What You Need to Know if Your Partner Has ADHD and PTSD
Calling all partners, spouses, and significant others of loved ones with ADHD and PTSD! This blog post is meant for you. This is an “ADHD and PTSD 101” crash course that will help you better understand your neurodivergent partner, better understand yourself if you also have ADHD and/or PTSD, and better understand how the two of you can co-exist and love each other in harmony.
What is it like to have ADHD?
Imagine waking up after getting 4-5 hours of broken up sleep. You just woke up, but your body-battery is at 30%. Then, you have the following thoughts that all occur in 4½ seconds:
(Read the following text once through, and then read it again at twice the speed. This will enhance your ability to understand your partner’s mind even more.)
“It’s 7:15am? Why didn’t I hear my 8 different alarms? I better check my work email. I need to know what I’ll be dealing with today. Wait, I have notifications on Facebook. That seems much more interesting than the 50 things I need to do before 9am. Wait, why is my cell battery at 15%? Oh yeah, I forgot to plug it into the charger last night. That’s right, I need to buy another phone charger. I really need to get a new cell phone. Maybe I can get a good deal with a trade-in. If I can get to Verizon on my lunchbreak, I can finally get a new phone. While I’m out, maybe I can get that new Starbucks drink I’ve been wanting. But am I supposed to drink caffeine after 1pm? Maybe that will mess with my meds. Oh no… I forgot to pick up my meds at the pharmacy! How am I going to focus at work today!? What’s the point of going if I can’t even get anything done? I always do this. I mess everything up. I can’t even do life like an adult. I’m not going to work today. I’m so depressed.”
After those 4½ seconds pass, imagine you remain in bed, lying down, endlessly scrolling on social media for the next 2 hours. Not showering, not brushing your teeth until far too along in the day. Watching your partner get up, talk about the day they’re going to have, wish them off to have a good day, and waffle between two states all day: (1) a paralyzing freeze state, and (2) a frantic, panicky, must-get-everything-done-in-20-minutes state.
ADHD stands for Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. It is a genetic, neurodevelopmental disorder that comes with a range of symptoms, but in general, people with ADHD have trouble with: paying attention, zoning out, processing information or conversations, being on time, fidgeting, racing thoughts, talking fast, talking loud, getting tasks done consistently, losing things, brain fog, being patient, interrupting during conversations, feeding themselves (eating too little or too much, or both), drinking fluids, and difficulty with resisting temptations.
“ADHD is not a disorder of competence or knowledge. It is a disorder of performance.” This is a quote by Dr. Russell Barkley, an ADHD research scientist. People with ADHD are capable, competent, and knowledgeable, among their many strengths. What they actually struggle with is performance. It’s not a problem with knowing what to do. It’s a problem with doing what they know.
What is it like to live with PTSD?
Imagine being out with your partner at your favorite restaurant, having dinner together after a long week. Your partner starts talking about their day.
Your day didn’t start off well, having not slept much after a series of nightmares, night sweats, and a two-day long, mind-splitting tension headache that momentarily subsides with Tylenol.
Your partner is still talking at the dinner table, but you get distracted by the noise coming from the table across from you. You notice at that table that one of the dinner guests has an angry-looking face. Their tone of voice, their face, and their overall demeanor is giving you an uneasy feeling. You no longer feel comfortable being at this restaurant.
You’re vaguely aware that your partner has stopped talking, and, almost as though their voice sounds muffled and far away, they ask you if you’re ok.
You say you feel anxious and uncomfortable. You tell them you feel like something bad is going to happen.
Then, you hear dinner guests somewhere else in the restaurant erupt into laughter. It feels like out of place laughter. Simultaneously, you hear an ambulance and firetrucks approaching and the noise is so loud that you hear it pounding in your ears. You feel your heart racing. Your jaw is clenched, and your migraine is a 9 out of 10.
You tell your partner that you can’t be there anymore. You have to go. You can’t even stay seated to explain, and while you walk to the car, your panic attack builds. The only thing that allows your panic attack to subside is time, tears, or commanding yourself that you will be OK, that you are safe.
PTSD stands for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD is a condition that develops in the aftermath of a life-threatening, violent, or life-altering event(s), and causes such a disruption and disturbance to peoples’ lives that it prevents them from living in peace. Most of my clients with PTSD tell me that all they want is peace. They crave peace from the anxiety, nightmares, emotional flashbacks, intrusive thoughts or images, unsettling dissociation from reality, the “wired but tired” feeling, insomnia, being super-alert, feeling detached from others, numbness, social withdrawal, intense guilt and shame, chronic irritability, mistrust of others, and unexplainable physical pains (e.g. migraines, stomach aches) that have no known medical cause.
PTSD is a problem of non-recovery of an invisible wound. If you were cutting vegetables and accidentally cut yourself, but that wound never healed and continued to cause you pain for literally years, and it prevented you from ever really feeling at ease and safe in the world, that might be an adequate comparison. Yet PTSD is an invisible condition with an invisible wound. Your partner may never really feel at ease with themselves or in the world. What happened to them is, in essence, still happening now, at least emotionally. The fear, anger, grief, shame, guilt, and disgust are too intolerable to bear. So they go to a place in their mind that feels safer, or they do things (or avoid things) in an attempt to feel safer.
What is it like to live with both ADHD and PTSD?
We know that when living with ADHD, it’s difficult to focus, get things done, and manage yourself. We know that with PTSD, it’s difficult to find peace and joy. Imagine struggling every day to sleep, eat, rest, process information, remember things, complete tasks, clean up after yourself, do your hygiene, engage socially, relax, and regulate your emotions… you might have a hard time being cooperative, productive, and present.
Terms to understand with ADHD and PTSD
To enhance more of your understanding of ADHD and PTSD, it may be important to learn more about the following terms:
Hyperfixating
Overstimulated
Understimulated
Window of Tolerance
Hyperarousal
Hypoarousal
Auditory processing
Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (RSD)
Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA)
Stimming
Rumination
Intrusive thoughts
Panic Attack
Flashbacks
Emotional flooding
Feeling numb
Dissociation
How you can be more supportive to your partner with ADHD and PTSD
If you have made it this far into the article, I think that reveals your dedication to your partner. Thank you for these important steps you’re taking.
And, I would like to acknowledge that while the individuals living with ADHD and PTSD experience a lot of disruption and disturbance to their lives, so do their partners. It is difficult to know the best way to be supportive and it can be stressful and frustrating. Educating yourself is an important step, and so can be receiving your own individual support through psychotherapy, couples therapy, books, podcasts, support groups, NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness), spiritual practice, self-care, and beyond.
Here are my top 7 tips on how to be more supportive to your partner with ADHD and PTSD:
Honor your partner’s right to pursue therapy or treatment at their discretion. You and your partner could be noticing that they are really struggling right now. And, they may not be interested or ready to receive professional help, if that’s in the cards for them. Be present with them. Focus on connection. Be together when you are together.
Timing, timing, timing. Think through a situation before you start a conversation. Ask yourself if it’s a good time for you and for your partner. You can even broach the topic and ask them it’s a good time to talk about it. Look to see if there will be lesser distractions. Look out for if the both of you are “physically” ready to talk (e.g. not too hungry, tired, or wired). Proceed only if the timing is right.
Re-contextualize your partner’s behavior. Find alternative meanings for your partner’s behavior. Is their childhood upbringing relevant to their behavior? How does this behavior make sense given their life experiences?
Ask more gentle, thoughtful questions that have the spirit of compassion and curiosity. Examples: “While I’m not sure, it seems like you feel a certain way right now. Did I do something upsetting?” “Sweetie, I was in the middle of talking. Would it be ok if I finished first?”
Ask them directly if what you do is helpful or not. Find an appropriate time for the both of you, and talk about something you did recently and ask them if that approach you took was helpful or not. If it was helpful, why? If it was not helpful, how come? How was it actually received? When we open conversations with, “Hey, so I’ve been doing ___ lately in order to try and be supportive. Was it actually supportive for you?” This can invite your partner to give you feedback, and you can learn about how they are processing, as it may be different from your processing.
Find the balance between doing supportive things and trusting that they are learning how to meet their own needs. For example, it can be supportive to encourage your partner by filling up their water bottle and telling them, “Remember to drink water today, babe!” And perhaps, if your partner tends to forget to eat, it may not be as sustainable for you to text them every 3 hours to make sure they’ve eaten something. There is a balance—go trial and error with it.
Educating yourself on what your partner is going through is great. Educating yourself on yourself is even better. What I mean is, don’t forget to identify within yourself your own thoughts and feelings. Are you feeling stressed a lot? Frustrated? Guilty? Pay attention to those feelings. Take good care of yourself. Your partner wants to see you thriving, too.
In kindness,
Leya