Hi,
My partner (who has ADHD) and I recently went to a series of counselling sessions with an ADHD expert. One of the ideas that we came up with during the sessions was to put up a whiteboard in our kitchen, that we could use to communicate with each other. My partner was particularly keen to use this to help us with scheduling. So if I need to know if he can come to a particular social engagement, or if I want us to discuss who's going to do a particular household task etc, I write it on the board. Then the idea is that he reads it, and gets back to me. This has worked some of the time. But most of the time, he does not get back to me about the things I write on the board. They just sit there for 2 or 3 weeks until I end up having to verbally remind him about them anyway! It's really annoying, particularly when the whiteboard was his idea in the first place. I'm wondering if there's a way to make this system work better. Like maybe we could have a weekly meeting to deal with items on the whiteboard that haven't been dealt with. Or maybe I could put a deadline on some of the items, so that if he doesn't get back to me in a particular timeframe, I just make my own arrangements (eg. if we're both invited to a party, and he doesn't get back to me, I'll just let the host know whether I'm coming or not, and leave him to contact them independently). What do others think? Anyone have any experience with this, or any ideas I haven't though of? Thanks.
New Habits....
Submitted by kellyj on
are just as hard to develop as they are to break. I've found that trying new ideas like this one will work sometimes and not others for me but I can't know this until I try them. Once I do....I pretty quickly find out all the reasons why they don't work. Sometimes there are good reasons that are clear and easy to see and I can quickly move on to something else instead ( for the same desired result). Most of the time however....it's not easy to see or even understand why this is...one of them being simply.....it's new and you haven't done this before and or long enough to make it a new habit. And most of the time for me....any new habit takes awhile to make it one which means going through the process of trying it and then failing. Trying it again and then failing again....over and over. Failing less each time and succeeding more until finally ( seemingly all at once )..it clicks. The time it takes to go through this process is different for each thing with no real apparent reason for this. And sometimes this never happens with something new which means it's probably not going to work at all ever or at the very least...not very well and it's time to try a different approach. But....sometimes going back to try something again that didn't work the first time works now even if it didn't before.
This much I can say to all of the things I just said.......it's a life long pattern of learning for me. Trial and error and repetition. It works and generally it becomes permanently learned from that point on....automatically and habitually. That's it. I am also painfully aware that this method and all that goes with it ( the process and time involved ) does not fit well with many people and how they approach something like this. I know from my own experience that for some people.....this type of hands on learning by mistakes/errors drive them nuts! In fact.....for some of these people ( the ones in my life both past and present )...any form of mistake or error is viewed as a catastrophe ( a reflection or appearance of fault, imperfection and inability) on their part therefore, immediately see this as a bad way to do things or a permanent reason to stop trying or not ever try that thing again.
The pros and cons for me in being this way I already mentioned. The positive side of someone who is very diligent in not ever making mistakes or failing is that they tend to be very methodical, precise, well planned and well thought through, highly organized, and very researched ahead of time. None of these things are necessary bad or even could be viewed as a negative in any way except for one thing coming from my perspective. They also tend to be rigid, unbending or inflexible and not very forgiving in general....that is, compared to me. This is where the rub comes from and I have vast amounts of experience on this one area in my life! lol
Bottom line here and maybe more pertinent to your post. All these things take time and probably longer on average for me than it does for most people in general. This has nothing to do with IQ or cognitive ability here...I appear to do pretty good most of the time in that area...give or take. lol But because of my ADHD...I know what works and what doesn't more often than not once I've given it a try for a while. I can't always answer exactly why that is at first.... but I can tell by how it feels which is my best indicator ( the hands on part of this process ). I can usually trust this more than anything else even if I can't explain it to someone else at first. Most of the time (80-90%)....I find that tweaking the original idea a little or changing one or two aspects of it will usually do the trick instead of abandoning the thing all together. I also know this too from a lifetime of doing things this way ( successfully ). Usually it's this one or two things that are really the problem not the entire idea and that's what I try and look for first instead of giving up completely.
But the caveat to all of this comes usually from the other side ( other people ) who either perceive this process in itself intolerable or not willing to wait for the time it takes to get something new down ( some people seem to place time limits on everything whether they realize it or not...again, my experience). Even for the average person I've met can be a little annoyed or impatient with me or find them scratching their heads a bit along the way. I realize this too. I've found that the biggest obstacle sometimes does not come from the results of learning to do things this way as I have mountains of evidence to show how well and permanently it works for me)...the problem for them comes from the process itself. That appears many times to the issue that I have experienced from others on occasion depending on who it is and how they perceive things.
Just to clear.....I see myself at the far end of the spectrum as I'm saying this so I don't want to leave the impression that I'm not seeing that I'm probably more the exception to the rule in this case compared to most people aside from those who have ADHD, but thinking that it might be useful to see how I perceive the other side from an objective observational perspective comparing them to myself as a means to show the difference and possibly explain just how it appears from this side of things. Maybe yes....maybe no. I hope this helps?
J
Thanks!
Submitted by hermione on
Hi J,
Thanks for taking the time to write such a comprehensive reply. I did not reply sooner due to a general state of "overwhelm" ;-) Thanks for the encouragement - it is reassuring to know that "tweaking" the system and "trial and error" can often provide a solution. Well, the whiteboard news is that we have set alarms to remind us to review the whiteboard each Saturday morning. So far this has actually worked 1 out of 3 weeks running, so I don't think we've arrived at the optimal solution yet... ;-) Back on the horse...
I get what you are saying about disorganization being one aspect of ADHD, and that there are lots of positive aspects too. Like my boyfriend is very creative (he's a great musician) and very fun (with an off-the-wall sense of humour). And of course us non-ADHD folks have our pros and cons too, hahaha. I guess the issue is that lately I have been feeling frustrated, as our ADHD coach made loads of really great suggestions for how we can arrange our lives better, but it seems to be up to me to actually implement them as boyfy is not focussing on them at all. He was really focussed on them during the weeks while we were going to counselling, but now it's all gone out of the window. I try not to take it personally, but sometimes I do end up wondering if "he's just not that into me.." When it comes to trying to make changes in the relationship, sometimes it's quite difficult to know whether I am being constructive and helpful or just codependent.
Thanks anyway,
Hermione.