received my wife's email (except my blood relatives) that my wife couldn't be suffering a mental disorder and that I had written the email and forced my wife to send it and that none of it was true. When my wife replied to correct her, SIL upped the ante and accused me of narcissism and of battering my wife.
That my SIL disapproves of me and my marriage and spreads vicious rumours about me came as no surprise to me after almost two decades of the stuff. What did surprise me was the strength and severity of her denial of my wife's diagnosis. I was expecting a similar reaction from their mother, a partly-treated bipolar disorder sufferer who at each birthday which ends in a 0 has gotten her son to write and read aloud to the assembled party guests a speech about what a perfect mother she is. MIL is on holiday right now and isn't expected to read her email until she returns in just over a week, so it could still happen. As is, SIL has threatened to delete the current round of emails from MIL's account before MIL returns.
I understand denial. I've been seeing enough of it in my in-laws for almost a couple of decades now: as long as they're burying me in hatred they don't have to stop and look at their own problems. I feel for SIL that she's too anxious to accept my wife's diagnosis just yet. I'm just not going to take any rubbish from her about it.
I emailed her and all those whom she emailed and said, calmly and politely, words to the effect of, "Allegations like these cause problems, not just for me, so if you ever want to hear my side of things just email me; and whether you approve or not, my wife and I will endure." I'm not expecting to hear anything from it except perhaps more vicious comments, which I will delete from my own account; nor do I expect any change in my in-laws' behaviour. I feel better, though, having stood up for myself to my wife's family yet again.
May you all have better luck.
That's unfortunate. in my
Submitted by smilingagain on
That's unfortunate.
in my experience, there is a lot of ignorance about adhd and doubt as to it's existence.your wife can choose to do whatever she wants, but I've found that talking face to face with people I want to tell about this is preferable to writing something. Face to face I can see the skepticism or shock or whatever reaction they have and then decide whether to explain/persist or whether to just drop it as the person is not receptive to anything. If I were you, I would stay out of it and let her tell her deal with her own relatives. You might have read by now abut the high hereditary- aspect of adhd.... some of them may have undiagnosed issues as well- which might explain the level of defense and animosity.
it's not your job to explain adhd to her relatives and convince them that she has it. It is enough for you and your wife to know and address it. Carry on!
best of luck to you.
Postscript
Submitted by Ajay on
MIL returned from holiday yesterday. My wife dutifully phoned her. She tells me MIL also is in denial about the diagnosis: "That's crap! Who's the psychiatrist? You never climbed on the furniture at home when you were a child!" (My wife's family photo album, which we have here at home, gives the lie to that.) Nevertheless she hedged her bets by adding, "Well, if you believe it and the treatment works for you..."
MIL is in denial about her own diagnosis of bipolar disorder. I described her earlier as partly-treated because she began taking antidepressants last year after her son's wife, also recently prescribed antidepressants, said, "My own mother suffered depression and you remind me of her, are you sure you're not depressed?" I know of her bipolar disorder diagnosis because her ex-husband told me. A decade ago, on Christmas Day, when I'd been a first-time father for eight weeks, MIL threw me out of her family for the third or fourth time. (My offence that time: when her daughter - the one who denies my wife's diagnosis - came running at me, screaming, for daring to say her name in a conversation, I stood up to her, then decided I didn't want to hang around while the rest of my in-laws also screamed at me, so my wife and I took our son and went home. While we drove home, MIL rang my wife to announce my ban.) Unable to understand what was going on, I rang FIL, told him what happened and said, "Why is your ex-wife so hostile?" He then swore me to secrecy and told me about her diagnosis of bipolar disorder, which she denies and which they kept a secret from their children. Interestingly, when my wife told her father about her diagnosis recently, one of the first things he said to her was, "Your mother was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, could you have inherited your condition from her?" So another positive which has come from my wife's diagnosis is that my in-laws' pretence of perfection is crumbling.
MIL and SIL live close by each other (while we live in a different city), so I expect that if MIL is going to wind up her one remaining unquestioningly-loyal flying monkey and sic her on us, it'll be soon.
There may be a pattern here....
Submitted by Janice1512 on
Ajay, I'm really sorry to hear about your difficulties with your in-laws. I spend most of my waking hours finding patterns and I think I may have some helpful advice for you. Since it sounds like your wife's diagnosis is relatively new you may not have had a lot of time to research the Asperger's component. Well, I cannot tell you a lot about ADHD/ADD other than my ex has it and it has been a real education being on this forum, but I know a great deal about Asperger's in females as I happen to be a female Aspie myself. Firstly, you state that MIL was previously diagnosed with BPD. Really? When? You may not know this but many women with Asperger's have previously been misdiagnosed as BPD. Furthermore, like ADD/ADHD, Asperger's is hereditary. Do you see where I'm going with this? Even more curious to me as the Aspie always on the lookout for patterns and who loves to finish the puzzle - so what's up with SIL? Hmmm. I'm wondering what your wife's diagnosis is bringing up for her? Check out this list of female Aspie traits (even better if your wife will go through it with you since she would have known her sister when she was younger...) and see what looks familiar.
http://aspergersgirls.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/day-62-females-with-aspergers-syndrome-nonofficial-checklist/
I must confess that the list doesn't spend a lot of time on our not-so-pleasant symptoms, but a Google search might highlight some of those more in depth. There's also several good books about Aspergirls currently. These might also be of interest. If you still want more info, post here again and I'll forward some other stuff on to you or I can answer basic questions. Female Aspies are a bit of a rare breed; there's not a lot of us out there and we're all very unique.
Anyway, some of us female Aspie types have a very uncanny sixth sense and mine is telling me that mom isn't BDP, and that SIL might not like your wife's diagnosis as it is hitting a little too close to home. I was diagnosed as a result of my little niece receiving an autism diagnosis. My sister had gone to a psychiatrist because she was frustrated with my niece who was 2 at the time. She thought she might have Post-Partum Depression or something as she'd just given birth to my nephew. As the conversation with the doctor continued, my sister got quite hostile, agitated and finally confessed that she couldn't cope with her daughter as my niece reminded my sister of me when I was young. My sister had hated me as a child and a lot of that bad blood had carried into our lives as adults. As my sister described my behavior, the doctor recognized that I was, indeed, on the spectrum - which, of course, was not on anyone's radar in the early 70s. When confronted with the psychiatrist's suspicions, I was furious, especially as my being told was part of my sister asking me to participate in my niece's diagnosis and treatment plan. I really didn't appreciate being singled out as the "Black Sheep." It brought back a lot of bad feelings from my youth. I always knew I was different and I didn't need to be reminded of it. Fortunately, after an initial spate of ill-will, my niece's diagnosis and my subsequent diagnosis actually brought my family back together again as we resolved our differences to help my niece.
I'd be curious to know how MIL and SIL compare to the female Aspie traits checklist. If things seem to fall into place, you might ask your wife to talk to them about what she's found out. I wouldn't recommend you being involved just because it sounds like you've already taken the brunt of all this and it's really her job to deal with it. She's the Aspie. Best of luck and do keep us posted....
You could be right
Submitted by Ajay on
Thanks very much, Janice. Yes, as you say, my wife's diagnosis is relatively new to me and I haven't made much in the way of inroads to the Asperger's aspects.
MIL's diagnosis wasn't recent, and the more I process her family's way of doing things, the more I begin to suspect, just as you do, that the BPD diagnosis might not be the whole story.
Thanks for the tips about resources! If I find myself in need, I shall definitely take you up on your kind offer.