My (NB 21) girlfriend (F 21) has ADHD (not diagnosed, but we’re both pretty confident she does).
We met in undergrad but I graduated two years early, so she’s still in undergrad and I’m in law school. I‘ve known since the beginning that she has trouble with school, but it didn’t really affect me very much when we were first dating and not having to do long distance.
We are both in the midst of finals right now, and it’s been hard, especially because her work has piled up since she was having a hard time during the school year with her ADHD and getting her work done on time. It is stressing her out immensely, and it makes me sad to see her so stressed, but it also is hard for me because I’ve got law school finals which are incredibly intense and all I want is to take study breaks with her so I can chill out, because I‘m kind of a workaholic and it’s easiest for me to relax when we relax together.
It’s also just hard because we don’t really end up spending much time together since she’s so busy, and I can’t really talk to her about it being hard not getting to spend time together because I don’t want to add to her stress, and she doesn’t really have the time to have a conversation about it. I’m busy too, but the sort of busy where I can still take breaks, whereas she’s got to be working for hours on end with no breaks to be able to get all her stuff done.
It also always affects her when she doesn’t do well in school, as her family members will lecture her and yell at her, and I feel terrible that she has to go through that, and it affects her mood which affects how we interact and leads to me having to give her a lot of support.
I really want to find a way to avoid this in the future, because it’s hard on both of us when the work piles up for her, but I don’t know how I can help, and I don’t know if she will even let me help. I don’t want her to feel bad for her ADHD and the struggles that come with it, but I really don’t want this to keep happening and being a cycle where every time it’s finals week we can’t spend time together, she‘s stressed out, and then she’s stressed out over the summer because her family is upset that she didn’t do well in school. She was on medication for it at some point, not sure how much it helped or if she’s still taking it. How can I help her and stop this from being a cycle?