Balancing Act: Navigating the Challenges of Co-Parenting with ADHD

10 min readJul 8, 2023

A week ago I discovered that my daughter, my mother and I all suffer from undiagnosed Adhd. Since then I’ve been hyperfixed on learning everything I can about this condition. This condition is far more complex than I could have imagined. Undiagnosed it can reck havoc in my daughters life, as it has in mine.

My exhusband and I do not communicate well. A large part of that — I now know — is due to my untreated adhd. I’m hyper sensitive to any real or imagined rejection. That is a symptom of adhd called Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria.

I can be impulsive, impatient and often interrupt. He can be cold, dismissive and sexist. Combine that with all the baggage from our marriage about my undiagnosed mental health issues and you can see why this went south fast!

Difficult conversations

When I pick up the kids, I speak to my ex about my Adhd and my daughter’s suspected Adhd. My Adhd symptoms are on full display. My masking is not working.

I’m sensitive to his facial expressions, ever observant. He looks doubtful and ready to dismiss what I have to say. I over share and talk too much. His lips tighten. Jaw clenched just so. I see it. I see everything.

He’s never been one to support or even believe in mental health issues. (Truth be told, I believe he is deeply afraid of his own unresolved mental health issues. Therapy isn’t traditionally respected among Black men, though many are depressed.) I believe in his heart he thinks it all boils down to discipline and will power.

We’ve been here before

I’m reminded of all the times I needed him to support me and what I thought was depression when we were married. I can still feel the hurt when he repeatedly told me, “I don’t care.”

I was silently praying his love for our daughter would trump his distain for me. He never really accepted my mental health issues. He saw my asking for accommodation as a character flaw.

I’ve been chronically late picking up the kids. I am disorganized and lose their clothing from his house at my house. I am always at the mercy of my mood and energy levels and they’re unpredictable to say the least.

He sees my compulsive behavior as blatant disrespect

As a pretty grounded person, he deeply resents this. As someone who dismisses mental health issues, he thinks I’m just completely inconsiderate, childish and lazy. His time is precious and I constantly disrespect it. He doesn’t this as a clinical issue. Can’t be! He just thinks I’m an incompetent bitch.

He doesn’t want to accept this fate for his daughter. After all, I, her “crazy mom” have done this before. Read something off the internet and then decided the kids were afflicted. This isn’t the first time I’ve been convinced of something that isn’t real. I’ve been delusional before. The only one in the family with an actual mental health diagnosis of bipolar. Clearly, I wasn’t to be trusted.

After a long time, I finish and ask his thoughts. He doesn’t converse with me. He just gets quiet and makes his disapproving facial expressions. The energy is bad and I doubt this will be productive. I already rambled on and now the hard part. I have to listen. My insides are already revolting. I need to mask harder. I try!

Oh no! Audio processing!!

Impulsivity. Interruption. Defensiveness. I can feel them all activate at once. Why did I start this conversation? Oh yeh, to save my daughter from a life of potential hell and suicidality like her mom!

He starts by telling me not to get defensive. He’s not trying to offend me with what he has to say. I have a habit, he tells me, of feeling unsupported when people don’t agree with me. He just needs me to stay calm and not get bent out of shape. All this pretext is:

1.) Making me DEFENSIVE

2.) Inciting my epic impatience

3.) Using up my Very Limited attention span

4.) Setting me up to fight

5.) Triggering my Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria

6.) Reminding me of how unsafe I felt talking to him about my mental health in our marriage.

7.) Triggering my compulsion to interrupt

8.) Trapping me in my head with all my angry thoughts instead of listening

I’m triggered AF

I have a hard time keeping my body and face neutral. I turn away and start stroking my chin to self soothe. “I feel like you’re preparing to fight.” I interrupt.

He hates when interrupt. Especially after making him listen to me go on and on. I totally get how infuriating that would be and yet I can’t ever seem to stop myself. I notice myself chewing my lips to try to control my impulsivity.

“I’m not preparing to fight, but I need you to listen and stay cal — ”

“I’m listening! Just go already!” My impatience, impulsivity and short attention span are all front and center. I know if he doesn’t start soon, I’ll zone out or rage. Nothing about this conversation smells like a dopamine hit! Didn’t I just tell this man I have Adhd!? But then again, not only does he not believe me, he doesn’t fully understand or accept that Adhd is a whole disability on its own!

“Don’t do that Sharla. Don’t fucking try to control when I speak! You are not the fuck in charge of me!”

That’s it for me. I know if I continue speaking to him once he starts raising his voice and cursing at me, it’s a wrap. No one likes me when I’m angry. It’s time to retreat before I burn everything down with my rage. I composed myself. It’s hard.

“Don’t raise your voice and curse at me. That’s not acceptable.”

He then starts about how he’s not going to allow me to police how he speaks to me. This is our routine when we have difficult conversations. Needless to say, the rest of the conversation ends poorly with him ultimately not believing me.

At some point I said, “I could very well be wrong. A simple test can determine that. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. But if you’re wrong and she goes untreated, it can be detrimental.” I’m just going to let that little seed germinate.

In the end, I know he’d die for her.

My ex is an excellent father. I’m grateful he is able to maintain order and structure for the kids. I know he would take a bullet for our children and wouldn’t want anything to happen to them. So I trust that after he is done with hating all things I bring up on General Principal, he will see the logic in just getting her tested. There’s no harm in a test and the schools will do it for no charge.

A Mother’s Intuition

The reality is I already know she has Adhd. This past week, I’ve been finding new ways to parent her that have caused us to become closer. I understand her previously misunderstood behavior.

For example: she doesn’t respond well to “Clear the table.” That’s too vague. The Adhd brain needs to break tasks into steps. We also do well if there’s body doubling or someone nearby doing the same task. That helps us not get distracted, because our brains are constantly searching for dopamine.

So knowing this, I didn’t do what I’ve done in the past. Given her 3 different tasks simultaneously, each with multiple steps to complete and plenty or opportunity to get de-railed. I’m learning!! 🏆

This time I said, first pick up all the napkins and trash. Gather it together. Throw it away. Come back to the table. (See how just that portion of a larger task had 4 steps! That’s a lot for the adhd brain to handle on its own!)

Next, I told her to grab all the dirty dishes. Carry them to the sink. Come back to the table.

We continued in that same fashion. I stayed next to her and helped. As a result, we got it done quickly and without either of us melting down. Hooray!!

We’re All Mad Here!

Our shared diagnosis is helping us each understand each other. I used to get mad when she took so long to eat. Frustrated when she would tell me she’s “so hungry” at bedtime. I was equally appalled when she occasionally tells me my normal speaking voice is suddenly “so loud”. Her brother and I would be in disbelief because she can be incredibly loud herself, but now my normal voice was too much for her?

I now know that people with Adhd can become overstimulated and extremely sensitive to sounds, smells and textures. They can be distracted all day and not feel hungry until the evening. They need constant reminders to stay on task.

My Childhood Trauma Blinded Me.

Because of the trauma I experienced as a neurodivergent, undiagnosed Black girl, I projected many of the same ignorant beliefs on my daughter. I didn’t take her complaints seriously. “No way am I speaking that loud! You just don’t want to do your chores! You take FOREVER to eat a meal! You’re just lazy/not listening/ over sensitive” and these are the same things that were said to me. We are conditioned to not listen to our daughters, just as they are conditioned to not ask for what they need.

How it Brought us Closer

I have learned so much this past week about Adhd. I have been better able to teach my daughter about how our brains work. I told her that we need to eat a high protein breakfast and go for a walk first thing in the morning. We did this for the first time today giving her brother the alone time an adolescent desires.

It was great spending one on one time with her. When she got distracted by a flower or interrupted with a “random thought”, I didn’t snap and accuse her of being rude. I understood that she’s doing her best and refocused her.

When I kept forgetting where we were walking to and getting caught up in my phone, she gently refocused me. Instead of constantly being frustrated with each other, we have more understanding of each other.

And later that day when she felt sick but couldn’t take a nap in her own bed, I invited her to sleep in mine as her “Body double.” I sat next to her and scrolled through my phone for hours like we Adhders often do, and she quietly dosed next to me.

When I got up to use the bathroom, she must have sensed it and got up to use it too. After I hugged her and told her, “I’m kinda of glad we have this together.” She hugged me back and said, “Me too.”

Self Advocate

What I told her is whether or not her dad believes or supports her, she has to believe and support herself. She needs to be kind and compassionate with herself. She needs to know that even if other don’t get it, she gets it. When she becomes as adult, she won’t walk around wondering why she feels different.

I am enormously proud that me, as the unstable, neurodivergent, inattentive parent who gets significantly less time with the kids, I was the one to uncover this life threatening condition. (Women with Adhd are 4 times more likely to complete suicide! This is much more than losing your keys!)

I attribute my ability to recognize something was off with her to my self employment. My. Business allows me to work from home and spend a lot of face time with my kids whenever I have them. Whether her dad ever admits her issue, she will not live her life wondering why she isn’t neurotypical. She will know how to get the support she needs. She’ll also have a loving, empathic mother who knows exactly how it feels to be an exceptional, neurodiverse Black girl in world that doesn’t fully accept us as we are. My existence will continue to help normalize her own. For that, I’m grateful. ♥️

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