My un-medicated ADHD husband has common ADHD problems like closing doors and cabinets, but it has come to a point of being potentially deadly to us and our pets. He has left the stove burner on multiple times and walked away without realizing it was still on. He even went to work with the stove on and I'm thankful I had a house to come home to. My husband has left the fence unlatched so that the dogs have had free roam of our neighborhood and I'm afraid our big dogs will be shot for being scary. And yesterday was the last straw. I went to leave for work and happened to open his car door to grab something and one of our cats jumped out. He was apparently locked in the car all night and had I not found him, probably would have died from heat exhaustion before I made it home from work. I'm at a total loss about what to do. I need suggestions on how to help him remember things like closing doors, locking gates, turning off the stove, and generally checking behind himself for our animals to make sure they aren't being put in danger.
Husband's ADHD has become dangerous
Submitted by catzeye800 on 05/04/2016.
Daunting
Submitted by NowOrNever (not verified) on
Hello Catz
I hope others come by with solutions. I think this kind of situation is very daunting. I'll probably ruffle some feathers on the site with a comparison to the home dangers of forgetfulness that I saw in my aging parents, but in the endangerment aspect, I think it's pretty close to the same situation. What are you going to do, constantly stay at home in case he leaves the burner on? Check up on him? Constantly checking to see if the animals are let run or locked in hot cars? No, nobody can do that. But thhe problem is that the attention to endangerment, and the initiative to pay attention and not leave burners on has to come out of him, and that's the sticking point
My 85 year old Dad? He'd leave the burner on. Not on a gas stove, thank heaven, but one day my mother came back, he had burnt a teakettle dry, total amnesia, and the darn thing melted and welded to the burner. Smoke billowing, he didnt notice. She'd also come back from buying groceries and the heat was blasting with the thermostat on 95. OK, someone beyond learning to pay attention, you'd say but still later living in the 24/7 nursing facility, he didnt like the bland grub they served in the dining room and didnt like not eating when he wanted, and explored in his wheelchair until he found the employee cafeteria, would roll through the line, buy pie and charge it to the tab. So the gent could remember and learn. ( My mother, still paying the bill for the retirement home extras, would ask "what are all these pie charges?")
Funny story only because my dad never burnt their house down. I hope other people have some ideas for you. You cant start living like he has Alzheimers.
Thinking ahead....Distraction!
Submitted by c ur self on
It's about distraction; it happens to everyone not just add minds....But, for a mind easily distracted it will happen much more often....If you can talk to him about it calmly...Maybe you can encourage (be his therapist so to speak) him to keep his focus on the task at hand, no matter how insignificant he deems it to be...And then discuss the danger of not staying focused, and the things you've found lately....I found my wife's curling Iron on today after she left for work...
We live in a day and age where distraction is prevalent....smart phones, busy schedules, TV.....When a person gets more in their hands and on their minds then they are capable of managing to completion than it can be dangerous.....
I wish you well in solving this....
C
Thank you for the suggestion.
Submitted by catzeye800 on
Thank you for the suggestion. We've opened up conversations about getting him to try some different medications, but until then I'm trying to be calm, collected, and encouraging for him.
safety
Submitted by triedandtrue on
Hi catzeye800 - If your husband refuses to take medication, he might be uninterested in counseling. But he may still be open to talking with an ADHD coach, who should have practical tips and tricks for daily life. Meanwhile, here is one source for the stove problem: http://www.thiscaringhome.org/products/auto-stove-turn-off-devices.php.
There are swing-close and automatic-latch/lock gates. You would have to find out which stores have them and spend some money to install them or convert your existing gates.
So far, practical motion/breath sensors to detect kids or pets in a car are a future development, I understand. But I'm not sure. Good luck.
It never occurred to me that
Submitted by catzeye800 on
It never occurred to me that people would invent nifty gadgets to help with these sorts of problems. I've also never heard of an ADHD couch so I'll have to look into that as well. Looks like I have some research to do. Thank you very much for the response and link.
Prioritizing and Automation
Submitted by kellyj on
Hi catzeye800,
I'm an ADHD man who has the same challenges as your H and this group of behaviors (IMHO) is definitely an ADHD thing....I do or have done, the exact same thing with doors and stove burners my entire life. This is nothing new to me and probably nothing new for your H either going back to his childhood. I can say this because I'm this way...and I've heard the same stories repeatedly here on this forum and from other sources as well. This takes a dedicated approach to over come but it can be worked around with some structure, and strategizing involved.
The suggestion about automatic door closing devices is a good one and I use the same ideas in my own house where ever possible. I put spring returns on the outside gates to insure my dogs don't get out....and I have them on the front and rear entry doors going outside. The reason I do this is.....I don't trust myself plain and simple. I know I'm going to do this and I've done this all my life....but I also have been working on this challenge for years now and I am finally at a place where I feel confident that this is no longer a problem but.....no longer a problem means I think about it and make a priority of things I have to double check to make sure I haven't over looked things like this.
This is such a good example to show the side effects of not doing this which comes out as OCD behaviors in it's unchecked manifestation and the anxiety that this created for me when I was in my late twenties. For a brief period of time...I started developing the most common OCD behaviors that appear in people with this propensity: double, triple, quadruple checking doors, locks, irons, and all heat producing devises. When it got to the point that I was making myself late for appointments because I couldn't leave the house on time is when I said.."that's enough, this has got to stop." It got so bad in this brief period that I started doing that counting ritual with locks. First it was 3 times...4 times, 5 times etc....turning the key and having to count a certain number before I could walk away. When it really got bad was when I would drive down the street and then have to return to check the door after I just went through this bizarre ritual just to find the door locked anyway. And there were times when the fear that I forgot something like an iron left on.....caused me to return home to check it when I was out somewhere or I couldn't get my mind off it and I couldn't function properly or let it go. This is all classic OCD behavior right there and anxiety is the main culprit that fuels this behavior. Reduce the anxiety....and the behaviors go away.
This is one ADHD off-chute that I did manage to figure out myself and found a work around for it before I ever knew anything about ADHD or OCD thinking OCD was just for strange people who wash their hands all the time and can't step on cracks in the sidewalk ( Like Jack Nicholsons character in the movie "As Good as It Gets") I never told anyone about this at the time due to the embarrassment I was feeling surrounding this unusual and not "normal" behavior that seemed to appear out no where since I didn't do this before I was the age of 28 years old. As I referred to this behavior myself as "Creepy"...... this was my own description of it so that might give you an indication that I was fully aware of it...thought it was bizarre (Creepy) and didn't like the feeling what so ever. It's not fun and it's a horrible way to live from the person who experiences it.
And since I knew nothing about any psychological explanation for this and it felt horrible, and it was making me late for things and it was all too embarrassing to admit to anyone (shame)....my anxiety went up along with my fears about forgetting to lock doors and turn off the clothes iron or stoves...which made the behaviors come out more and get worse as time went on. I was becoming later and later for appointments...having to go back and check more times not less....and then it started to affect my ability to go places and relax and not worry that I left something on or a door open. It finally got so bad that once on vacation.....the compulsion to go recheck the doors in my house to make sure they were locked...almost caused me to drive home making a 4 hour round trip to do so because I couldn't let go of that feeling and couldn't stop thinking about it. That as I have now come to learn....is the definition of OCD.
So one day I got pissed!!! And I said..."enough already!!! This is retarded and I am not a retard!!!" These were my words describing myself and I remember it well. So I told myself "no more....not one more time." And I stopped cold turkey...but I had to do a couple of things to get to that place and this is the technique I used to stop doing this on my own. This is the exact same thing that an ADHD coach would recommend doing and I just discovered it out of the necessity and urgency to make this all go away.
Prioritizing....Making a dedicated effort and focusing on only one thing at the top of the list in my head as the "probelm for now". All other problems or issues in my life needed to take a back seat to #1 right now at this time. #1 is the only one until I got a handle on it. If I can't juggle 10 balls at once without the anxiety and stress this created. I can always juggle ONE ball..... so grouping sets of behaviors into ONE behavior and seeing it that way instead....solved this problem for me. And once ONE behavior was established and firmly rooted in my head....I found I could add other things to the ONE....one at a time so each group can be expanded in steps but not all at once.
Structure- Before I left the house....I created a dedicated routine to replace the Neurotic ones. Cold turkey doesn't mean the anxiety behind the behaviors go away...it means needing to replace the abnormal responses with a normal ones in order to do this. I would start at one end of the house...and do a walk through in a dedicated pattern 1, 2 , 3, 4 and so on down the line. I used the same dedicated pattern each time until it became routine. I didn't have to worry about missing anything because everything was covered in my walk through...once through....and never having to think about it again. I only had to remember one thing....and that thing was my walk through. If I to remember only ONE thing ...instead of ten.....I always knew if I did that one thing or not. Simple...no stress, no anxiety...no worries. And it worked every time.
Once I did this....I found I could add other things to that same established routine one at a time like: checking the mail, brushing my teeth or anything else I tended to over look. But the first step is to root that pattern and establish it in the first place. Once you have that pattern established....you can add new ones in the same way.
C was right about this not being forgetfulness or a short term memory problem per se. It does have to do with memory....but the cause for it is not dementia (or retardation as I referred to it myself). Treating a person who has this issue like they have Alzheimer is insulting for that person. Like I said....I was totally aware of it and embarrassed by it. The last thing I wanted was anyone noticing it. Someone treating me like I had Alzeimer not only would have made me angry ( to the EXTREME!!)...but it would have caused more shame, more anxiety and made the behaviors worse.
This is the last thing you would ever want to do....and worst thing anyone could possibly do for someone like this. is....approaching them and treating them like an Alzeimer patient. You will be shooting yourself in the foot and shooting him in the head with a double barrel shot gun of shame by approaching him like this. This is an ABSOLUTE blunder, a NO NO, do not pass GO and DO NOT collect $200......on the part of someone looking at this from the outside in no uncertain terms!! You might as well drop a Nuclear Devise on their self esteem and blow them to smithereens by doing this to a person with this kind of a problem. Addressing this symptomatically...one incident or one symptom at a time will never,never work!! EVER! That's what you have to do for an Alzeimers patient because they are incapable and lack the capacity to do this for themselves. ADHD and the side effect OCD behaviors are not from a lack of either and this person knows it and knows when they are being treated as such. As I called it myself...."Creepy" and "Retarded".... End of story there:)
But....that's not to say that this is not a useful tool for you to use in your own thinking however. You approaching your own thinking about this in order to predict the behavior and use that as a tool is not a bad suggestion....as long as you can seperate the behavior....from the symptom and the person and not apply something like demensia or Alzeimer to them and let them know it or see that how you see them. As a tool only to help gain you some insight for helping them yes.....I called myself "retarded" but if someone else called me that....I would have flipped my lid! lol
This is what you need to avoid at all costs. Applying what it looks like....to things like Alzheimer and thinking that must be the same because it looks the same on a symptomatic level. My mother died of Alzheimer and I watched her slowly deteriorate over a ten year period and she eventually needed to be spoon fed like a baby at the end of her life. If you look at that for a moment....it was absolutely true. She was an infant and had the same lack of capacity or where for all to take care of herself or even feed herself to stay alive. That's what Alzeimer does to you....you revert back to where you started to a child like ability and capacity and eventually......... the brain just stop autonomic functions like breathing and swallowing and then you die.
So if you look at that last statement....and what you die from.....it's the autonomic functions that eventually kill you.
If you apply the thinking or approaching this as a tool like I said......automation or doing things automatically is the key to success here. Not to belabor this point anymore but saying....,if you can't separate in your head what it looks like (Alzeimer or the like) and extend that behavior to the person as being guilty by association.....you'll start treating that person like the thing that you see and this I can tell you....will cause a vehement negative response from anyone with ADHD who you approach like this. You can tell beyond a shadow of a doubt...when someone is treating you like this. Even a wiff of anything close to it....will send that person into immediate state of rage or anger if someone keeps treating you like an invalid or someone of diminished capacity because that is without question...... and an established fact that this just simply does not apply and is not true when you are talking about a person with ADHD.
I had to think about how to respond here to you since it's you not your husband coming here for these answers. And he would not be the one who made the mistake of seeing this that way. I hope I didn't sound angry or like I was jumping down anyones throat because I'm not at all. I don't get upset about these things at all any more unless someone just won't get off it and then that's just more like an irritation after a while and is just annoying. I don't get angry or fly into a rage if someone brings any of my issues up anymore because I figured these things out for myself and now the proper place to put them.
However....for someone who is like I was at age 28 and you approached me as if I was incompetent or an invalid (or like an Alzheimer patient)....I would have likely Nuked you in the same way I just got Nuked by the hit that had to my shame and embarrassment and the hit that took to my self esteem. To say its from arrogance and a hit to the ego I think applies way less to the hit to your self esteem and insecurity level which is already right on the edge of falling off the cliff. I think this would be the proper approach to gaining that persons trust and allowing them to hear you all things considered.
That's also why I brought all of this up since.....you can only do so many things yourself to help your H. He has to do this himself and nothing you can do in that area is going to help him at all. What you can do has more to do with...."what you shouldn't do" and I just gave you the best advise in what not to do based on my own experience with this. That much...I am absolutely sure of.
So back to automation....anything that helps so you don't have to remember or you don't have to think about things like this is a huge help. That only covers so many things however...and there are plenty more where there is no gadgets to help but....gadgets and things like door closers....takes the anxiety away and when you take the anxiety away......you also lessen the behaviors and that person can manage better and it will help them improve. This is what you can definitely do to help. Find simplifiers and convenience tools to apply in ways that will help but not necessarily take the place of going through the process I just described.
That's the real answer or solution is right there....you trying to this for him (like he is an Alzeimer patient) or gadgets cannot fix this challenge itself and can actually make it worse if you try that approach. Crutches however....never hurt. See it that way and I think you will be part of the solution for your H. An ADHD coach or specialist with ADHD can help with the strategies and the structure needed in order to do this. I hope that gives you some things to work with?
J