It’s a fact; a person with ADHD is hard to love. You never know what to say. It’s like walking through a minefield. You tiptoe around; unsure which step (or word) will be the one that sets off an explosion of emotion. It’s something you try to avoid.
That’s the first paragraph of my viral article. Some people were offended by it, but most appreciated it. I think it was freeing to admit. It doesn’t mean you don’t love your loved ones. It means that at times- depending upon how often and severe the situations occur- life tests the limits of your love; especially if the person has ADHD, addiction, anxiety, or depression.
As hard as you try, you can’t make people clean and sober. You can’t make depressed people smile. And you can’t slow down an anxious person’s heart rate.
Of course, you still love them but your own fear, anxiety, and anger can overshadow your loving feelings.
Let’s face it, we all get on each other’s nerves sometimes.
We get angry. Our feelings are hurt. We don’t get what we want. People disappoint us. We get upset because we can’t control other people. We can’t make our children do what we want them to. We’re frustrated, exhausted, and stressed out. That’s life. It’s reality.
I don’t have a hard time saying that people with ADHD are hard to love. I know I’m hard to love sometimes. When two people coming together with different history, emotional baggage, and perspectives; there’s definitely going to be conflict. You may be a lovable person, but when situations happen, you might be hard to love (or live with someone who is).
We don’t agree, butt heads, scream and fight, and sometimes it gets ugly. That’s normal. But when ADHD is in the picture, everything is worse. It happens more often and each incident is harder to recover from (than in non-ADHD relationships).
And if you’re the one without ADHD, we know that our behavior tests the limits of your love for us. As time goes by, if these events of anger, frustration, and disappointment are not resolved; love changes. That’s what you want to avoid.
The only solution – the way to bring you back to lovingness… is to concentrate on the good.
Make a mental list of everything you love about that person. Because when we’re frustrated, angry, or hurt you forget about love. Negative feelings magnify and overshadow all the good. If you’re the one with ADHD, your magnification systems are more intense. You hurt harder. Your thoughts are darker. And every emotion is more intense. You have to PAUSE, give your emotions time to settle, and always remember that this is a temporary feeling. You can forgive. You can resolve, and you can work on self-improvement. ADHD does not have to destroy your love for each other. You have to put in a little extra effort but it’s worth it.
And don’t forget to check out my new eBook and workbook… THE PAUSE. It will teach you how to create a mental space between your emotions and your reactions so that you can have more positive outcomes in your life.
Note: I write about adult ADHD. My content is not applicable for parents with young children.
Hi, I recently found the article titled “12 things you dont know about me and ADHD”
I wanted t o say to June, that there were feelings and emotions in that article that I experience , but often can’t articulate. I didn’t even know it was apart of my ADHD.
Reading this brought tears to my eyes. I have the confidence , than self doubt. I have the moments where I’m totally ready to take on the weeirkd, then sonething sneaks in and tells me I’m a fake. This has interfered with so many aspirations. How does one handle this?
Jessica
Hi Jessica!
Thanks so much for writing. I’m so happy to know that my article helped you understand your ADHD. There are many ways to handle the challenges. I think the best way is to work with a coach or therapist who specializes in ADHD. If you’d like to schedule a free consultation, I’d be happy to explain how ADHD coaching helps. There is hope. You can get through these challenges. It is possible to learn how to co-exist with and manage your own ADHD. You can email me at june@junesilny.com. Also, please subscribe to my website so that I can keep you updated on my latest articles, groups, and courses. Thank you so much!
I subscribed to your email list and downloaded the offered file – FOCUS-title-1.pages
I can’t open it and whilst not sure, I think it may be for apple computers.
If this is correct, is there a version for PCs (like PDF) that I can get?
Thanks,
Greg
Thank you for letting me know. It should be able to open on PCs. I will check on it and send it to you.
Thanks for subscribing!
June
I read this at the wrong time. Newly diagnosed ADD at the age of 40, with a history of depression and anxiety – and just rejected by a longstanding love interest. My therapist is not the same person as my medication management nurse and they do not seem to collaborate on adjusting my medications enough. I even asked outright, “Has [therapist’s name] called you this week, because he was raising some concerns about decompensation.” to which the answer was no. Friends are telling me that they are concerned about me. My career is hitting a crisis point, after a lifetime of extremely high achievement (at the cost of cycles of delay and distraction, followed by extreme anxiety and productivity, followed by deep depression, in repetition for around 38 years. Without sounding cocky here, I know that my ceaseless thirst for knowledge, accuracy and precision is precisely what drove me (both as a child and now) to develop an uncommonly high intelligence – and yet it turned out that that same trait is often what alienated other people (who idolize what they perceive to be my “smarts” or my “status” as a professor but can’t follow my line of thought even when I’m taking great pains to be clear and not inattentive – or alternately, which they can’t understand at all leading them to label me as “crazy” or “aloof.”) As a consequence, I feel unlovable, unloved, misunderstood, lonely, and untreatable.
I recognize that I have some internal work to do and my clinical therapist isn’t so clueless that we haven’t made some strides (including some significant ones) – and yet, I still feel like he doesn’t quite “get” what kind of information motivates me. If only someone (one of my many therapists over the years had said, “hey look, this may be ADHD, which might sound really surprising and unlikely to you, but here is what the science says (and go beyond the DSM criteria)” and even show me the data, I would have been persuaded to integrate the advice they were giving more readily, instead of tending towards a silent oppositionality. I feel really let down my a mental health care system that missed so many opportunities to get it right – and more importantly recognize in me that, in fact, I am persuadable if you meet me at my level of expectations for “evidence.” That failure (and yes, I will accept some responsibility for it; but by no means all) has only reconfirmed in my mind the notion that too few people are capable of understanding what makes me tick; and therefore too few people are worth trusting enough to open up to. How can I build a relationship on that history?
Yes, I would be very difficult to have a relationship with. Yes, my emotions are intense and blown out of proportion. Yes, sometimes I drift off because I’m solving some problem in my head. Yes, I feel threatened by a world that doesn’t seem to accommodate me and increasingly a society that does not even appreciate my core asset: intelligence. At this point, there are even moments when my reality checking and excessive focus on myself (ironic word choice intended) gets a little out-of-whack.
That said, I feel pretty sure that if I could only be understood and supported, to not be told that I’m “too much” for someone immediately after they list all the things they like about me, I could start to be just a little bit more stable. But I do blame a psychiatric health care system for missing so many opportunities to “fix me” for so long, that brought me to this place of crisis to begin with. The accountability for difficulties in “ADD relationship” are not just shared between two parties; they are to be shared by three.
Forgive me. This is not a personal assault on you; but I did think you ought to know that this is the way one ADD reader responded to this post/article. Where there is one; there are usually others with a similar reaction who did not bother to speak up.