Husband suffering from ADHD

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.

Hello buglady0258: I'm sorry you are in such difficult situation. Unfortunately I don't really have much of anything helpful to offer either. As you well realize, your husband needs professional mental health services... psychiatry & therapy. You cannot cure what is going on with him.

From my perspective, all you can do is protect yourself in whatever way you must. If you're not currently seeing a therapist yourself, you may want to consider doing so as a way of figuring out what you want to do... what you can do. No good will accrue by allowing your husband's illness to drag you down any further than it already has. I wish you both well...

Unfortunately ADD contributes greatly to a loss or impeding of executive functioning in a lot of cases. I am sure your husband knows that he must work toward being re assessed...but his procrastination and inability to put thoughts into actions stops him from moving forward.

Maybe try to get a friend involved who can take him to the medical appointment or compel him to keep the appointment so as to get started on the medical help he desperately needs. If he is left to his own devices he may just continue being caught in the perpetual procrastination/motivation trap.

We just moved 900 miles away in June so we don't yet have friends that we connect with like that. But even his friends he's had his whole life don't know that part of him.

However, today was much much better. I basically begged him to just not drop out until he saw a doc. While he was napping I did some searches to help with his overdue school work to try and get things ready for him so he didn't feel so stressed. When he woke up he was a completely different person. He got all his school stuff done and promised to go to class today and the doc. I honestly thought he'd just go to school, drop out, and come home. I was blown away. He was up two hours before class today, turned in his stuff, went to his doc appt, and now has a month Rx for dexadrine (what he was on several years ago).

Tomorrow will be his first time taking it in 5 years. He thanked me tonight for not letting him quit and for helping him with school work (even though he didn't use what I did at all and still did all the work himself). He said he really liked his doc and sounds excited at the prospect of significantly lowering his stress. He also called a T and is making an appt for two weeks from now.

I'm being cautiously optimistic. I know this won't be a fix all. I know a million things could happen to derail him but I'm just happy that today was a good day.

This is great news buglady....I hope that your husbands re-diagnosis gets him the help that he needs, and that you can work toward some common goals together.