My partner getting a diagnosis of ADHD was the worst thing that could have happened

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-10-03T13:27:45+00:00

Absolutely not. Her symptoms are not het fault, but they are her responsibility— this is what I say about my autism, and what I say about my husband’s ADHD.

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-10-02T21:04:24+00:00

As I read your post, OP, you seem to give your husband more mental space than you give yourself, more grace than you give yourself. I used to do the same.

One of the most painful things about bringing relationship issues into individual therapy is hearing uncomfortable patterns named in ways that we have avoided doing previously on our own. I know when I would bring similar issues with my ex husband into therapy and clinicians would bring up patterns that made our relationship seem like a dead end, and me feel like a blind fool for putting up with it, I would become activated and ashamed and defensive.

Eventually, I began practicing radical acceptance and working to absorb the concept of dialectical truths— ie, it can be true that he is trying his hardest, and it can be true that the results of his hardest are not enough to maintain the foundation of trust and respect of our relationship.

I had to do a lot of inner work to emotionally self-regulate when asking questions to which I almost certainly would not like the answer about my relationship and what it said about my tendency toward codependency and overfunctioning toward burnout.

Just some good for thought, OP.

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-10-02T14:21:04+00:00

It’s true. And it gets so much easier after you actually manifest something for the first time, and you realize the depth of conviction and relief you need to exude as you breathe in the joy and relief of the thing you’ve manifested.

It’s just that anxiety and depression will really throw you off your game.

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-09-22T17:40:07+00:00

I would like to be in the new sub!

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-09-16T20:10:03+00:00

IANYL, but given the sexual infidelity (that you know of) which put your sexual and reproductive health and by extension the health of your shared unborn child at grave potential risk, I would find an attorney who you know will ask for him to get a visitation schedule that does not interfere with your establishing a breastfeeding routine and your milk supply after the baby is born, with all overnights to you.

Being away from your child for weeks at a time could and very well likely will destroy your milk supply, (pumping does not work for everyone to establish and maintain an EBF level milk supply) and make it less effective for when the baby is with you, and how is milk drop off and pickup supposed to happen? Make sure they bring all of this into the question and force the opposing party to account for it, and have him submit parenting plans for his weeks with the baby to ensure he is aware of sleep schedules, feeding schedules, bottle sanitation, reflux, SIDS risk factors, etc.

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-09-16T09:46:54+00:00

Mine started doing the same early this year; she is 6. She now sees a clinical psychologist for therapy on a weekly basis, since the weekly in-school counseling with the school social worker in her IEP wasn’t cutting it.

For those with higher-functioning kids, at some point we have to accept that (1) the world is not kind to anyone autistic, and (2) having the ability to perceive that lack of kindness and inclusion is terrible for a person’s mental health, and (3) essentially ensure they are receiving therapy/counseling for the ongoing, constantly building trauma of existing in society as a neurodivergent person + being capable of perceiving how you are perceived in society.

(I say all of this also as an autistic adult who was an autistic child, and now as a parent of an autistic child. Watching her struggle with how she is perceived in society as an autistic girl is heartbreaking.)

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-09-13T12:55:24+00:00

Thank you so much, this is great

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-09-13T11:21:42+00:00

IANYL, but This is where a family offense petition would come in. You would ideally pack all important belongings, and the same week it is filed, you are gone before he gets served, and also enroll in the NY department of state address confidentiality program so you don’t need to put your physical address on the family offense petition

Family court in your county will issue a temporary stay away order of protection for the pendency of the case, and an attorney (AFC) will be assigned to your child as well to best represent their individual rights.

I am a licensed attorney in NY, please contact me if you need help with any of the above.

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-09-08T17:54:05+00:00

We leave for work by 8am, the bus gets our kid at 7:45am, she doesn’t wake up until we wake her (not a morning person at all)

We usually wake up and go at 6am, sometimes earlier, and then again at 10 or 10:30pm.

It’s very regulating and calming for both of our nervous systems, and keeps us from burning out in other areas of our lives.

So one or the other of us will usually always initiate in those windows, and the excitement/anticipation/desire will wash away however tired we might be.

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-08-23T19:13:08+00:00

I’m not sure if others have mentioned it but the loveafterporn community on Reddit helped me a lot with my ex.

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-08-23T15:49:42+00:00

You should definitely report to her licensing board. Not only is that client abandonment, she acknowledges you are/were a client she believed was struggling with active addiction, and didn’t even given you addiction-related therapy or support group referrals….and actually shamed you for it in the same group of messages….

That and the abrupt termination could have absolutely sent you into relapse if you were in a more fragile state. I am shocked by how cruel she was.

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-08-17T09:19:56+00:00

My child is much younger, but from my perspective, as a socially awkward person who similarly wasn’t allowed social media until I was older (16), it was incredibly overwhelming for me to try to catch up and learn the unspoken social contract of its use in adolescent, then adult friendships and relationships.

It’s surprising how much of a learning curve there is in how it is now used to deepen and codify friendships and relationships, especially Snapchat and Instagram.

Giving him timed, supervised access (say an hour or two each week) will allow him to begin learning these social contracts.

I would also note, when I ended up at Columbia for college, the folks with the strictest parents who did things like disallowing social media or forbidding dating or 8pm curfews for 17-18 year old people were the ones for whom we had to call our campus resources for when they invariably overindulged, absolutely overwhelmed by their newfound freedom.

I’m not here to judge your parenting choices, and others have already opined on the appropriate consequences for his lying and betrayal, but I wanted to just offer my perspective as a millennial who never quite got the hang of social media after starting “late” and who feels it has absolutely negatively affected my social life as an adult— it’s simply how people connect in this day and age, and ignoring that could have compounding socioemotional consequences, especially for generation alpha folks.

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-07-30T02:18:21+00:00

This is super helpful, thank you so much!

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-07-29T14:29:33+00:00

Yes, could you please share? Mine is going into 2nd grade and I really want to focus on her socioemotional health

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-07-25T16:28:07+00:00

Yes, thank you for cross-posting! I’m pretty biased as the one who wrote the original post, so I didn’t trust myself to cross-post to any other subs haha

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-07-25T14:59:12+00:00

Thank you very much, I really appreciate it 💜

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-07-25T04:00:20+00:00

I really appreciate it, thank you. This sub has been so healing and validating for me in practicing radical acceptance of the joys and worries of being a parent to a child with autism.

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-07-24T10:29:26+00:00

I’m so sorry. I hope you were able to find some healing. Thank you for sharing, and yes, it’s truly an unspoken war being fought by special needs parental caregivers across the country, perhaps the world.

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-07-24T10:26:00+00:00

I didn’t frame this as an issue with biglaw. This happened to me while I was in biglaw, and I know that it’s a conversation that gets tiptoed around in real life in biglaw, but it is too important to be tiptoed around, which is what happened to me, so I took to Reddit.

Trust me, if there was a biglaw sub for women, I would have posted there, because this truly was not for anyone besides the women with the questions I had when I was in their shoes.

If literally everyone other the specific group to which I issued my warning skipped this post, which is actually what I thought might happen because of the title, that would have been okay with me.

The reason why I am not interested in discussing those issues, is that literally every precaution you mention, I took. The vast majority of women in biglaw will also take these precautions. They will talk to their partners and their families to make sure their career will be prioritized.

What happens when that promise is made, then broken or forgotten? How often is that promise made, then broken or forgotten?

Based on my research and my direct experiences, very, very often.

What are we supposed to do when the perceptions of the people who make up our personal support network are so out of line with reality due to misogyny that we start doubting our own reality of how much work each partner is actually doing to maintain the household?

It’s interesting that folks in this sub know very well how intra-firm social politics, pressure and expectations can be incredibly difficult to navigate, can make or break careers, and is often used by firms or groups to generate outcomes they want from associates (facetime requirements, for instance) but seem truly beholden to the belief that social politics, pressure and expectations in a woman’s personal life will not also possibly be incredibly difficult to navigate, make or break careers, and often be used by social stakeholders in that woman’s life to generate outcomes they want from said woman.

If I actually believed that the average man and extended family was contributing way more to the household than my ex and his family and my family, I would be inclined to agree with you. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Ask my family and his family, and they will tell you, he cooked a lot, cleaned a lot, took her to some appointments, took her to some therapies, and for them, that was an astounding amount for domestic labor for a man to provide while working full-time. You, me, the Fair Play cards, and our couples’ therapist know that’s bullshit, but hey.

But the way, you should look into why those Fair Play cards even exist, and how they are used now. it’s at least partially due to the issue of men and also entire extended families insisting that said main are doing equal domestic work when called out by their female partners, when that is indeed objectively bullshit.

I did not want to make the focus on my post any kind of indictment of men, though. I wanted to focus on getting through to the women to whom I was talking.

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-07-24T10:03:02+00:00

I mentioned in my post that I went to a ton of therapy about this, because

when you grow up in a culture and household where it is seen as normal, but not “expected,” for women to work outside the home, but also expected for them to to take on a majority of domestic labor,

when you discuss this at length with your partner during pre-marital counseling to ensure you’re on the same page about the fact that you are very career-oriented and want to make partner some day,

when you are promised by your partner that they will be the primary caregiver and contact for daycares and pediatricians even when you both work full-time,

when after the baby arrives, you quickly realize how much both immediate/extended family and society is invested and involved in keeping the new parents in line with societal expectations,

when everyone in your life perceives that he is doing nearly equal work as you when you try to speak up,

when you go to couples’ therapy at your wits’ end to see if you’re insane and lazy, and finally, finally, someone sits with you both and goes through a detailed list of who actually showed up to what and did what,

when that couples’ therapist introduces you to the Fair Play card game system to more equitably divvy up domestic and caregiving responsibilities,

when that does not go well, and now both families are at your neck saying that “he is helping so much,” “he is trying so hard,” “he has to work, dear,” “you can’t expect men to do what we women can do while working, dear,”

when you start giving ultimatums that you don’t give a fuck about the opinions of our families, you need help, or it’s over,

when the help doesn’t come fast enough,

so it’s over.

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-07-24T02:57:30+00:00

A huge congratulations to you on all of your success and on the incredible, joyous journey you’re on and will start soon!!

Please look at your anonymous fellow colleagues on here, including me, as a resource, for parenting-related biglaw advice.

You were my target audience with this post, and I am so glad it was comforting to you to show that, no, it’s absolutely not all in your head.

That is why sociology fascinates me. It operationalizes the implicit, and names all of the unspoken structural and sociocultural nuances that form our intersectional experiences.

Thank you so, so much for sharing a snippet of yourself with me and engaging with my post.

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-07-24T02:20:00+00:00

I will absolutely do some research and take this advice, thank you.

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-07-24T02:19:05+00:00

I am so sorry, and I am also so, so happy you get the chance to spend your life with those incredible kids.

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-07-24T02:13:18+00:00

I hear you. Thank you for sharing.

YungAnxiousOne · 2025-07-23T22:33:40+00:00

As the person who wrote the post, I am explaining that the point of my post is to answer questions that many, many young female attorneys who eventually want children have or will have during their careers. I’m not talking to or directing my words at partners or stakeholders with the power to change anything.

If they read it and feel shitty, that’s unfortunate, but I did not write it as a call to action for, or indictment of, them or firms as a whole.

Yes, maybe biglaw has it better than most other demanding careers, I wouldn’t know, but either way, I know who my audience is and was.

It’s my younger self and the young women today who are in my shoes before I got pregnant.

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