CHRISTINA LYNNE IVEY Glossary (Not) for Non-ADHD Partners Negotiating Relational Terms after the Diagnosis ABSTRACT This piece explores my experience navigating the new communicative obstacles emerging after the Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) diagnosis of my partner. Struggling to find research that aided my understanding, I created a glossary of terms meant to clarify what words were currently working/not working in my relationship. Each term entry is coupled with autoethnographic accounts with/about my partner. This essay means to extend the work of Eve Tuck and Christine Ree, demonstrating how creating glossaries can be used as a critical qualitative method to explore negotiations of discourses that occur within marginal- ized identities. KEYWORDS Autoethnography; Health communication; Personal narrative; Family communication; Gender ADHD The summer before our second year of PhD work, my partner was diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). I cannot say I was completely shocked, but I definitely did not expect it. She spent two long weeks testing over things we supposedly learned in grade school, and each day I found her completely frustrated and upset when I picked her up. “I don’t know why they even allow me in grad school. I can’t remember shit I should have learned decades ago, ” she said, crossing her arms and sinking into the passenger seat. “It’s not that you don’t remember, your brain just processes it differently. It’s there. . . it just takes a little longer than most to find it.” By the look on her face, I could tell this wasn’t helping. So, I kept trying. “You’re brilliant in class. So, who cares if you can’t recall mindless information that we were supposed to memorize ages ago?” The words did not comfort her. Being a graduate student with the goal of being a professor, her whole identity was wrapped up in her intellect, and these testing sessions and the looming diagnosis challenged her ac- ademic identity. 99 Departures in Critical Qualitative Research, Vol. , Number , pp. –. ISSN -, electronic ISSN -.©  by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Request permission to photocopy or reproduce article content at the University of California Press’s Reprints and Permissions web page, http://www.ucpress.edu/journals.php?p=reprints. DOI: ./dcqr. ....