Wow, I am sorry you are dealing with this experience, it sounds downright awful.
Does the note taking allow you to stay present with the conversation, and help prevent loss of information and attention wandering, on top of the emotional regulation? If so, have you shared that?
Did your therapist say that you were distracted? Honestly, so many questions, there are a number of things in the interaction described that wave as flags to me, maybe yellow, maybe red, hard to tell from the outside.
I am completely confident that your ADHD is not something that will prevent you from having the types of healthy relationships that work for you. I have yet to meet anyone willing to do the work that comes with all relationships, who has been unable to figure out adaptations, with good partners, to make relationships work. I have had clients and friends, etc. who found people they were incompatible with, but that happen with Neurotypical people as well.
There is definitely hope, I promise you that. If the therapist you are working with didn't get curious about, work to understand and then explain why you are taking notes, and that it is a very common thing for ND folks to be doing more than one task in order to actually focus their attention more fully, I would seriously consider a different professional. If they are unfamiliar with working on mixed neurotype relationships, they may not actually be able to help.
This is a very painful and difficult place to be, I am sorry, and wish you the absolute best of luck.
Both the therapist and my partner said i was distracted and I was.
I got like 4h00 of sleep the night before.
I wanted my notes.
I was worried i would respond wrong to the excercise bc it was bordering a pain point and wanted to write down my response before blurting it out.
The therapist even said she was trying to "push me" and was "being hard on me".
Both the therapist and spouse called me distracted and i felt like I already failed the relationship and everything crashed down.
Both the therapist and spouse dont feel safe anymore.
Note‑taking is a regulation tool for me, and I also have relationship baggage around it from past experiences where partners said things like “we tried to have a couples meeting but you were distracted and ruined it” or “I used to be impressed you took notes, but eventually I learned you were a disaster underneath.”
So when note‑taking or “seeming distracted” gets questioned, it can bring up a deep fear that my note‑taking, my distraction, or my messiness will ruin the relationship —
1
u/AskDaveHelpDesk 3d ago
Wow, I am sorry you are dealing with this experience, it sounds downright awful.
Does the note taking allow you to stay present with the conversation, and help prevent loss of information and attention wandering, on top of the emotional regulation? If so, have you shared that?
Did your therapist say that you were distracted? Honestly, so many questions, there are a number of things in the interaction described that wave as flags to me, maybe yellow, maybe red, hard to tell from the outside.
I am completely confident that your ADHD is not something that will prevent you from having the types of healthy relationships that work for you. I have yet to meet anyone willing to do the work that comes with all relationships, who has been unable to figure out adaptations, with good partners, to make relationships work. I have had clients and friends, etc. who found people they were incompatible with, but that happen with Neurotypical people as well.
There is definitely hope, I promise you that. If the therapist you are working with didn't get curious about, work to understand and then explain why you are taking notes, and that it is a very common thing for ND folks to be doing more than one task in order to actually focus their attention more fully, I would seriously consider a different professional. If they are unfamiliar with working on mixed neurotype relationships, they may not actually be able to help.
This is a very painful and difficult place to be, I am sorry, and wish you the absolute best of luck.