Help on handling spouse with adhd

by Scott
(Crosby tx)

Hello all 1st time posting on a site like this.. my wife has been diagnosed with ADHD, Bi polar, PTSD, and OCD. We have been married for 20 years and have had a lot of ups and downs during that time. She just started Adderall about 18 months ago for her job to help her focus etc.

She has been focused but it seems like she is hyper focuses on a particular event or thing, it always seems to be a negative from her past. She will talk about it but that will be the only thing that will be talked about, also she stands around in one spot talking. When she cleans it takes her hours to do a simple task because she simply looses track of time.

We have critter nation that is normally cleaned on a weekly basis and when she cleans it it can take her 5 hours to do it.. Cleaning is her main focus it’s a 24 hour clean fest when she is on her medicine, then she will wear her self out physically from staying up so long then sleep for 2 days, then the cycle starts over.

Some days she will sleep all day then wake up in the afternoon just as the kids and I are getting in and want to clean etc. After about 7 we are winding down and getting ready for bed my wife is still up and going then she gets up set when we go to bed and then leave her alone, which kicks up her anxiety levels and she thinks that we do not want to spend time with her and are avoiding her. Which in reality we have to go to bed to get up for the next day of work and school etc.

Her OCD flares up while she is on her medicine then she just gets stuck for lack of a better term, and does not know what to do and she will stand or walk around in circles trying to figure out what to do. Myself and my girls want to help but we have no idea what to do, we listen but we can only listen to the same story over and over again before it just white noise to us.

We feel that if we say anything she will get upset and throw her into another panic attack, when a question is asked we honestly do not know how to answer most of them because the answer given will be a wrong one we feel that we are caught in a catch 22.

I want to understand her and what she is going through in order to try to help her anyway I can. I know this was a long post but any comments or insights would be helpful !!! Thank y’all