Don't Try to Find the One
How knowing your needs and setting firm boundaries helped me find the right partner, and what adults with ADHD can bring to dating and relationships.
Me, my kid, and my partner
Three people in one house, and some mix of you is neurodivergent. Nobody is mad at anybody on purpose, and the day still ends with everyone tired and someone crying. When the same wiring runs through the adults and the kid, you can't fix one person at a time. You have to see the whole house. Below are a book, a podcast, and a channel that start there. The first call is free, and your partner can be on it.
Start with these
Free resource
Get the free Values and Strengths Workbook
The workbook I start coaching with. You figure out what actually matters to you and what you're actually good at, so you can build your life around both instead of around who you think you should be. For adults with ADHD, autism, or AuDHD, diagnosed or wondering.
For more, check out these Resources!
Book
Taking Charge of Adult ADHD
Russell A. Barkley, Christine M. Benton
The science backbone. If you want to know why willpower isn't the problem, start here.
Russell Barkley has spent his career researching ADHD, and this is his guide for the adult living with it. It explains how ADHD works, lays out treatment and medication choices, and then gets specific about work, home, and relationships. This is the version backed by decades of research, not one person's story. Get the 2021 second edition. His own site still lists the 2010 first.
Podcast
The DadDHD Podcast
Shane Thrapp; Braden Young
Braden Young and I are both certified ADHD coaches, and both dads with ADHD. We sit down and talk about fatherhood with this brain. The mental load. The marriage. The kids. What changes when a diagnosis lands in the middle of all of it. If you're the dad in your house who keeps dropping the ball, you're not the only one. There are two of us on the recording doing it too.
YouTube channel
How to ADHD
Jessica McCabe
The channel a lot of adults watched right before they said "Oh. Wait, that's me."
Jessica McCabe has close to two million subscribers, and she got there by sourcing her explainers from research and having staff check the work. How ADHD works, focus, getting started, emotional regulation, and what to do the week after a diagnosis. Her site says she's not a trained professional. If you just got diagnosed, or you're a teenager, watch this before you read anything on social media.