Adult ADHD Blog

Archives: July 2009

Dating with ADHD: Relationship Milestones... and Setbacks

A voice from within told me to shut up, stop rambling, be quiet. But for every attention-deficit impulse I can get under control, there is another that overwhelms me.

Somewhere between rushing to the Chef's home at 11 p.m., followed by a night of non-sleep (maybe it is the ADHD medication Adderall), the other woman surfaced. The chef and I chatted briefly and did nothing except turn our backs to each other and sleep. It was the right thing to do.

I was exhausted though and decided to refuel on a nap around 8:30 a.m. after he had left for work two hours earlier. He left me the freedom to explore the fridge, surf on the laptop, uncover the birds to give them sunlight and turn on the radio for them. There had never been evidence of another woman—no condoms, no undies, no photos, no love letters—until this morning.

The door lock jiggled, and I opened the door. She was Filipina but could pass for Spanish, petite with big, pretty eyes and a pretty face. She was in her late 30s or early 40s and, at first, I thought she was a maid coming to clean. The first question out of her was, "Are you his friend or girlfriend?" AKA who are you, what are you doing here? I wondered the same.

When in shock, I become oddly calm and clear-headed. I had been sitting on the sofa in my pink Victoria's Secret boy shorts, and a tank top. I was using his laptop so what else did this look like? "No," I said. "I'm a friend."

She said she was a friend, too, and they had been friends for a long time. She said that he'd never mentioned me. “Where did you meet?” she asked.

“At the swimming pool, a few blocks from here,” I started. “I teach there and, well, this morning I asked if I could use his place since well...um...I do not live in the city...I well...um...commuted from the ‘burbs...because you see, you know....” And then I repeated myself, "I'm not a girlfriend."

A voice from within told me to stop rambling, be quiet. So I slipped back into silence and smiled at her. She said she came to visit the two parakeets. I wished I were a bird and spared of what was happening here. Sometimes you spend time with a person, and you may never know who they are.

I could hear her talking with them, cooing at them as if they were babies, and then she returned. Each time I could see her about to leave, and then she'd turn to me to ask another question. I wanted to engage this stranger in conversation too. I wanted to ask, how did you meet him, how often do you see him, are you a former girlfriend? I learned that she was a part-time nanny and lived in another borough. I could not get the fact that she had his key out of my mind.

I looked at her closely and knew the answer. They had slept together and been intimate. She was very much his type: petite, pretty face and of a different ethnicity. She knew things about him that only a good friend would know.

Damn you, I thought. Damn the Chef, damn men, damn myself for wanting to believe that someone so charming could also be genuine. It is the hopeless ADHD romantic in me, the idealist. The reality is that the past several times, he did not invite me to dinner. Rather I simply came over at night. It seemed so covert and if one asked what benefits I received, I’d answer, Nothing. I got a challenge, some spice in my life, these were the men who I fell for and chased. Code red, alert, stop, the voice said.

After she left, I did something strange, I packed my belongings but left a jacket there, folded up. He texted at the end of work that day. "You left something here," he texted. "No, I did not," I texted back. And then I called and said, "Oh yes, I did. Well just leave it there and I'll swing by sometime..." What are you doing, Jane? I asked. Why do you even want to go back? Tell him to keep the jacket, and leave him alone.

"Did someone call you today?" I asked. No, he said. "Really?" I asked. I wasn't really angry, just genuinely curious. “Because someone came by today, they had your key, I might have surprised them..." I started. There was a silence.

"OK, never mind," I said, matter of fact. He did not seem to know or maybe he did. "Interesting..." he said, before we hung up. I'm playing with fire.

In the meantime there is a man—chubby, bespectacled, a bit nerdy, but much more attentive, who gave me the keys soon after meeting me. Why don't I simply focus on that one man who is available? I hate myself for not being able to do so, with ease and grace.

The father says it is human nature to want what we don't have, but how foolish is it to chase after what is not only unattainable, but also bad for us. I did not even get a dinner or movie for what is clearly a vortex that I am being sucked into.

In a strange way though I felt sorry for this woman, this stranger, who was not wearing a wedding ring and was clearly older than me. I was sorry for startling her and I hated myself for lying to her for him. Sometimes it is better not to be honest, but what was unsaid was already as clear as a flash at high noon. Isn't it obvious?

ADHD and a Bad Reaction

People with ADHD tend to run with negative thoughts and emotions. When I don't notice the present—and fixate on the past—there is a sense of desperation, and no one to share it with.

The vicious cycle continues. Ever since I've been taking Adderall for my adult attention deficit disorder, I've felt focused, and yet sadder and angry. There is an edge that is sharpened by this medication, and I'm not sure that I like it. I wonder if it is childhood trauma, a personality disorder, or the ADHD medication. There are extreme ups and downs, and little control over either.

The new guy's name is Mr. Put Together, clean, organized, on the heavy side, smart, and attentive. He has many friends (many of them female), is very social, and has given me the keys to his apartment. And yet I am hung up on the Chef, who has clearly told me that we're not dating. There is no interest, he's bored. I wonder if that is how I will be too. After the chase what else is there? I too will be bored.

Recently, the father, Mr. Put Together, and I met at a fund-raising benefits event that I helped put together. It was truly a New York moment. The event was held in an expansive loft with a grand terrace, and one of the finest views of Columbus Circle and Central Park.

The caterers served white sangria and all-you-could-drink red and white wine. We sat on the terrace, the sky above gray, the wind kicking up a notch, and talked. Mr. Put Together loves to talk. He's very ambitious and has grand plans—life after his government career includes a best-selling novel. And yet I felt extremely subdued. I wanted no part of the party and the conversation, I was not happy.

Later, when we had drinks at a restaurant not far from the event, I was equally as blue. In desperation I called up the Chef, who brusquely asked me what I wanted. I lied and said I had a crisis. There was a mouse under the sink. "Can I come over, I'll sleep on the couch," I said.

There was a long pause, and he said, "OK, but I have to get up at 4 a.m." I felt like a swimmer lost at sea who had stumbled upon an island at last. I did not want sex, I did not want a boyfriend, and I did not want to go back to the room in the sketchy neighborhood.

I wanted an oasis and a place to exhale. That much the Chef gave me. He buzzed me in and threw me a pillow and sheet. "Do what you want, Jane," he said. "I'm going to sleep."

I thought back to the night. Mr. Put Together had observed that I seemed stressed and jittery. I said that I'm really an introvert and I just need a bit of down time, time to work out and swim. There is truth in that, but at the same time I don't know what is going wrong, why the sadness and feeling of hopelessness. There is much that is wrong and much that is right, too. Perhaps the greatest tragedy is when we don't notice the present, and I fear that once again I am fixated on the past, on beating a dead horse. I wish that I were more carefree, more focused, that I lived up to my potential.

Will I tell Mr. Put Together about the meds, and what might be his reaction to them? Perhaps at some point, but right now it's too early. The result would be like aborting a flight that had not even taken off yet.

Revelations

Telling a "loved one" about the diagnosis of adult attention deficit disorder, at last.

I finally let the cat out of the bag, and for the first time told a guy I am dating about the ADHD. I was forced to and now feel coerced into it. He and I have fought like a cat and dog, and it has been this way since the beginning. He is physically and emotionally needy. I have my warts too. Despite being smart, funny, and hot, as he puts it, I lack the skills of listening to his needs. In typical ADHD fashion, I can be abrupt and impulsive, and I finish people’s sentences. Unlike other men, he takes the straight shooter tactic and says it to my face. “You really need to be more patient, you are pretty poor at it.”

“How would you like it if I got together with you, picked up my bags, and said, ‘it was nice to get together but I need to go now.’” He doesn’t seem to understand that I am not able to juggle a job search, all of these part-time jobs, swimming, training for swimming, and also dating a person as demanding as himself. The guy’s schedule is pretty packed, too, with one social event after another.

To me he lacks heart and common sense. He invited at least two dozen people to a dinner last Friday so they could all meet me. “They won’t even believe that I am exclusively dating somebody,” he says. I was forced to sit, smile, and be pleasant in a fancy four-star restaurant as he sat with his friends and mostly talked with them. I felt like a new toy or a pet, a possession rather than an equal. Despite his financial generosity, I feel like he would be very demanding in the end. The yellow alert is turning red.

Last night, the fight centered out of the fact that I gave him brownies and he didn’t want them, because he’s losing weight. Instead of being polite about it, he says, “That is the wrong gift for me because I am trying to lose weight. If I give someone a gift I need to know what they want, and it needs to be appropriate.”

The fight moved on to the greater issue of how he feels when I part. “You leave on your own time, you don’t even wait for others to finish, you just say, ‘okay thanks, got to go,’” he criticized. “You need to get better at goodbyes, you really need to stop being so stressed out, and impatient,” he says.

I agree with him but it is near midnight when he says these things, and the entire night I’ve told him that I needed to wake up at 6 a.m. to swim. He seemed to disregard the fact that I needed sleep, and that I was already tired and stressed. “It takes a long time for people to change, and I don’t try to change you,” I said. “Nobody is perfect and you need to give others some room to grow,” I said.

I remembered the passage in The Holy Bible from 1 Corinthians, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres…”

The guy is a self-professed Christian and is the leader of a “growth group.” All of his Bible-banging now felt hypocritical. In self-defense and also in the struggle to communicate I asked him how he’d feel if I said, “Lose weight, you’re too fat, you eat too much, you need to lose weight.” He turned away and walked away, speechless and hurt and saying, “Wow, wow, I can not accept people who are mean-spirited. You really hurt me, I’m a sensitive guy…” He demanded an apology, in which I did give but the frustration of having to communicate with someone so “sensitive” is not part of my ability.

“How do you know that my impatience is no different than being overweight?” I asked, tears coming to me. “How do you know that this is not a similar struggle and no less severe? How do you know I don’t have ADHD or general anxiety?”

“I didn’t say you had ADD,” he hissed, and that’s when I let it out. “Well I do, ask my father, I do and I take medication for it,” I said. I always imagined that if I let the cat out of the bag I would exhale and feel free, only I felt worse. I felt like I gave the guy more leverage now to have control over me.

I started to cry, real tears, and he seemed to not understand why. “It’s not the worst of things,” he said. “I don’t think any less of you.” “No matter how hard I try, it doesn’t work,” I said. “I’m in this alone.” Earlier I had asked him for help on prioritizing my life, and he agreed but in the same way that one agrees to do something for a relative. Sometimes you just do it, like it or not.

He’s right in that it somehow doesn’t feel like dating, but more like a competitive tennis match, a power struggle, and ultimately we both feel sorry for each other. He hailed a cab for me but added in the line that, “What you did really hurt me tonight, and I’m sorry that you are so impatient and abrupt. I have many choices on who I can date, I’m not desperate.” For someone who studies the Bible, it did not feel genuine at all, it felt like it was coming out of both of the the pagans, and I felt disturbed rather than freed.

My Sister's Keeper

We're bonded by blood, but also disorder. Hers is the visible, physical kind, while mine—adult ADHD—is a mental health condition that's often misunderstood. The reality is both disorders are chronic and disruptive.

I finally agreed to see “My Sister's Keeper” with the sister.

I knew that it would be a tearjerker. I’d seen the trailers and previews. I hate tearjerkers because they leave me feeling emotionally naked, and this flick was too close to home.

I was diagnosed with adult attention deficit disorder at age 30, and, to this day, loved ones sometimes slip into a familiar lecture that it’s not ADHD, that I simply need to shape up and grow up. My sister, who is seven years my junior, was born with renal failure. By the age of 12 she’d had two kidney transplants and at least a dozen other operations. For years she was hooked up to a dialysis machine, and our very existence centered on her survival.

Looking back, it is ironic that we are two sisters who are bonded by blood, but also disorder. And the reality is that both disorders have interrupted our lives and are chronic.

My sister’s suffering is as visible as the scars she bears. My earliest memories are of her being rushed to the hospital. If it happened at night, I was told by the parents to go back to sleep and later someone would come home. There were no babysitters or family members to watch over me. I had to fend for myself so I stayed awake. I let my mind run like wild mustangs, imagined all kinds of scenarios, a trip to Disneyworld, the search for a rainbow or a four-leaf clover. I was an underage insomniac, as alert as a watch dog for fear that someone would snatch me if I dozed off.

The seriousness of the sister’s illness did not hit me as a child. As a child I just knew she received many gifts and the sort of attention that I could only dream of. The severity of the situation should have crossed my mind earlier. She did not walk until she was three, and for many years my family chased after Sherpas, shamans, priests, and healers to take away her albatross. We were groupies at the Grace ‘N Vessels healing concerts, and my parents once scrapped a much-anticipated trip to Disney World to visit Billy Graham’s Crystal Cathedral instead. If the great Billy Graham couldn’t heal her, then who could?

Having a sick child in the family impacts everyone. There is more than one victim. To this day I fear the phone calls that I occasionally receive from the father or stepmother saying, “We have to bring your sister to the hospital,” and then click. After that I can’t reach a soul. The speed dialing goes into my sister’s voicemail. My heart skips a beat and my first thought is always that she is dead. Usually it is an infection, a muscle spasm, something not life threatening—and yet for her loved ones, it is an emotional roller coaster. For me it makes fighting with her hard. Our disagreements end quickly, as I usually apologize and say, “Life is too short, let’s just enjoy the moment.”

I look at the sister and sometimes wonder if I would swap illnesses with her. She is healthy now, but one never knows if she will need a third transplant. She is mentally and emotionally sound. She’s well organized and owns a pleasant, bubbly personality. She exudes confidence.

The sister is able to survive and thrive at a single job and company. She is not ashamed of who she is, while I hide behind the veil of an image: the colorful clothes, the jewelry, conversations that remain stilted and shallow, and, ultimately, fear of intimacy. The life that I’ve lived is, to a great extent, one that I’ve fashioned. It is checkered, a zig zag, but I’ve managed to survive on my own. Actually the sister and I are both survivors. There are no small feats.

The Fridge: A New Man in the Annals of Dating

I am back to the merry-go-round style of dating—one of the few predictable points in my adult ADHD life.

Despite the Adderall, despite making new friends who have adult attention deficit disorder, despite a bout of what I believe is depression, my search for love continues in the big bad city.

There is a new guy in my life. Not the Chef, but someone who is the antithesis of men I've previously dated. He is 5'4, chummy, and looks like a Cabbage Patch Kid. He is 49 years old and well organized, and has a solid and rather high-ranking job with the government. Not OCD-organized like Mr. Ph.D., but on task.

The Chef opened up his weekly social diary to me, and said I could pick and choose what I'd like to attend. He said I was a high priority so I should feel free to share, and that things are always negotiable. I could exhale, at least for now. I still feel the shame of running late with Mr. Ph.D.

Over sangrias and guacamole last Sunday I asked the new guy, who I will call the Refrigerator (after his compact frame), what was his secret to being super-organized. I batted my eyelashes and said, "I'm juggling eight balls in the air: swimming, dating, job searching, teaching swimming, family, friends, finding a calling in life, laundry, etc. Can you give me some advice, oh great one?"

He liked that and shared his rule of three. Never assume, things should always match, and always get it in writing. Things should match means that if a company says they pink-slipped people and they didn't add positions, but also says that they are growing their staff, it makes no sense, so be wary.

I chomped on the chips and guacamole and drank some more, and thought about what he said. It made sense. The better the communication at the start, the more time it saves. I think I might be able to grow to like the guy, even though his touch tickles me and has the feel of a mosquito on flesh.

And so I've been sucked into this vortex of finding love, and wanting it badly because the few single girlfriends I have are either engaged or close to being so. The Refrigerator seems to have something to offer, even though we've only known each other for six weeks. And he's already asked me to go away for a vacation over July 4th, and I've agreed. Vegas, Atlantic City, Iceland, Paris, or Miami.

The impulsivity in me kicked in, and once again I felt at home.

Back with the Folks: Adult ADHD Is the Career Culprit

The dad’s lecturing aside, it seems I’m unable to conduct a strategic job search from step one to 10. Having attention deficit disorder, I am skipping around like a broken record, instead.

For an ADHDer, a basic job search is as hard as stopping a freight train moving at high speed. Sure I will shoot out a CV here and there, and I’m still teaching at the swim school, but to be honest I have yet to get my act together.

I’m having difficulties conquering the task of applying for a real job with financial stability and healthcare. At times I want to tear out my hair and burst into tears, and then ultimately I feel unlovable when this happens. Who could love or even like someone like me? I wonder.

My latest complaint is that Gotham is not kind to people with ADHD. There is the constant jarring noise of big city life. At night I fall asleep to sirens and awake to them, the subways are a mess of people, here and there and everywhere. I have spacial issues; I feel like I am tackling a jigsaw puzzle every time I try to squeeze myself into a packed subway car. The apartment I share with my roommates is falling apart. Garbage often litters the entrance, the occasional roach surfaces, and the sink is stacked with dishes encrusted with last week’s meals.

In a bit of rage and, perhaps, depression, I went home yesterday to the father and stepmother. Over breakfast the father said that there are things I must change. I need to move appointments ahead by 15 minutes in my planner, in case I’m running behind, I need to speak slower, and I need to learn to negotiate with people and men, versus taking the "yes" or "no" approach.

I said that I was trying, but it is twice as hard for people with ADHD. He compared my situation to that of a fat person. It is hard to lose weight but people do it. I said I'd rather be fat than live with ADHD. I can’t get rid of the latter—it is chronic and its impact has prevented me from having successful relationships and a career. It is a lifelong albatross.

Once again I felt like I was talking to a rock or speaking a language that no one understands. The father exploded and said, if I have that attitude then I should marry a wealthy man, do very little in my life, and get a maid.

"I won't be around forever," he said, tears of frustration in his eyes. He later apologized and said that tackling ADHD was as frustrating and complex as smoking out bin Laden. The enemy is invisible but always in the backdrop.

He shifted the topic into what he thought was a more constructive one. If there were an issue with my doing the dishes, I should just use disposable utensils and plates. Fine, I said. He didn't even seem to understand that this time I was not the culprit.

And that is what living with ADHD feels like at times, always being the scapegoat and having to say, "You're right, let me try harder next time."