Need help supporting husband with ADHD

[BackToBasics1808]

As the title suggests really - really need help / advice on how to support him

Was diagnosed in January after a couple of years watching him change and become more angry, more twitchy, more stressed etc. It was an awful time as he couldn't see sometimes how he spoke or acted towards us as a family or individually (2 kids - both over 10 so do understand)
He is on medication and has increased with the doctors advice and did 'level' out shall we call it - he was doing good, was happier and managing work / life balance great - but now its all starting to go downhill

He wont talk hardly about what is happening, storms off if i ask him to talk, says he is struggling with his MH but wont tell me what /why /how - gets angry over the smallest things, says things to me and the kids which he thinks he's saying as a joke but i've had to have a quiet chat saying it was quite rude / or harsh, forgets things all the time (he's even forgotten to pick the youngest up before now)

I just don't know what to do - the doctor has made sure he now prescribed the same brand of tablets as i did notice when he was on a different brand these things came to be more noticeable but he just cant seem to regulate his feelings etc - this is all very new to me and I am trying to be helpful / supportive but i just feel i am constantly playing mediator, walking on eggshells so i don't say / do the wrong thing

Does anyone have any advice? please...........

Medication isn’t a complete answer to adhd, it only helps you gain focus for a few hours.
your answer is to read, research & learn, both of you. Learn little tricks to manage his day, try different things.
I wish there was a one size fits all solution to adhd but there isn’t.

he sounds overwhelmed tbh. He’s pushed to his limits and something needs to change. I don’t know what, that’s for you to know

Is he definitely taking the medication ?
If he’s struggling with anxiety/depression he needs a separate chat about that with the GP.
Having lived through DH’s MH struggles I’d say that, if it’s affecting you and the kids, he may need to move out while he sorts himself out.

His ADHD is constant so it’s something he can’t cope with. My symptoms are unnoticeable when I am at the pool on holiday but back in the real world if you give me too many tasks to deal with at once and I start marching around the house with my mind skipping between tasks achieving very little.

Is there a deadline he knows he cannot meet or upcoming review he knows will go badly? Maybe a debt issue or mismanagement of life admin where consequences are around the corner?

He needs to understand that even if there is a reason and explanation for his behaviour it still has an impact on people around him and he needs to recognise this and be sorry for it.

I should also point out that his usual medication might be unavailable at the moment. There are shortages.

Being ND isn't an excuse for poor behaviour. He needs to help himself and get further treatment possibly for anxiety / depression.

Bear in mind he has always had the ADHD (unless he's had a brain injury or something to acquire it later in life) so think about what triggered it when he started to change. E.g a lot of women become aware of it after having kids when loads are too much and hormones don't help. There's a correlation between PND and female ADHD.

You can fix him but you can be clear about your boundaries ie rudeness and shouting.

I say this as someone with both ADHD and Autism

Did something cause the original decline? Work, extra family responsibilities etc?

ADHD is something you’re born with, it doesn’t just flare up, though it can be the underlying reason for struggling to cope with what life throws at you which then causes depression, anxiety, burnout etc.

Depression and anxiety is often co-morbid with ADHD and though I often hear that antidepressants don’t tend to work for people with ADHD (as the ADHD is the root cause), personally I find the antidepressant I take (duloxetine) helps me hugely, including with emotional regulation.

It sounds like either there’s something circumstantial happening that he’s not telling you about or there’s some overlayed mental health problems that need additional treatment.

thank you everyone for your responses - he's not told many people IRL (although he is starting to now to people he trusts) so it's been good to hear other opinions

He is definitely overwhelmed I'm just not sure what with - for example one minute he says he's worried about money - then next he's showing me holidays he wants to book for us??? He will come home and say he's had a hard day at work then next days come home and tell me its been a good day - he goes to the gym as said that helped getting extra energy, tension, frustration etc out and helps him feel calm, doesn't drink through the week as he was doing before and that had a massive impact on his mood

He's definitely taking the medication - i do ask (not always daily) but if i see he is more agitated than normal i ask if he's taken it and 90% of the time he has - sometimes on a weekend when our routine isn't like work/school day its more of a prompt but its never taken by him the wrong way

He was originally on Anti-depressants before he got diagnosed - he went to the doctor because he was getting really bad rages and his mood was all over to the point where we did talk about separating but he got help and even went to counselling and it was there they suggested he may have ADHD - i was at the appointment with him when he was diagnosed and the doctor said the AD tablets he was on weren't for best with the ADHD treatment and that he should be weaned off them which he did over about 6 months - but maybe worth looking at another AD medication perhaps??

I will certainly do more research and more reading about it - thank you!

Does the ADHD diagnosis “make sense” to him? I guess it is possible he’s been misdiagnosed.

But what you have just described I can relate to a lot in having both depression an ADHD. I think for some people depression is “part of the ADHD package” but for me I think it’s from a separate root that needs (and responds to) separate treatment.

I think my ADHD definitely shapes my experience of depression (and emotional disregulation is a big part of that) but it’s two different things. I stopped taking ADs (partly because I kept forgetting to take them…thanks ADHD!), was fine for about 6 months off them and then slid back into being a depressed mess. Within a couple of weeks back on ADs I was so much better.