My husband was diagnosed with ADHD as a teenager and used to take dexadrine which helped immensely for completing school work. However, he hasn't taken it in several years and hasn't had anything really trigger the issues. His job was pretty lax and he's been out of school for a few years.

He is 27 now and went back to nursing school this fall and is not-so-slowly spiraling out of control. I have been begging him to see a doc to get back on meds and each time he finds a way out of it. The cycle goes something like this:

"Oh my god nursing is the coolest thing ever. I'm going to get all my things done ahead of schedule, get to class early, and do really awesome"

That lasts for less than a week before he's totally apathetic. Hates school. Has zero energy. Wants to sleep away everything. Skips class. Misses assignments. Forgets important deadlines, details, tools for class etc. Anxiety attack. Repeat.

Each time the anxiety gets worse. The first time it was just 20 minutes of crying. Now it lasts for days. He had a big packet due yesterday and planned to work on it over the weekend. Now it's Tuesday and he's skipped the past two days and never did his packet. He has two tests tomorrow and is not prepared. He won't even leave the bed. During one of the yelling matches over him saying he was dropping out of school, the kitten got scared and pooped and peed on the bed. When he saw it he totally lost it and went into a scream crying fit that lasted for an hour. He was writhing on the floor, snot going everywhere, gasping for air. I tried to get him to the ER, he refused. I then said I was calling 911 and he yanked the phone from my hands. I have never seen him like that - it was genuinely terrifying and he really did look like he needed to be taken to a psych eval.

I am at a loss. I have no idea what to do. I took off work today to clean up the house but I can't take off tomorrow. He called and made an appt with an MD for tomorrow afternoon but says he plans to skip his tests tomorrow and just make an appt with his teachers to see how/if he can catch up. He is back there sleeping as I type this.

I feel like I'm drowning. I've been supporting us financially for the past several months and if he drops out we're on the hook for another $4,000 in tuition for a program he never completed. Not only that but he has this idea that nursing is the only stressful job there is. He thinks that he can just go do something else and avoid the stress and refuses to listen when I say every job in the world comes with stress.

I'm so terrified he is going to skip his appt and I won't be around to force him to go. I'm so scared he's going to drop out and just continue this spiral. I don't know what to do. I feel like I can't leave him alone. I feel like if I leave he's going to hit the self destruct button but I have to do my freaking job. I can't watch him self destruct like this but everything I do makes it worse. I try backing off completely. I try being gentle. I try rewards. I try nagging. I try yelling. No end of the spectrum does anything to get him to realize what he's doing to himself.