Living With and Loving ADHD

ADHD doesn’t happen in a vacuum. When someone you love has ADHD, it impacts them across multiple dimensions including school, work, home, and play. The person with ADHD often can’t understand why they can’t “just do it” either. Why can’t they “just listen” or “just stop?” It’s frustrating for them and others. Here are some of the ways that ADHD can impact relationships.

Social awareness:
A core deficit of ADHD is difficulty in harnessing their attention. They can do the extremes – hyperfocus or not be able to focus on anything. It’s very hard for their brains to automatically tune out unnecessary information. People who have neurotypical brains can filter out unnecessary stimuli (i.e. kids playing outside, the clock ticking on the wall, the flashing lights in their peripheral vision). Neurotypical brains know that that stuff is not important when we have something specific to do, so the brain blocks it from our awareness.
Not for our friends with ADHD. They can’t NOT notice those things. In fact, they will often pay attention to those things INSTEAD of what they should be paying attention to. Because of this, they often miss a lot of social information that is brought up between people, like the tone of one’s voice, or the facial expression they’re using. Communication is largely made up of non-verbal behavior, so when your brain is not paying attention to that, you can’t communicate effectively.

Emotional control:
Our brains have different areas that are in charge of different things. Your amygdala is in charge of your fight, flight, or freeze response. It keeps you alive in the face of danger. It also tends to think things are super dangerous when they aren’t (think to have to give a big presentation in front of a group of people about a difficult topic – this won’t kill you, but your amygdala may start to rev up). We also have the prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of our executive functioning. It makes sure we make good choices and is the logical part of our brains. The prefrontal cortex and the amygdala are often at odds with one another, and they cannot both be running at the same time. When our emotions get heightened, our amygdala takes over. If our prefrontal cortex is strong, it can take back the steering wheel from the amygdala, and make sure our emotions don’t get the better of us (so we give a flawless presentation instead of staring into the crowd like a deer in headlights).

Unless you have ADHD. Folks with ADHD have prefrontal cortex development that is up to 7 years behind their same-aged peers. Additionally, these skills have to be explicitly taught to most of them – naturally picking up executive functions is not something that will happen for them. Because their prefrontal cortex is weak, when the amygdala wants to take over, it does. This leads to emotional meltdown and intense emotions that often seem out of sync with the severity of the problem to the neurotypical friend or loved one. The person with ADHD gets labeled a “drama queen” or “overly sensitive.” But they can’t help it. It’s like asking someone who’s never been to a gym to lift 200 lbs. If they’ve given the right training they can do it, but it’s not going to naturally be easy for them.
Impulse control:
Have you ever said something you didn’t mean to say out loud? How did that feel? Probably pretty embarrassing. Now imagine doing that, and feeling that way, ALL THE TIME.

That is often what happens to people with ADHD.

They often can’t control what they blurt out or what their bodies are doing. They will often need to move, or talk, or do something to expel excess energy that they have. In fact, while people with ADHD have a slower developing prefrontal cortex, they have a faster developing motor cortex, which may contribute to their need to move.

Moving is often such an integral part of ADHD, some clinicians prescribe exercise as a way to help regulate their symptoms. It helps them gain control over their seemingly uncontrollable bodies. Many famous athletes, including Simone Biles and Michael Phelps, got into sports due to the need to regulate their ADHD bodies.

But if you can’t control your mouth or your body, that makes it very difficult to maintain relationships. Imagine if every thought that popped into your head had a strong likelihood of being heard. I know I would be mortified if some people heard the things I thought whether it’s about them or myself.

So if you had a constantly running mind and body that you couldn’t shut off even if you wanted to, how would that impact you and those around you?

That’s not to say ADHD is a curse. In many ways, it can be a gift, if recognized for what it brings to the table rather than what it takes away. Because their attention is not hyper-focused, they often can see things in “outside of the box” ways that neurotypical people do not. They may have physical gifts because they are using their bodies in different ways from their peers. They can be very empathetic because they are familiar with feeling emotions deeply.

But the thing I think is most important to loving someone with ADHD is that they are not CHOOSING to act the way that they are. Their brains are literally different, and as the child psychologist Ross Greene says, “if they could do better, they would do better.” So remember this when interacting with your ADHD loved one. And try to recognize their gifts rather than their deficits.