Love, Dating, and ADHD
By Mary Sanford, Ph.D.
ADHD & Executive Function Coach, Hallowell Todaro
Love is in the air- or it was mere weeks ago, thanks that high holy day of holidays, Valentine’s Day. We here at the Hallowell Todaro ADHD and Behavioral Health Center, thought it was time to address the challenges of having ADHD and romantic relationships. This is a 2 -part- blog that will address the typical challenges of dating when you or someone you know has ADHD, and practical solutions to improve your experience.
What is ADHD?
ADHD is a neurodevelopmental condition affecting the heavy hitters of communication, impulse control, attention, executive functioning, and emotional regulation. Add to the mix challenges with rejection sensitivity, time management, and using dating apps to meet new partners (Coffee Meets Bagel, anyone?), can feel like swimming in shark-infested waters — and you’re the bait.
Is it love or is it dopamine?
For many people, the first stages of dating someone involves hyperfocus. The new relationship is all-encompassing, with a tendency to overshare, rapid-fire emotional bonding, masking, and idealizing the new partner. We’re constantly seeking a dopamine rush. We might engage in over-sharing via text, calls, and physical contact. And red flags? Warning signs? They don’t exist. The reality? We don’t exist. We throw ourselves headlong into this perfect person, and heck be dammed, the dopamine rush.
Ah, dopamine. Love. Euphoria. Better than chocolate. It feels so good. This person is The One.
Need more dopamine hits? Like a delicious drink of cold water on a warm day, we crave dopamine no matter what the cost. Anticipation is delicious. We anticipate seeing the person again, and that becomes an emotional rush.
We make ourselves into someone we hope will be loved the way we love the other person. But soon enough, we need to spend more time and more energy, more, more, more to get that same dopamine hit.
The end prize? Love and acceptance. The other person accepts us even with ADHD.
Shh- don’t tell. We pretend to keep a tidy house, we hide our clutter, and fake being organized. We pretend to listen, but instead zone out. We interrupt, light up with energy, and never finish tasks. We hide our dirty dishes in the oven. We mask.
For example, the guy I dated in college, my first serious boyfriend, loved going to the gun range and tent camping in the winter. I was a child of suburbia, the over-protected baby of my siblings. I had never gone camping in my life. And guns? Not in my family. I still have pictures of us camping in the snow, a fake smile on my face. I’m wiser now, thank goodness, but back then I believed becoming a chameleon was the path to marital bliss.
But wait a minute. Hold the fort. We’re giving 100%, no, 150%, and the other person isn’t even trying. It feels like we are doing all the work here — we’ve molded ourselves to the other person and their interests and values. We lose ourselves. We’ve become the perfect dreamboat partner.
We throw ourselves into the fray and keep trying harder, harder. If we just try harder, we tell ourselves, it’ll be okay. Amazing, really. We mask up and pray it doesn’t slip and show our real selves. We fight the ADHD monsters of shame, rejection sensitivity, and self-loathing. We lose our authentic selves. We ignore the red flags, forget our wants and needs, and constantly interrupt. If I just try harder, we goad ourselves. Just. Try. Harder. Just one more dopamine hit. It will be perfect.
Honey, this isn’t the Olympics.
Am I tired, or is the shine fading?
Dopamine is a scary drug. It feels so good, but like any addiction, it takes more and more of it to achieve the same results.
When the shiny new relationship starts to fade, when the novelty wears off, when unrealistic expectations spiral out of control, or worse, when we grow bored, when the slightest criticism makes us explode with anger (Thanks, ADHD), we overreact. Impulsive? Check? Shame? Check. Old ADHD habits return like weeds: we forget to call, to text, to adapt. Romantic feelings start to fade.
Now the real mental battle takes place. We remind ourselves about our past relationship failures, convinced this is yet another one. We spiral and catastrophize. We perceive slights and wham! Our mask starts to slip. The relationship teeters. We can’t trust our feelings. Worse, we can’t trust ourselves.
Next Month: Part 2-Making Love Bloom and Last
Be sure to read Part 2 next month when we look at how to make love grow and last because of our wonderful superpower, ADHD.
Happy reading!
Mary Sanford, PhD
About the Author
Mary Sanford is a progress-oriented ADHD Executive Function Coach with a wealth experience successfully working with late teens and adult clients. Her expertise and knowledge of ADHD and her excitement in helping clients improve their lives is highly rewarding to her. In her own words, Mary loves slaying the ADHD dragons of negativity and defeating behaviors that frequently torment her clients. In addition to serving as an Executive Function ADHD Coach, Mary leads ADHD and college success workshops for Hallowell Todaro. She is knowledgeable about the challenges of ADHD and neuro-diversity and uses that knowledge to capitalize on each person’s unique gifts. Clients describe her as empathetic, compassionate, enthusiastic, flexible, and resourceful.
Mary has a PhD in Adult Education from Syracuse University, an M.Ed. in Learning Disabilities with Reading Specialist certification, and a B.S.degree in Special Education both from Bloomsburg University. Before going into higher education, she taught Special Education students, grades K-12. During the pandemic she had her first textbook published, Teachers as Thinkers: Compassion and Competence in the Classroom, a book for teachers and coach-educators. When she is not working, Mary enjoys traveling, baking, writing, gardening, and hanging out with her delightful Golden Doodles Gracie and Kellen.
