ADHD & Relational Pain

If there is one thing a therapist knows about, it is relational pain. Often times it is the hidden relational pain behind the “presenting problem” or mental health condition that we are both, therapist and client, there to diagnose and treat. People think therapy is “help” but it is really a relationship of discovery. The story underneath is what we need to make sense of. Any relational pain story I have heard or held in my own mind, speaks to a pattern of hurt that is “the thing” we struggle with most. ?

Just this week I have seen the worst side of myself come out. I have used helping others as a panacea to my own painful emotional needs. I became burned out and needed a listener but instead?I was denying a growing negativity inside me. When we don’t see things, we can all have a kind of narcissism. Relational pain is essentially this at its origin, holding insight away from yourself such that it can form a self-centered blindness to what others go through who are less protected from what you are going through. We would all, me included, like to believe no one understands our pain yet it is equally true that we avoid things about ourselves that can carry relational pain into relationships. ?

What I have realized is that?I am not done grieving my mother or my own childlessness and yet I feel like I have to be that perfect “safe place” for the individuals that trust me with their own traumas and tangled webs of mental, emotional and sometimes physical pain. So, today I am writing about ADHD and relational pain. It has happened to me and my mother. We cannot talk about it since her passing away makes this impossible, but I am reprocessing us, and you can talk about it inside your relationships.?

My mother was diagnosed with ADHD in her 50’s and I was just freshly into being a teenager at the time. I had my own sense of internal disorganization, I was in hers and mine both although she separated from what I was going through. All I knew was she went to 4 Winds Hospital in Westchester, NY and came back happier. She was sure she could do it now. I think she meant she thought she could do life better now when she said, “I really feel like it will be better this time”. She felt validated and temporarily less broken. It did not last. Not because of ADHD but because they did not help her with the relational pain of decades undiagnosed. Even if she had the Independent Education Plan (IEP) like children may get now, we rarely know what to make of the relational pain aspects of ADHD. Looking on now, is see it as we do in therapy, looking at our childhood selves and realizing the pain goes that far back and had an origin story, a beginning. Although, we see the whole thing now like more of a complete narrative. I can see diagnosis did not heal the rift in our relationships, the relational pain of what her ADHD does and did to our connection started in connections well before us. I am hoping this article may help others notice how to look back and forth and see the inside of any relational pain related to ADHD.?

Writing this made me want to go back and read some of her writing. I wanted to remember her thought process. None of the creative writing pieces are done. A frequent challenge for those with ADHD is task completion, much more than an issue with?procrastination, often reported in the?list of symptoms defining ADHD are problems with task completion. Some can alter between obsessive task completion with lists however. Self esteem and finishing things is tightly linked in ADHD.

All of her unfinished pieces are personal and speak only to the sunny parts of her memories. She would often focus on seeing something a certain way and not shift from it. Her pieces were being written for “a life worth living”. They are themed intentionally to do so. It is a common aspect of ADHD to have “inattention”. The other part of that is the ability to have a laser focus, but only on one thing or concept. If my mother wanted to tell a story “Fake it Until you Make it”, for example, she would relentlessly pepper it with this sentiment. She would do this in conversations too. It was her topic that ran the connection and while I love the experience in some ways because it has formed me into a good listener, trying to track her conversation for meaning and a way to connect, a way to understand if it was my turn, it also left me wanting and waiting for a deeper connection. It was a would-be connection I would pine for until her death and still do now. Now, I am a woman going through life who could really use a listener. It has helped me see this unmet need in relation to my mother and in relation to what I need in relationships now. Looking at relational pain does tend to help, eventually. ?

How does ADHD or ADD affect relationships??

While the distractibility, disorganization, and impulsivity of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD or ADD) can cause problems in many areas of adult life, these symptoms can be particularly damaging when it comes to your closest relationships. This is especially true if the symptoms of ADHD have never been properly diagnosed or treated.?

I know my mom, as the person with ADHD, felt like she was talked down to and criticized as a child and so as an adult, although kindhearted, her sweetness was a bit performed at times, as if offered as a subliminal promise she would not be openly rejected, she was being too nice.? I know she felt challenged to say things correctly and pay attention, stop misplacing things and make more of a career woman out of herself.?No matter what I did to love her, she had a way of dismissing it in her mind given the decades of “not good enough” in her head. I saw so much of her and she just could not see me through her own relational pain. She loved me with laser focus at times, the Seesaw was not enjoyable, however.?

With ADHD you don’t often feel respected as an adult, so you find yourself avoiding things or your partner or saying whatever you have to in order to get through things or get them off your back. My Dad tried not to be controlling I think, his own mother had been, so I think he just ended up being tense and silently passive-aggressive and mom would wish he could relax even a little bit and stop trying to be so ordered and rational, sometimes she would wonder at happened to the person you fell in love with. However, another trait of ADHD is creating a fantasy narrative, inflating your goal so it is more fun and attention sustaining. She told me stories of my dad, her prince after meeting with snakes. ?

If you're in a relationship with someone who has ADHD, you may feel lonely, ignored, and unappreciated. You're tired of taking care of everything on your own and being the only responsible party in the relationship. You don't feel like you can rely on your partner. They never seem to follow through on promises, and you're forced to constantly issue reminders and demands or else just do things yourself. Sometimes it feels as if your significant other just doesn't care.?

It’s easy to see how the feelings on both sides can contribute to a destructive cycle in the relationship. The non-ADHD partner complains, nags, and becomes increasingly resentful while the ADHD partner, feeling judged and misunderstood, gets defensive and pulls away. In the end, nobody is happy. But it doesn’t have to be this way. You can build a healthier, happier partnership by learning about the relational pain both individuals have. Either in a parent-child situation, a married couple, dating, siblings, even in work and business. ?

The relational pain in ADHD relationships is bidirectional because the symptoms can set up a parent-child relationship that is not warm but unbalanced. Between spouses this is never good but also, we need our parents to be slightly more organized in life than we are. If the child takes on parental roles, even intermittently, when there is supposed to be a connecting, parent-guides-and-plans-for-child dynamic. If the child does this for themselves or the parent, this damages the connection. In that damaged connection a lack of emotional safety develops, and relational pain ensues. The painful dance can remain as the connection, a repeated painful reminder of a dance that could be that sadly never gets there. As one author has put it, the most destructive pattern in an ADHD relationship is when one person becomes the responsible ‘parent’ figure and the other the irresponsible ‘child.?

ADHD and Relationships?

Relationships in which one or both people have attention deficit disorder?range from successful to disastrous. Relationships affected —?or sometimes distorted —?by ADHD symptoms can bring “troubled waters.” Pain and anger mount if two people can barely talk to each other about problems affecting the relationship. When you do, if you rarely agree, you form sides and resentment or silence; there can be withdrawal and disconnection. You’re frustrated that you’ve gotten to this point, are they? Still, you’re disappointed that you haven’t made things better. Or lonely realizing they don’t seem to want to try to and regress in understanding your pain when you demand they see it. ?

Can ADHD Cause Divorce Or Relationship Issues?

ADHD can be a contributing factor in a wide range of?marital problems. If your relationship is with someone who has ADHD, you may feel ignored and lonely. Your partner can focus on things that interest them, but not on you. They never seem to follow through on what they agree to do. They may seem to act like a child instead of an adult. You nag them, and you’ve started to dislike the person you’ve become. The two of you either fight or clam up. Worst of all, you are stressed about being saddled with the household responsibilities while your partner gets to have all the fun.?

If you have ADHD, you may feel your partner has become a nagging monster. The person you loved has become a control freak, trying to manage the details of your life. No matter how hard you try, you can’t meet your partner’s expectations. The easiest way to deal with them is to walk away and you don't consider that it may leave them feeling alone and think it is better.?

Either of these scenarios can ultimately result in the end of a relationship. If the above descriptions sound familiar, your relationship is suffering from what I call the ADHD effect.?ADHD symptoms ?— and the responses both of you have to them — have damaged your partnership. The good news is that understanding the role that ADHD plays in your relationship can turn it around. When you learn to identify the challenges ADHD brings to relationships, and the steps you can take to meet them, you can rebuild your lives. That’s exactly what I wish my mother and I did, among other things.

9 Ways ADHD Affects Relationships?

Many ADHD relationships are affected by similar patterns, especially when the disorder is under-managed. When you recognize these patterns, you can change them.?

1. Hyperfocus In the Beginning.?The biggest shock to ADHD relationships comes with the transition from courtship to marriage. In the case of other relationships, there can be a desire to do well in the beginning. Many times ADHD relational pain involves shame. They are operating to avoid that experience again subconsciously and use a high sense of “dream big”. Typically, a person with ADHD hyper-focuses on their partner/child/etc. in the early stages of a dating, or again in any relationship. For example my mother exalted me at first, "you are the glue to the family". They make the job, person, goal, like the center of their world. When the hyperfocus stops, the relationship changes dramatically. The non-ADHD partner takes it personally. With relation to other “things” they feel suddenly deflated, sometimes depression ensues.?

CASE EXAMPLE:

When his Dad?stopped hyperfocusing on him the day they got home from his high school graduation and were done transitioning Charlie from his mother’s home so he could live with his Dad now that he was 18, Charlie told me, “Suddenly, he was gone — back to work, back to his regular life. I was left behind.” After six months of planning to live with his Dad, he had felt like “Now I am going to be a real man!”. Slowly he started to wonder if he had done the right thing. Over the course of a year, he grew depressed and had only distant friends from high school. He was remote gaming in his room, using marijuana to curb boredom, and said “he doesn’t even notice me”. The non-ADHD?person in the relationship has a hard time with?inattentiveness and is not consoled knowing it is not intentional. To find a way to forgive, dialog is needed. Feeling ignored is painful. Address the issue head-on by establishing ways to improve your connections and intimacy, and allowing yourself to mourn the pain that hyperfocus shock has caused you both.?

2. Walking On Eggshells.?Since poor stress management is present, sometimes there can be rudeness in an outburst or in coldness or indifference and a snap or a vacancy, this behavior often accompanies untreated ADHD symptoms or those left untreated. They can also emerge in the other person. An assumption war can ensue. Changing behavior in both partners is critical to turning around a relationship. Don’t assume that anger or frustration in either partner is part of ADHD. Chances are good that you can get these things under control if you talk. When you talk it is important you start off, “this is what was happening for me, the story started to become.........................in my head and I felt......................., what was happening for you??

3. Believing ADHD Doesn’t Matter.?Some partners with ADHD don’t believe that ADHD is a factor in their relationship. They say, “I don’t need treatment! I like myself just the way I am. You’re the one who doesn’t like me and has problems with this relationship.” My mother was in denial until depression hit and she nearly ran away from us. The good news for us was that, about a month or so after diagnosis, she decided he didn’t have much to lose by considering treatment. While she discovered it made a world of difference, however relational pain does need to be addressed as well.?

So here’s my plea to all ADHD partners, parents, adults?who are skeptical: If you don’t believe the disorder affects your relationship, assume that it does, and get an evaluation and effective treatment. It could save your relationship when you see the ADHD and can start to work on relational pain.?

4. Misinterpreting Symptoms.?You and your partner probably misinterpret each other’s motives and actions because you think you understand each other. For example, a partner with undiagnosed ADHD may be distracted, paying little attention to those they love. This can be interpreted as “they don’t care” rather than “they’re distracted.” The response to the former is to feel hurt. The response to the latter is “to make time for each other.” Getting to know your differences, in the context of ADHD, can clear up misinterpretations. Couples and families come to therapy on the brink of divorce and families end up with toxic rifts and estrangements all due to misinterpretations of caring. This is a serious issue ADHD or not. ?

5. Responsibility Wars.?Having a partner, parent, “person” with untreated ADHD often results in a non-ADHD partner taking on more responsibility. If workload imbalances aren’t addressed, the non-ADHD partner will feel resentment. Trying harder isn’t the answer although it is instinctual for helping types and can begin a very hurtful dynamic leaving one feeling discarded and used. ADHD partners must try “differently,” if they are going to succeed — and the non-ADHD partners must communicate two-way with the ADHD person to hear about their partner’s unorthodox way of thinking. For example, waiting last minute to make plans so an ADHD person can focus on the stress of the week can seem like the plans are not a priority. All it takes is communication “I am so excited to make plans, but I worry I can’t hold onto them, can you text me them, I can promise to be free right now by calling my business partner”, may seem odd, but it may work for the non-ADHD partner’s self-esteem way better. Both partners benefit when the non-ADHD partner admits that their way of doing things doesn’t work for their partner and they co-created a solution by talking. ?

6. Impulsive Responses.?ADHD symptoms alone aren’t destructive to a relationship; a partner’s response to the symptoms, and the reaction that it evokes, is. You can respond to a partner’s habit of impulsively blurting out things by feeling disrespected and fighting back. This will cause your ADHD partner to take up the fight. Or you can respond by changing your conversational patterns to make it easier for the ADHD partner to participate. Some ways to do this include speaking in shorter sentences and having your partner take notes to “hold” an idea for later. Couples who are aware of this pattern can choose productive responses. Telling your ADHD “person”, I want to understand what you meant because it landed on me like “you don’t matter” and we promised we would talk more about assumptions and misinterpreting as real things that happen”.?

7. Complaining as Communication.?If you have an ADHD relationship of any kind, you probably complain or you may nag. The best reason not to do it is that it doesn’t work. Since the problem is the ADHD person’s distractibility and untreated symptoms, not their motivation, nagging won’t help them get things done. It causes the ADHD person to retreat, increasing feelings of loneliness and separation, and reinforces the shame that they feel after years of not meeting people’s expectations. Having a partner or “person” treat the ADHD symptoms, and stopping when you find yourself nagging, will break this pattern.?

It Takes the Two of You?

8. The Blame Game.? We can all get stuck in “you are doing this to me” and in that case we are in a “stance/stance dance” as Terry Real coined the term. The Blame Game sounds like the name of a TV show. “For 40 points: Who didn’t take out the garbage this week?” It’s not a game at all. The Blame Game is corrosive to relationships. It is happening when the non-ADHD partner blames the ADHD partner’s unreliability for the relationship problems, and the ADHD partner blames the non-ADHD partner’s anxiety — “If they would just calm down, everything would be fine!” Accepting the validity of the other partner’s complaints quickly relieves some of the pressure. Differentiating your partner from their behavior allows a couple to attack the problem, not the individual, head-on.?

9. The Parent-Child Dynamic.?The most destructive pattern in an ADHD relationship is when one person becomes the responsible “parent” figure and the other the irresponsible “child.” This is caused by the inconsistency inherent in untreated ADHD. Since the ADHD person can’t be relied upon, the non-ADHD feels like they need to take over, often this is against their will and resulting in anger and frustration in both partners. Parenting another person is never good. You can change this pattern by using ADHD support strategies, such as reminder systems and therapy that has a coaching element where the person can learn how to tell others their strategies. These help the ADHD partner become more reliable and regain their status as “partner”, “parent”, or any other role they are very capable of standing up in.??

IF YOU LIKE THIS ARTICLE, PLEASE FOLLOW ENYA PAGE ?

[Free Download: Manage ADHD’s Impact on Your Relationship ]