I promised to explain why I’ve been so quiet for so long.

My husband has been having some issues with his thyroid – a condition called Grave’s Disease. His thyroid goes into overdrive, and it has a profound effect on his whole body. He becomes agitated, irritable, and his heart pounds and races. He can’t sleep, and this makes it hard for him to get out of bed and to be involved in family life.

It kicked off about two years ago now, and tablets brought his thyroid under control. But now it’s happened again, and the doctors want to do a more permanent treatment.

While all this was happening, my husband kept injuring his back. He would be in excruciating pain, and even less able to help out with the kids and family life.

Layered over these issues, we have come to the slow and painful conclusion that Son#1 has ADHD. We’re going through the diagnosis process, which could take a whole blog of it’s own to describe, but from what we have read we are fairly certain that this is what the problem is.

Son#1 has been particularly difficult for many years, but his aggression and persistence seem to be intensifying. Having an explanation helps at one level, but I’ve also been trying to process what on earth this will mean for our family, and for Son#1 in particular. How is he going to cope with high school (starting in September 2019)? What will his life look like when he is fourteen, eighteen, twenty? Will he settle down, or will this be something that dogs him his entire life, limiting him, and damaging relationships?

My mind runs in circles as I go over these issues. At one level it is such a relief to have an explanation (other than that we are terrible parents) for our son’s difficult behaviour, and apparent inability to learn simple rules and manage his own emotions. At another level, finding a diagnosis brought an end to my hope that he was just a difficult kid and would outgrow his behaviour. ADHD seems to be a very unpredictable animal – in some people it’s long-term effects are devastating. In others, it adds some strain to daily life but not enough to prevent someone from holding down a steady job and caring for a family.

I feel like I am just emerging from a black hole, or a vicious storm. I’ve been very depressed for quite a few months, just trying to process everything that has happened to us. And through it all, when we have reached out for support from the church we have been turned away.

I’ve shed a lot of tears. I went through a patch of being unable to pray. It felt as though God had just closed the door. I tried very hard to listen to my head and to believe the promises of the Bible, but my overwhelming sense was of being utterly alone.

If you are living in a family affected by ADHD I hope I can offer you a story to relate to so you feel less alone. I have found little online for Christians living with ADHD, particularly for the partner/parent without ADHD.

This feels like a very muddled blog, and probably isn’t all that clear. I’m hoping to break the issues down over the next few weeks and write them out one by one, providing a clear resource. But right now I’m just relating where we are. I feel a bit like a shipwrecked traveler, washed up on a strange beach. I have no bearings. We are off the map in terms of marriage and parenting, dealing with issues no self-help guide really touches on. Perhaps I can provide some direction to those who follow, to guide you on safer paths than the ones I have trodden.