Jiggling and gesticulation

[Shezzer]

I really need to know whether anyone else has this problem. I knew my partner in a social context long before we got together and I never noticed anything odd about his behaviour. But his private persona seems so very different from the public persona.

The problem I have found most hard to cope with has been his jiggling and gesticulation. If he is sitting in an armchair (or at the table) his leg is constantly bouncing and if he is asked to stop, then the hand starts strumming. We have got over this to an extent as I emphasised to him how disturbing this was to me. It seemed really to do my head in, and made me not want to be any place where he was.

But although the jiggling is now less, a problem of gesticulation remains, which most particularly affects me when he is absolutely close up to my peripheral vision, driving the car, or in bed.

When driving a car he uses his right hand on the steering wheel whilst the left hand waves around pretty randomly with every point he is making - always close to my vision and often truly flashing across my face.

Lying bed beside me, much the same happens, although this is extra weird because, whichever side he is on, he always uses the arm and hand closest to me to make his gesticulations.

I have tried to get him to stop. It sounds like 'nagging' to him, of course, and I haven't felt able to tell him how serious this is for me. I've always known it's a real relationship killer. I just can't stay with someone who does this, but I feel if I actually said that, it would sound like a threat and I don't want to do that. So far he simply hasn't got the message and does this waving as much as he ever did

But now I am at my wits end. I feel really traumatised by this persistent flashing movement in the side of my vision. In a long recent trip on holiday it was especially relentless.

Right now, the waving and flashing keeps going on and on through my head and I can't stop it taking over any other thoughts. I was driving home on my own yesterday and the whole thing was going round and round in circles in my head - what can I do, how can I stop this happening etc. Several times I even found my hand waving by the side of my eye in the same way, as my mind rehearsed all the happenings and all the possible solutions.

In all other ways I'm a really stable person. I never thought I would have so-called 'mental health' problems. But with this trauma taking over my head it's clear that something is going badly wrong. I'm pretty desperate to know whether anyone else has experienced this sort of thing, how it affected you, and what you did about it.

Thank you for reading my long message.

"We broke up because he was highly abusive, but he did use things like the leg jiggling and chewing with his mouth open as part of the abuse, believe it or not - he knew both things drove me insane, so did them constantly, and if I left the room or turned away it'd be "Don't you dare look away, if you don't like it you know where the door is" 🙄🙄

For BeautyGoestoBenidorm

Thank you for telling me this, Beauty. Completely horrendous! Obviously you did the right thing!

again not coming at you but ADHD isn’t this. It is not wildly gesturing in someone’s face as they drive.

Tourette's could be though.

If you are "traumatised" by his hand-waving etc., you probably need to end things with him and be on your own. I've never heard of such an over-reaction

@JustKittenAround I didn’t say it was caused by ADHD, or that ADHD was an excuse. I said that it can be associated with other ND behaviours as, for example, ADHD.

My point was, yes, he can probably help it - in fact, he has tried: largely exchanging leg jiggling for (apparently equally annoying) hand motions... It appears to me that he has tried to take the problem on board and done his best - though it seems that only made it worse from the OP’s perspective.

However my larger point is that yes, people with this jiggling issue can, as you say, help it. And most of them do. But it comes at a pretty big cost and is usually only temporary. Obviously I cannot speak for the OP’s partner, but for me the “solution” is clearly focussing on NOT jiggling. Unfortunately that takes so much mental energy that I cannot be my otherwise natural, sociable self. As soon as I stop concentrating on not jiggling, the jiggling begins again.

And my take away is that if the OP can’t deal with it, then that’s okay: she can walk away. But complaining about him and trying to change him is not likely to achieve the desired result, at least not permanently.

And I would also be highly sceptical of the suggestion that anyone does this on purpose to be irritating or controlling or whatever other implication has been suggested.

It's not always men lol

@Biggestjulie Bringing up ADHD is common and it seems to be very trendy to blame crap on it. You brought up ADHD, I told you I wasn’t having a go but still wanted to educate because I actually have a dog in the fight.

If you bring up an illness, don’t be shocked when someone who has it shares their point of view. It’s a lot different from knowing someone with it.

Respect that.