My Partner and I Both Have ADHD
Being with someone who has the same type of neurodivergency is amazing but can be frustrating at times.
‘I thought you said you took the trash out already?’
‘Why is the litter box like a port-a-potty on a construction site? You promised you’d clean it!’
‘Wait… they’re coming over TODAY? I totally forgot - I didn’t clean the house!’ *immense panic ensues*
These are just some of the fun things that are said on a regular basis in my house. My partner and I both have ADHD. She was diagnosed at the age of 5 and tends to be more hyperactive. I was diagnosed at the age of 23 and lean more towards inattentive.
We’ve been living together for almost 4 months now, and it’s been one of the best experiences I’ve had, but it may be a little different from a neurotypical couple’s joint nesting experience.
Little by little, we’re learning about how to live with both our own perceived shortcomings from ADHD, as well as each other’s quirks and habits.
My Clutter and Chronic Lateness
For the 4 years prior to moving in with my girlfriend, I had lived alone, and therefore subjected only myself to my clutter and forgetfulness when it came to household chores. I also only subjected myself to my propensity to never leave on time for literally anything. This understandably frustrates my girlfriend, who is one of those magical on-time people.
It started with what I like to call the ‘cloud of clutter’ that follows me wherever I sit to work at any time. The cloud consists of my pens and highlighters, my bullet journal, the other journal for writing, my water bottle, my phone, my iPad, whatever book I may be reading, the pile of mail I haven’t yet opened, sometimes some gummy bears, and always a tinted lip balm. To me, the cloud of clutter is a perfectly organized set of necessities I need to get my work done. To the naked eye, it looks like a pile of clutter.
If you were to draw a line from one specifically located mess and half-drank, room temperature cup of tea to the other throughout the house, you’d have a nice little map to every location I visited that day.
My girlfriend also quickly realized how stressful the experience of getting me to leave the house on time is. Like many of my family members and friends, she’s learned to tell me the time we need to leave as 1 hour before we actually have to leave, which increases the likely hood of leaving on time.
Time Management, Or Lack Thereof
I live on a different time and space continuum than everyone else. In my mind, tasks that take 2 hours take 10 minutes, and 10-minute tasks are put off indefinitely because I assume they’ll take 2 hours.
Here’s a recent example.
The other morning, I said to my girlfriend, “I’m going to the store later, do you need anything?” She told me what she needed with doubt in her eyes. When I finished an assignment at 2 pm, I proudly texted her that I was headed to the store. I went to put on my shoes, find my wallet, play a quick round of boggle on my phone, and quickly post something to Instagram. When a text popped up from my girlfriend asking if I had gotten home okay, I was confused. Then I looked at the time and realized it was 4 pm, and my grocery shopping window had disappeared. Poor time management foiled my plans again.
Her Restlessness and Hyperactivity
One night, I watched the clock during the first 10 minutes of an episode of The Great British Baking Show. She got up to go do something 7 times in those 10 minutes. Every time she would say, “Don’t pause it! I just need to do [insert weirdly urgent mundane task here]! It will just take a second!”
It never takes a second, and when she returns, she’ll say, “Wait… what kind of pudding are they making??” and we’ll have to rewind to the point we were at when she got up to do the urgent mundane task.
This leads to the first 10 minutes of a show taking 25 actual minutes of time, and when I try to pause it, she gets stressed out and tells me not to. For this reason, I know a LOT of small details about the Great British Baking Show because I watch the same scene 5 times when she gets back from finding her floss, searching through her pockets to show me the cool thing she found at work or finding our kitten’s favorite toy.
She often claims that she’s ‘full of madness’, which is totally true. When we go for a hike, she has to climb on the broken branch over a craggy pile of rocks because why not? Who needs functional limbs anyway?
Sometimes, I feel like I’m living with Denis the Menace, and have a fully stocked first aid kit on hand for when she inevitably hurts herself. I caught her trying to fix a loose screw on the ceiling fan WHILE IT WAS ON the other night, by standing on the bed with her head mere inches from the rotating blades.
Like many with ADHD, she can sometimes act before she fully thinks something through, aka, the trademark impulsivity of us ADHD folk. Mine comes with posting dumb stuff on Twitter, hers comes with life-threatening “fun” sometimes involving fire. Now if only I could remember to pick up a new pack of band-aids from the store…
Emotional Dysregulation and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria
70% of adults with ADHD struggle with Emotional Dysregulation, which is difficulty controlling one’s reactions to emotions. As you can imagine, this might cause some issues when it comes to two people who struggle with emotional dysregulation in a relationship.
People with ADHD can be quick to react, especially with anger, frustration, or in my case, a waterfall of tears. This can turn molehills into mountains in an instant. The silver lining? Many of our arguments are over as quickly as they started, as we’re quick to work out the issue and move on.
According to ADDitude Magazine,
“Rejection sensitive dysphoria (RSD) is extreme emotional sensitivity and pain triggered by the perception that a person has been rejected or criticized by important people in their life.”
Again, this can cause issues when it comes to two people who struggle with this issue in a relationship with each other. I can’t tell you how many times the words “I feel like you hate me today but I don’t blame you because I’m a stupid piece of garbage” are uttered when the other person is in a quiet mood or has a headache and is therefore not up to the usual level of physical affection and verbal communication.
Working out issues via communication seems a little bit harder between two people with ADHD. My partner asking me politely to clean my pile of clothes on the floor quickly turns into me asking her if she even loves me anymore. Me asking her to give me half an hour of quiet time to finish a freelance assignment turns into her asking me if I’m losing interest and considering a breakup. Emotional Dysregulation and Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria play into each other and can make small misunderstandings turn into emotional outpourings, which isn’t always a bad thing. Our issues tend to be brought to the surface at record speed, which means they get worked through quickly.
The Good Outweighs The Bad
When I trail off in the middle of the important point I was just about to make and then forget it, my girlfriend understands. When she loses her phone for the 10th time that day and then finds it in the refrigerator, I get it. There is no need to explain why we are the way we are because we both already know.
I love every single thing about my girlfriend, even the things that can sometimes tick me off. She’s witty, brilliantly smart, and a creative problem solver. Her brain holds a library of weird and random information.
She loves my drive to pursue a career as a writer and blogger, and also understands my need to have this career because my ADHD makes it impossible to thrive in a 9–5 office environment. She appreciates my random desire to go to a weird bookshop that’s an hour away or bake a cake at 8 pm on a Tuesday. I live in an unstructured world, and she’s okay with that.
We never run out of things to talk about, to the point where we need to enforce bedtimes to not stay up all night. There’s a ton of laughter and goofiness in our home, and we’re the best damn cat parents around, even if we (I) sometimes forget to clean the litterbox.
I love being with someone who has ADHD because the wonderful qualities I love about her are some of the very same things in myself that caused me to be an insecure, self-critical perfectionist. Through falling in love with her, I learned to accept and love myself, ADHD and all.
