Dear MusicLady: Melissa Orlov's column, Your Relationships, tackles these topics in the magazine. The upcoming issue (fall) will have a short item on a non-ADD spouse trying to heal from years of trying to deal with an undiagnosed spouse.

I will also send your post to Melissa for a possible inclusion in a future issue. We receive a lot of posts similar to yours.

Best.

Wayne Kalyn, editor, ADDitude Magazine

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Ned Hallowell is a psychiatrist and author some of the best books about ADHD. He and his wife have recently published a new book that you might resonate with. It's called Married to Distraction. Here is a link to his website and I'm sure you can get it at Amazon. I have not seen it come out in audio yet but that might be a good way to get your husband to read it also. http://www.drhallowell.com/books/married_to_distraction/ Another of his books, delivered from distraction,can be found@audible.com. Your husband could benefit and really start to feel good about himself by reading /listening to this book.

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They made history and they really stepped onto the pages of history and they did it and they did it so well and so strong. It was a fucking mystery how they did it. How did they accomplish as much as they did. They were a small group, mostly ignored, ignored by the media nad the nation and by some of the civil rights groups that had been around a long long time. They really were a great group. They were the members of the student nonviolent coordinating committee, they were a small group. Most of them were Christian. Most of them in the early days were black. They were young. Almost all were in their 20’s, though in Mississippi a number of them were younger than that. Most had gone to college, and most had some inkling. They joined, they found their way to each other and they felt th emission. They felt the larger purpose and the sense of justice and helping other people and doing what was right. There was no other group remotely like them. They quit school, they dropped out of college, they moved, they quit teaching jobs and other juobs, they got jailed, they sang, they starved, they scuffled, they lived in cars and in dirty offices. But they had each other. That’s what they had they had each other.

And they stpped intot he pages of history to take things on. Yes, they stopped onto the pages of history. In the spring of 1963, Martin Luther King Jur. Was leaind the Children’s campaign in Birmingham Alabama. This was the campaign against bull connor and the racists of Birmingham. They got attacked, got hosed and hit and their piectures got put on the front pages of ppapers around the country. The nation reacted. Kennyd reacted. The congress reacted. And the world listend and followed as this strange negro preacher who had the golden tonge captured the attention of a nation and a people.

But off the headlines, away from the reporter and the microphones and the photograhter, s the members of the student nonviolent coordinating committee set ot work doing their thing and there was nothing like them. No group like them. They didn’t attraac the publicity. They didn’t attract the news. They were not glamorous. They dressed in overalls and they lived in the poorest sections of the cities and towns where tey worked and they were taught the opposite of so much of what had been taught. They were to step onto the pages of history, but the way they were to do that was to connect with the little people, the invisible people, the black people who didn’t have educations and nice suits and nice c ars. The SNCC people were go organize those folks, finid leaders among them. Listen to them, talk to them. Learn grom them, be inspired by them. And so with the leadership of a Negro lady who personified determination and elegance and dignity and power and gentleness and humility, they did their thing. The members of the student nonviolent coordinating committee did their thing and there was nothing like them. No group remotely understood them. They were the young people na dthey came out of the sit-ins. Tens of thousands of young people, mostly Negroes, had got arrested as the sit-ins spread around the country. Andwhen Negroe s were afraid and their leaders cautious, the young people had stpped up. They got arrested when they were urged not to. They got arrested when they didn’t know how they were to get out of jail. They got arreste dnad moved forward when people didn’t know what they were doing. These were the children,t he young people nad they were extraordinary and odd and quirky and maybe a little crazy. Who did they think they were? What did they think they could accomplish? And how in the world did they think they had aq right to do what they did.

But they did it, they did it with the hugs and with overalls and with dcroweded offices and crowded houses and bad pay. They did it with titles like “field director” and they did it. They cam eand they talked and ehty met and their argued and they discussed. They were unlike anything the negro community had seen before, even the mainstream civilr igts groups. No one had predicted them. No one had seen that they would emerge. No one, and yet they did. They emerged and thye did their tghing in little corners and pockets nad in neighborhoods around the south. Hi Musiclady,

Sorry to hear about your years of stress and strain in dealing with your long-undiagnosed husband. Your question is a powerful one, and your pain is very real and it deserves attention and support. I got diagnosed two years ago at age 46. I have a milder version ... just mild enough to escape obvious notice but powerful and debilitating enough to make life and relationships and excelling at my jobs difficult. I know I was frustrating to the women I dated, and to the woman I married. Lord knows how frustrating it must be for the partners of people with more severe cases than my own.

My best advice is for you to find a therapist with whom you could work through the years of pain. Frankly, you need a therapist as much (if not more) than he does. I say that not to put you down, but to acknowledge the pain and suffering and confusion you have endured and to say that it will take some work to recover from it, get perspective on it and to move forward. You are right to say living with an adher has an after-effect. How could it not?

Most adhders can benefit from therapy separate from and in addition to medication. Years of suffering with adhd leads to despair and bad habits and compensation patterns that are not helpful ... There is a lot of deep pain (some of it has been around so long that adhders don't even see it). But the same is certainly true for spouses of adhders. I think finding your own therapist to work through your own pain, to find a way to deal with the past and to develop good strategies for the present could be enormously helpful for you. You might benefit from seeing someone who has a special focus on adhd. Even though you don't have it, the therapist who knows adhd will have a good understanding of the pain you've gone through.

No doubt, you have had to develop your own coping patterns that probably are not healthy at this point. The thing is he is who he is, and meds help some. They don't cure adhd. Please do not hold your breath for that. The reality is he’s going to continue to be difficult to live with. So you're still going to have struggles with him. Get some help for yourself. I would get a therapist for myself if I were in your situation and maybe after a while doing that, MAYBE, I would consider going to a joint therapist. I would not go to the joint therapy first, because that would just entangle you in his pain and confusion. I think at this point, you want to get in touch with your own feelings and your own voice and practice living your life to the fullest and not letting his debility control and limit you.

But it's important for you to know that you are separate from him, and it's up to you to face that fact and to make the best of your life. I'm sorry if this sounds more preachy than I mean it. I don't mean it in a preachy "you must take responsibility" way. What I mean is more along the lines of facing the fact that he is limited and that you probably are not going to get a lot of help from him at this point in healing the past. He struggles to get through each day. You've got to look out after yourself. And going for help is not a betrayal or anything like that. It's probably the best thing you can do not only for yourself but for your relationship. '

Good luck.

Phillyman P.S. I’m a divorced adhder ... and yes, my adhd played a role in my divorce ... I was only married a short time, but my social skills were really hurt by adhd, and I carried around a lot of shame. I now take meds, but I'm dealing with the after effects of my own life and the continued effects ....

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38 years undiagnosed. All the standard damage to self esteem, social skills, etc.

I read a book (OK a small part) that helped me understand the only shortcut to healing is taking action. I've been in counseling for many years. It has been a wonderful, very painful, very difficult and successful journey to move past and through the damage. Most people naturally try to ignore or avoid the pain. I've learned the only way out is though.

I promise you it is worth the effort. You can have your life back and so much more. It may take time but it will happen..

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I was diagnosed when I was 28, I'm now 35, so I can understand a part of what you're trying to say. However, I don't dwell on what could have been, I simply look to the future of what can be, what I can now accomplish. If you dwell on the past - on the 'what could have been if you had known sooner', then all you're doing is letting your life wither, what you need to do is see the past as a learning experience, change course and move beyond, move ahead.

Find the sancturary within and allow your self (well which ever of you has the ADHD) to live. If I understood correctly from your post when you asked, "can anyone tell me how to heal from all the "undiagnosed years"". You seem to want people to tell you how to heal your heart, your mind, and your soul. There's a problem with your reasoning, if you were asking someone to help heal a broken limb, that's one thing, or if you were asking a psychotherapist, how to improve the effects of OCD thats also something that could be done.

But you're not asking that, instead you essentially want people to tell you or your significant other how to heal yours or his/her heart, soul, and mind. Yet, no one here can do that, because no one here knows what is wrong, no one here has lived with you or your significant during those years. No one here would have any way of truly knowing how to help. There are people here who will probably offer assistance of some sort or another. BUT the only true external help in this matter would be to visit a psychotherapist and ask for guidance from them.

There are things that people in a forum can help with, such as advice on love, guidance about anxiety, encouragement about a non-ADHD person dating a ADHD person, but when you ask people to help with something so vague as to help with healing your emotional state of years lost. That's impossible, because we cannot turn back the hands of time and give that back to you. You simply need to clarify what it is you're asking but also recognize that the past is the past, and make the most of the future you now have, now that you or your husband have the medicine.

Live for the present and future, don't dwell on the past - learn from the past, but don't dwell on it. And again, if you truly need help putting some sort of closure on the past. Perhaps what you truly seek is psychotherapist. I also don't mean to sound harsh with my words, I'm just trying to emphasize what I already have.

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Sincere thanks to all of you who wrote in. All of your posts were insightful and each had something very poignant to say. I cried reading them.

I do know it's going to take TIME to heal. It took a LOT of years for me to be in the state I am now, and will take a while also to heal. Which brings up another point: It's getting frustrating for my ADHD husband that I "haven't gotten over it". I feel his wanting me to heal "faster", has been delaying what might be " natural healing"

Anyway, I know in my mind that I can't let him dictate what I NEED to do. (not trying to sound cold) So, I've asked him to start reading about what it's like to be a NON-ADHD person. I've told him how long and how much I've had to learn and read about ADHD, it's effects, how to deal with it, etc., but he doesn't have any idea what it's like on the other end of the spectrum. (What's it like NOT to have it, and what's it like to be married to someone who does) Fortunately, he HAS been reading about Non's and not just what it's like to have ADHD. I think it's been helping some.

You guys also mentioned counseling. Yes!!! I need to go. I haven't been able to afford the 60.00 dollars a week. This is in rural Georgia, so I can't imagine what theprices would be like closer to larger cities. That's why I've been more searching on the web lately, but it doesn't take the place of the one on one encounter with a counselor.

I will work on finding one. I promise. (but promise myself more) I really need it. THANKS EVERYONE FOR WRITING. musiclady

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...and we still have the same problems. We had a fight last night about the state of the house and how he wants me to change, and it's true. The article you quoted from is us to a T. Sexless weeks and months, horrible sleep patterns, COMPLETE and total misunderstanding of what one person says leading to arguments, it's hard sometimes. But there is so much love. I don't know if you're a religious person, but I believe in God's power and Christ's power. Some of the stories we tell about our lives are thousands of years old and can be found everywhere from psalms to the Old Testament books to conversations Jesus had with men in John's gospel. If you do believe, go back to the Bible and look at the way God has delivered other people out of the same types of problems we face today. If you don't believe, read the stories for what they're worth anyway and get the moral of the story. That's where I've found my patience.

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