Your message is very worrisome, both you and your partner are clearly suffering a great deal. You partner sounds is struggling with more than ADHD at this time. If she is feeling like giving up on everything, this lack of motivation and hopelessness suggests that she probably is struggling with Major Depression. It's a clinical condition which usually requires medication. She needs professional help and the emotional support of friends and family is not enough. She sounds pretty desperate and may even be struggling with suicidal thoughts. Get her professional help with a clinical psychologist, who can find her a psychiatrist to perform a medication evaluation. The "controlling" nature of your support that you refer to may not be the nature of the support you offer, but recognizing its limitations; and allowing her to get help from other professional sources that facilitate her independence. By getting treatment for the depression, it will make it easier for her to work on the ADHD related issues, self-esteem, a sense of self-efficacy and feeling independent (which is what you fear your undermining, and may be if she only relies in you. If you can find a Co-dependency meeting support group or ADHD family support group that could help you to figure out how to be supportive, without taking too much responsibility for her and hurting both of you. I hope you find good professional help and soon, and wish you and she the best. I have struggled with the issues of ADD and major depression, and I feel for both of you. Best of luck!

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Thank you so much for your reply. Your observations are very true. My partner fought for years with the consequences of ADD on her professional activities and she managed to keep on studying until quite late. Now, she has no choice but to start a career and earn money, and this is a panicking perspective for her. She is being followed by a psychiatrist and a psychologist, both specialise in the treatment of ADD, and she was given anti-depressants, too, but she doesn't want them and she even stops a ADD meds (Concerta) from time to time, which doesn't help. She interprets every event in our life in a way or another, according to her mood swings, with devastating effects - especially because her mood is more often negative than positive. Her reading of events are often tragic, although she is often wrong as she exaggerates certains aspects and downgrade other important facts... When she eventually get a good news, we come too a short truce, but this won't last long, unfortunately. I really would like to help her and she is asking me to help her organising herself and even playing the "boss" part in here time-management efforts, but because of my own past I am not good at opposing a very angry person. I am making progress, but this is not enough. I tend to be a quiet person and I am also quite stressed with my own job and our three children...

Anyway, thank you again for your reply and I'll keep reading the posts here that are pretty interesting for people living with ADD persons: I know this is a condition that is quite hard to live, but there are also not a few good points in ADD and I appreciate this in my partner as well.

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