The problem
Everyone asks about your child. The therapist asks about their progress, the teacher about their behavior, the prescriber about their medication, your family about whether they're "getting better." Every system is pointed at the child. Not one of them is pointed at you.
And you're the one holding it all up: the appointments, the advocacy, the meltdowns, the 2 a.m. worry. You're the infrastructure the whole system runs on, and infrastructure that nobody monitors fails quietly, all at once. The resentment you don't admit to, the flatness, the sense that nothing you do helps: those are the predictable wear of carrying a load this heavy with no one checking the load-bearing wall, not character flaws.
This page checks on you. It's not optional: read it even if you think you're managing.
The mechanism
The research is clear: parents of children with ADHD and other neurodivergence have significantly elevated rates of depression, anxiety, marital conflict, social isolation, and reduced life satisfaction. Sustained, high-demand caregiving in a world that misunderstands and often blames you produces these outcomes physiologically, not because parents are weaker. The same way chronic stress produces them in anyone.
Three things make caregiver burnout distinct. First, it's invisible and unmonitored: nobody's tracking your collapse, so you have to track it yourself. Second, there's an unacknowledged grief, not for your child, whom you love fiercely, but for the parenthood you imagined: the easy mornings, the friendships that form naturally, the milestones on schedule. That grief is real, it coexists with love and gratitude, and pretending it isn't there gives it more power. Third, if you have ADHD too (and with heritability near 74%, many parents do), your dysregulation compounds with your child's: two under-regulated nervous systems trying to co-regulate each other, which the book compares to two drowning people trying to save each other.
The operating system
Five steps to check on, and protect, the caregiver.
Recognize you're the unmonitored infrastructure
Name it plainly: the entire support system is watching the child and no one is watching you. That means the job of monitoring your own capacity falls to you, not as one more task but as the thing that keeps the whole system from collapsing. Your wellbeing is load-bearing.
Take the self-assessment honestly
Score the ten items from 0 (never) to 3 (nearly every day). Answer for the parent you actually are this week, not the one you wish you were. A total above 15 is a signal, not a failing grade: you urgently need more support, and the situation, not your effort, is the problem.
Name the grief you're not supposed to feel
Give yourself permission to grieve the parenthood you imagined. You're allowed to be sad about the future you pictured, angry at the unfairness. None of it diminishes your love. Find someone who will hold that grief without minimizing it or telling you to "be grateful for what you have." Grief and gratitude coexist; both are real.
Account for your own nervous system
If you have ADHD too, build for it: your time blindness, executive fatigue, and emotional dysregulation collide with your child's at the hardest moments of the day. This is a design requirement, not an excuse. You need more external structure and more co-regulation support, not more willpower.
Get real support, and treat the high scores as urgent
A therapist, a support group, a trusted person who holds this without judgment is maintenance for the load-bearing wall, not a luxury. If your self-assessment is above 15, or if the "thoughts of giving up" item is live for you, treat that as urgent and reach out now: to a professional, and in crisis, call or text 9-8-8.
The printable: the caregiver self-assessment
Print it. Score it honestly. Above 15 means reach out now.