@relieffrompain
I am so sorry for all you have been through and all who have experienced what you have experienced.

My experience is as a mother of a child with ADHD. He is my only son and now 16. I am what they call “neurotypical” and my son is considered “neurodivergent.” I had my son when I was just about to turn 40 (struggled with infertility for years). He was “high maintenance” from the beginning. He didn’t sleep for the first 2 years of his life so work/parenting/home life was very stressful for me. My marriage became extremely stressful once my son was born for a variety of reasons. I knew something was off in my marriage but wasn’t sure what it was.

When my mother in law was showing signs of Alzheimer’s, I encouraged my then husband to get her evaluated and help. He was in denial and didn’t really do anything. I had her assessed and sure enough, she was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s! Since I was concerned for my son and genetics, I asked my then husband to get evaluated as a baseline since we were having so many marital problems that weren’t explained. He was diagnosed with anxiety and sleep deprivation and nothing else. He said to me, “see, I am normal/average!” He ignored my concerns for our marriage/family.

I decided to get divorced because things were so extremely stressful and my then husband was oblivious to any problem and would tell me, “sorry you feel that way!” My son was 3 and I did it to try to save what little sanity I had left. Fast forward to when my son was 7-8. He had 2 concussions and soon after he was diagnosed with ADHD (combined type attention and impulsivity). That explained a lot. I am thankful his 2nd and 3rd grade teachers were able to start to identify some of his struggles. His 4th grade teachers, despite a 504 plan, would call him out in class, belittle him, encourage other students to belittle him, and she once put him in the hall for “bad” behavior and forgot about him for an hour!!

Soon after, I decided to get him into a small private Christian school where he did much better. He went to that school 5th through 8th grade and now is in a private high school. He still struggles with attention, procrastination, planning, time management, impulsivity, strong negative emotions/anger at times, etc. but a good student. Many times he has been on the honors and high honors roll. I started him on medication in 4th grade and he has been on it ever since (currently taking 2 different types of ADHD medication). This has helped him at school and he gets much better grades on medication and I can’t imagine the struggles he would have without it.

After my son was diagnosed, my then ex husband finally went and got reassessed with a full psych evaluation and sure enough, he was diagnosed with ADHD!! This finally validated for me what affected our marriage and that I wasn’t crazy or imaging things. My son and his father both have anxiety and believe undiagnosed OCD and being on the autism spectrum due to sensory overload and struggles with social relationships/empathy and emotional regulation.

I did so much research and participated in ADDitude webinars to learn as much as I could about ADHD to support my son. His father is not really involved and limited in parenting plus I am my son’s sole provider. I have my own chronic health/pain issues and disability so this has been quite the challenge. I had a good career and have 3 degrees and thankful I saved/invested when I was young to help me manage financially today. What I realize now is that my son is hardwired the way he is and I need to support him to be the best HE can be and I cannot force anything on him. He is developmentally delayed and behind peers in many ways by 2-3 years. I may have wanted more for him but need to grieve my hopes and just love and support him no matter the path he takes in the future. He at least knows he is fully loved by me despite my frustrations at times, he knows his diagnosis and doesn’t feel shame for it but recognizes his differences/challenges, sees the value in taking his medication to help him focus at school and when doing anything important so he doesn’t get hurt. He gets regular counseling to talk to someone experienced with ADHD and other than me about how he is feeling to help support him.

I pray for him to be guided in what God’s plan is for him and his life and for me to know how best to love and help him. I admit I am very exhausted at times doing daily “scaffolding” until he can fully own things himself but I am all he has (I have no family so it is just him and me and very limited help from his father who I also think has early onset Alzheimer’s but he is in denial).

I am confident I have done everything possible to support my son and do the best I can on my own. He will struggle in a neurotypical world at times but he has awareness of the reasons for his struggles which is a better place to start than what his father started with (his parents were uneducated and hated doctors plus there was little know about ADHD at the time he was growing up).