I'm one of the first to stand up and yell ADD is bullshit, smack your kid every now and then, but when it comes to adults it's a different game.  Over the years I've realized my wife has it, well, she basically told me and the lightbulb went off.  With the birth of our second child, it's basically gone into hyper drive from the hormones shifting all around.  A good friend of mine also has it and he's much older than us, but they both share the same traits.  His wife also wants to kill him most days

At times it's incredibly hard to deal with and really makes me question my sanity sometimes.  With it getting worse from hormones, I'm going nuts and she might end up killing me .  I'm a talker, I love bullshitting and pondering life's mysteries.  Her ADD makes that all but impossible because as I'm talking there's basically a conveyor belt from her ears, stuck in high speed, slinging shit all over her brain.  It takes her so long to process what I'm saying and put together her thoughts for a response that a conversation is all but impossible.  She's told me many times that she's not ignoring me, she just can't catch the thoughts in her head long enough to speak.  For anything remotely close to a "serious" conversation I take her reaction extremely poor, I react as if she's acting like a scolded child playing the silent game; I want a response out of her, then it all goes downhill.  The more pissed she gets, the more stressed she gets, so the hyperfocus kicks in and she has no problem keeping up and fighting right back.  It's a vicious cycle.  

edit - here's a paragraph break you fucks

If it's a stressful situation she has no problem focusing, which is probably why she does so great as an RN.  The bonus prize I'm getting from her hormones is forgetfulness, but not the cute "i lost my keys lol".  It's more along the lines of HOLY FUCK HOW CAN YOU FORGET THAT?!  For example; she cuts my hair.  Last night she completely went off the deep end accusing me of trying to convince her she's going insane.  Why?  Because I told her she's trimmed my eyebrows before.  She had absolutely no recollection of it ever happening.  Me?  I have an extremely good memory.  Those two things do not go good together.  The other thing that drives me batshit insane is if I say "hey, quick look at this".  She MIGHT look 5-10 seconds later, you know, after she missed whatever was happening.  

edit - and another break

All the other ADD shit is water under the bridge; disorganization, lateness, etc. etc.  Some of it's funny too.  She'll read her book during a TV show, but put it down to watch the commercials lol.  The issues get compounded by her upbringing.  She was homeschooled and lived under super controlling parents where everything she did was ridiculed and demonized.  Because of that, her default operating mode is to be in defensive mode.  With having kids and breastfeeding, we've basically been stuck waiting a few years for her to get medicated.  We're looking at another year of breastfeeding before she can go on meds.

I know there's got to be at least a few of you out there that deal with this....

Also, I'll never eject.  She's the most loyal and well grounded person I've ever met in my life.  She's an amazing mother and sexy as hell when she wants to be

The first and most important rule when discussing adult ADD is keeping your posts brief.

this

I read this post and have yet to read the OP

ADD = TL;DR

fpn...wait, what?  Oh look a squirrel!

Please, the two hardcore adult ADD people I know are speed readers and love reading

 
I can speed read and do love to read.


Adult ADD makes me awesome at my job. I never know what I am going to find everyday when I come in, so not being focused on one thing is pretty dang handy. Combined with the powers that be, that can change their mind 7 times in 5 minutes I find ADD an asset.

I think technology has a lot to do with it. Multiple forms of social media, texts, email, twitter. People sometimes have dozens of ongoing conversations across multiple platforms, and are expected to react like a trained dog to a notification. That's starting to bleed over into other parts of general life.

It sounds like you are getting upset over little things that shouldn't really bother you.  Your wife might actually have ADD and I could see that causing issues but not the ones you describe.

She's found a few blogs of women with legit ADD who have the same issues; they can't effectively communicate/listen unless in a stressful situation.

Yes, they're little things, but they're cumulatively attacking my sanity.

I'm pretty sure I have it. Coming up with coping mechanisms became very difficult when I joined the .mil. Had a panic attack one day underway. Saw the medic and she said go to medical when we get back. I did. They screened me and asked me a ton of questions. The medical officer said you pretty much have all the sifns and a symptoms. He referred me to a specialist with a warning that I would more than likely be discharged. That said, I never sought treatment.

Drivesy wife nuts. I don't remember a lot of things even something you said 5 minutes ago. It's not that I'm not listening its just that I'm not processing what has been said to me. It sucks.

I love reading too. I don't love reading a wall of text. Your initial post needs more paragraphs.

I can't remember the important things that I would like to remember. I remember all of the useless garbage.

ETA: I was diagnosed with ADD without hyperactivity 6 or 7 years ago.

ETA2: Another thing to add. The forgetfulness is probably the worst. That along with anxiety/worry which the Dr said is likely caused by ADD. But if there is something important I have to do, it pretty much consumes my day so I don't forget it. I'll set reminders on my phone with multiple notifications, but that's not good enough for my brain. I will constantly think about that one important thing until it's time. My forgetfulness is bad enough by itself, but stuff like that just makes it much worse.

I get a lot of that with my wife, especially after kids.





You're right, it's not the forgetting that's annoying, but the total lapse of memory and recollection.

My wife will be MID SENTENCE and completely forget what she was talking about. On a daily basis she comes up to me just to say she forgot what she was going to say. It's really annoying having sex and you can see her brain working on something. Starts a conversation. . I sometimes have to ask her multiple times to please focus on the deed and not talk about kids or other things.

Fighting is the worst thought. A fight about one subject gets so complicated, turns into a fight about the sequence of events, detailed word meanings (should have said annoyed rather than upset) etc. Can't even discuss the issue at hand because of this.

Messiness and disorganization is awful. Doing laundry? Dump clothes all over the floor, do one load, leave the clothes in the floor for a week. Never put clothes away, they stay in baskets so when i do laundry that are all full.





Eta: multiple additions throughout.

 

Weird that you posted  this op. We are dealing with it right now. Wife went for an all day test and assessment yesterday. I just filled out a questionaire about her before opening this up. Get her some help. There are methods of treatments out there for adults just as much as kids. Mine struggles with daily task. She can't prioritize and sometimes forgets the single most important task for the day. She can't even carry on a conversation and do another simple chore at the same time.

See, that's what I thought ADD was all about, until we both started digging.  The reality is more along the lines of the brain being a whirlwind of thoughts/ideas/memories/etc. that cannot be effectively "grasped".  If you throw them into a stressful situation, the brain will zero in on what it needs to.

My buddy is the same way.  You can almost see the moment his brain catches the thought he wants.  His marriage is a mirror of ours.  It's interesting to both of us to hear the opposite sides of the equation.  He'll tell me stories of his wife freaking out on him and the entire time I'm grinning because I've been in that exact scenario.  For the past 20 years he's been scared that it's Alzheimer.  Once I sent him down the path to research adult ADD he was so relieved and honestly happy that he knew WTF was wrong with him.

How about cleaning the house?

I'll tell mine to clean up the clutter.  I'll come home and the house is still a fucking disaster.  Well she goes completely apeshit because I didn't notice the sink she spent 8 hours cleaning.  It's funny/cute at this point.  She WILL spend all day cleaning, but it's all day spent cleaning one thing/area.

Adult ADD/HD is a misnomer.  Its mostly unrecognized childhood onset or anxiety.  One does NOT have ADHD as an adult who didn't have symptoms as a child.  Plain and simple.  

It's real. I call it changing channels. In the middle of someth >flip< I need to get back to working on this customer's >flip< forgot to pay the wa >flip< need to clean up that>flip<

YES! Same shit. We can set out to "straighten the house up" and I will tidy six different rooms while she cleans one bathroom. Then  I'll go in the bathroom and she will leave all the shit off the bathroom sink, sitting in the floor instead of placing it back on the counter.

 
Omg my wife does that too. I'm like how am i supposed to notice among all the other mess?


 

Even the things she does clean, there's no keeping up. It always has to turn into a disaster, then I'm supposed to be so proud of her for spending 2 hours cleaning the kitchen. If she got off Facebook and spent 15 minutes a day on it, it would be easy.

OMG, YES!

Every single fight turns into semantics.  I imagine from the outside we both look completely insane.

TL:D...

2nd Rules

 
I suspected she had add but she's so stubborn she won't even consider it or admit to her issues. Other thought was partway towards aspergers spectrum.

 
We need to start a support group.

Have you ever packed up the kids, gone to a party or something only to find out it was tomorrow/yesterday?

Does she plan your vacations? Don't let her, lol.

TL:DR

 
That's so strange to me because it manifests different than my ADD.

Poor kids missed a swimming party a few weeks back. We were a day late.

Poor kids missed a swimming party a few weeks back. We were a day late.

I don't believe in ADD for anyone any age at all ever.

I do believe in undisciplined people though.  Some people work to keep their shit wired tight some don't and many are in between.

That's life

 
Creating alternate realities based on your personal belief is usually called delusional

So if light and sounds distract you, you're undisciplined?

When you have ADD your head is swimming with thoughts, it's very distracting.

To be frank this is fairly well bullshit. You're applying a new phenomena to an age old reality.

I have it - severe inattentiveness - but grew up without any of those things.  In fact, any adult in their late 20s and early 30s grew up without those things.

A lot of people don't chose to believe medical science.

It's sad, really.

hehe so in the 2.2 billion megaflops the average human brain processes per second accessing and storing 3.5 quadrillion bytes of storage, there's no way that some of that data gets misrouted in some

L

I know several people that believe like you. I put most of them in the "dumb fucks" category. Guess which category your going in? Smh..

Science is stoopid. fMRI studies comparing control patients to ADD patients is for suckers.

lets go ride bikes.

My wife is ADD with a touch of OCD and insomnia with a side of narcissism for a topper. Oh shes Korean to boot so its a interesting dynamic around my place.

Shes on Adderall- Ambien and ZOLOFT and that's just what I know about.  

Are your kids vaccinated?

Just wondering.

Lol

Started to read, Got to read the rest later when i have more time.

 
Excessive amounts of electronics can make it worse. Doesn't mean it's the sole cause.

 
ADD actually makes it really difficult to shut your brain of for sleep. My wife sleeps great though.

It's nice that you feel secure enough to self identify as an ignoramus.

Yes more than 2 lines and I'am out ADD.

My wife can fall asleep at the drop of a hat.  It's ridiculous.  I think it's from her coping mechanism with ADD; completely zoning out.