Book Report: Self-Care for People with ADHD

One of the sillier suggestions of this book is to do handstands to reset the brain.

While I do think handstands are effective, show me an ADHD parent with available wall space? My adoring blog fans are like, "Wait, couldn't you use that sad mattress on the floor set-up you call Crosby's room?" Nope. After years of sleeping on the floor with a preschooler, the dude got a major upgrade. 

Per usual, Onkle Andrew carried the team on this build. 

But I digress...

My major ADHD symptom as a child was I would loose everything. Yes, of course it makes sense to put things back where in their home. But when my brain is totally elsewhere, I have no idea what I am even doing with my hands. For that reason, when someone would ask that ice breaker question, "Who would you hire if you won the lottery?" I would always say, "equipment manager". Paul would say, "personal chef", which brings me back to the book...

The author had some generally helpful suggestions. However, my top tip for managing ADHD would be a hard-sell to publish anywhere but a well-aged blogger: maintain your ride or die relationship.

In this picture, Paul willingly signed up to be my "gear sherpa" for life. Little did he know that my misplacement of all-the-things was just the tip of the ADHD iceberg. After having one-too-many insurance payments forgotten, Paul took over managing our bills. He also took over all of our retirement/investing planning. While my ADHD mom carved out a successful career as a financial planner, the combination of zero interest in the subject matter and general concern that I'm going to screw something up meant Paul was a better fit. 

The bottom line is that being married to someone with ADHD is a lot of work. Sometimes you will feel like you have another child to take-care-of. You will pay the "ADHD Tax" when your partner breaks/looses/destroys the iphone/diamond earring/two washing machines and counting. The hardest part in PB^2 relationship, is that we produced at least one confirmed "race car without breaks". ADHD  has such a strong genetic link that only time will tell if the neurotypical members of our family will be outnumbered. 

There are, however, some plus sides. Partners with ADHD are generally fun. We stay active. Additionally, according this book which is way too long for any person with ADHD to read, we usually have a higher sex drive.

Hold/loan purgatory rotation at the PDX library. TLDR

A word of caution, however, we are bad at birth control. The closest thing to a pre-nuptial agreement was that Paul accepted he would get a vasectomy after we finished having kids. Vasectomies are one of the few medical procedures that aren't covered by insurance in Germany. When people say Berlin is still a cash economy, they mean it:

Jokes. Before Covid we didn't have the special EC credit card so we had to do silly things like count out 620 Euros for a snip.

But back to the purpose of this post, which was two fold. Firstly, to write something encouraging about my relationship with Paul after this book report. Did I accomplish it by blogging publicly about his vasectomy to my many, many readers? It does say something about his character that he willingly went under the knife for his wife and does not flinch when I share his good deed rather publicly. Also, right now he's at work while I'm at home observing my Sabbath. 

Perhaps because of my ADHD, I've generally found technology too boring to figure out. My college-self didn't plan for a future where most white-collar jobs are in-front of a screen. Meanwhile, Paul has made a successful career in tech. It does pang this enneagram eight that our family roles fall along gender stereotypes, but a common theme at casa Biggs is accepting life as it is, not as we wish it to be. 

I am thankful that he brings home the bacon. I'm grateful he also loves me even though I literally have 9,765 emails in my inbox right now. I appreciate that he accepts that our family ADHD is career limiting for him as well. More than anything, I'm thankful that he doesn't stand back and look at me with the thought, "Can't you just get your $hit together?". 

The second aim of this blog is to encourage a few of my neurotypical partner friends to stay in relationship. Partners of ADHDers require a supernatural amount of patience + the patience that we ADHDers generally lack. PB^2 have been hitting the Contemplative Prayer much harder this Lent and hope to keep it up. There is also more non-divine help available now than generations past. One lucky little Biggs and I will be heading to the middle-of-no-where after Easter for three weeks to try and get all the behavioral therapy at a Mutter-Kind-Kur. The next three weeks will be a scattershot of preparations to keep the remaining Berlin Biggs in good shape while we are away doing this:

Hang in there my neurotypical friends.