I’m currently going through an ADHD diagnosis and it got me thinking, how has it affected my relationships. In my research I came across Laura Middleton, a food blogger with 22,000 followers on Instagram and the head of social media for Addie, a new ADHD app. She was diagnosed a year ago, now 28, we took a trip down memory, to reflect on her ADHD and how it affected her dating life as she was growing up.
Mimicking Behaviour
I tend to mimic people’s body language because people I’m so hyper aware of how I come across to people, that I try and make them feel comfortable. Whether that be mirroring the way people speak, sit, or even the words and phrases that they use.
For example, I’ve been on a first date with people and then think it was a nice time, but I wasn’t really feeling it and I thought that that was very obvious in the interaction that we had. However later I got a text and ‘Hey I had a nice time tonight, I’d like to see you again’ and I’m like, no, and that’s a bit awkward.
Bad Replies
Even when it goes go well, I’m a bit of a bit of a nightmare when texting people back. I went on one date with a guy a while ago, and we went for coffee, and he seemed nice, so we planned another date.
He then messaged me afterwards asking when i was free and I didn’t respond to him as I was crazy busy with work. A day passed, and I got a message asking if I was alive. I replied, explaining I had been crazy busy and I’ll let him know when I finished my day.
Instantly I got a really horrible message back saying, ‘quite clearly you’re too busy to be dating anyone at this time because you can’t even bother to text me back, good luck on the hunt for your next victim.’ It made no sense to me, we had got Coffee once…
After I’ve met them in person, I just really struggle to gel with them over text message. I need to know their tone of voice as if I don’t, I end up reading between the lines and texts can be misconstrued. It’s so much easier when it’s a voice or a conversation in person.
Hyper Fixation
When I meet someone, and I start gelling with that one person, they become all-consuming because I’m so excited about them, it’s like the honeymoon period on steroids. The more we start seeing each other, the more I’m thinking Oh my God this is it, this person is the one.
They were a new shiny thing that I wanted to kind of put all my time into, and I did drift from friends, and I did get a little bit lost. I was just trying to be accepted by the person that person. I wanted to spend every hour of every single day with them, and due to this, I would come across as quite controlling.
I didn’t mean to be, I just really liked them and wanted to spend as much time as possible with them.
Internal Dialogue
It’s not nice. If I asked the person I was talking to around for dinner, and they said, no, I’m just going to have a night in and chill down, my brain would go into meltdown.
I would think they hate me, they don’t want to ever see me again, they’re probably going to break up with me next week. I would never think they just need that they need some alone time.
I would then spend the whole even thinking about what I could have possibly done over the course of the last week that would have warranted that reaction from someone.
Even when things are amazing between us. I’d feel physically sick with anxiety. Looking back now, that’s absolutely crazy, that was just my brain telling me something was ten times worse than it actually was.
The average child with ADHD receives over 20,000 more negative messages than a neurotypical child, that internal chat is negative, it’s very rarely positive.
The Positives
Despite the challenges that come with ADHD while dating, Laura was keen to talk about the positives and how it can be amazing to be seeing someone who suffers with the neurologically diverse condition.
“I’m a very passionate person and nice, and I tend to be very romantic, wanting to do lovely things with the person I’m with, I’ve been a pretty decent girlfriend. One thing I will say is there is never a dull moment, there always going to be something to do, there’s always going to be something going on.
We’ll always be talking, we are all very open, some could call it oversharing haha but we love a deep conversation, we are very open to talking about feelings and that’s a good things for a relationship. We’re never playing games, we are open and honest, that might scare people, but it’s a really healthy approach to have.