Hey everyone, I’m hoping to get some advice for my partner.
She and I both have ADHD. She consistently has great difficulty communicating clearly and neither of us is sure what to do about it. Where an ideal narrative could be mapped in a straight line, hers would look like a series of loops, whorls, and jagged deviations as she frequently repeats herself, relays events out of order, changes topics inappropriately and without warning, omits entire parts of sentences, etc.
I love her so much so it pains me to say that it’s bad. It’s really, really bad, and I see how it frustrates her. It’s interfering with our relationship as it makes even low stakes conversations agonizing and higher stakes topics often impossible. It holds her back in her personal and professional life. I used to have the same issue, but what helped me isn’t really applicable for her.
Does anyone have any resources, ADHD specific or not, that might help her get started in basic, effective communication? She’s such a wonderful, intelligent person, and I just want to help her succeed in being able to share that with others.
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IANAD but are you sure that this is ADHD? Was she formally diagnosed? It sounds like something else… and severe…
Yeah, she was diagnosed years before I met her. Her ADHD is quite severe, not gonna lie. I used to have similar issues, where I’d forget details so I’d bounce back and forth between events in a narrative or I’d think I’d said something but didn’t so my listener didn’t realize I was referring to an unintentionally internal comment.
I got communication and organization skills hammered into me over a decade in science, but that isn’t her jam.
Edit: if it helps, here’s a decent article I just found about the issue. It’s apparently not uncommon. https://connectedspeechpathology.com/blog/the-difficulty-organizing-thoughts-into-words-adhd-adults-guide