Her most recent post is called ADHD Relationship Communication Fears and Flaws. It got me thinking of the gifts and challenges brought to relationships by [...]]]> I was recently checking out ADDitude Magazine’s bloggers. It turns out one of their bloggers is a highly-educated 30-something woman who’s bounced around a lot, jobwise. A kindred spirit!

Her most recent post is called ADHD Relationship Communication Fears and Flaws. It got me thinking of the gifts and challenges brought to relationships by adults with attention deficit disorder. What struck me about it was the following:

“If intuition is such a powerful gift then why do I feel that on one hand my intuition is as sharp as a dog’s, and on the other hand it is totally off base… I try hard to communicate to them [boyfriend and boss] my needs, but the harder I try the greater of a mess it becomes.”

This is something that mystified me for years. I’m incredibly sensitive to others’ moods, and yet I find conversation excruciatingly difficult — especially with strangers, or when I’m trying to communicate my own needs. If I’m so intuitive, this kind of thing should be easy, right?

Well, no, it isn’t.

In the book “4 Weeks to An Organized Life with ADD” (which I swear I will get around to reviewing on Well-Ordered Chaos) the authors discuss the challenges of being a “right-brained” person, as many with ADD are. While we are attuned to the moods of others, we are also more likely to personalize them — to think, for example, that if someone is in a bad mood it’s because of something we did. We’re also more likely to be overwhelmed by intuitive inputs in social situations.

I think this is exactly what Jane is describing. She writes that she and her long-distance boyfriend are having some trouble; he’s an MD, with fixed schedule and vacations, and truly limited time to spend with her. Her needs are not being met, but when she tries to tell him so, she tightens up. She gets so stressed that she begins to sound angrier than she really is. He withdraws. In spite of the fact that he “can see a future” with her, he is unwilling or unable to call during the week, or send cards, or otherwise tell her what she needs to hear: “Jane I love you, you are great and we will find a way to work things out”.

I don’t know either person in this couple, but what Jane has described reminds me of so many conversations I’ve seen and experienced in which communication is derailed by what people hear instead of what people say.

As I mentioned above, people with ADHD are more likely to absorb the feelings of others, we’re more likely to read negativity into others feelings towards us, and we’re likely to get overwhelmed by these things. And, let’s be real here, we’re also more likely to start formulating a response in our heads before the other person is done talking. All of these things keep us from reacting to what we hear instead of what’s being said.

It took a long (LONG) time to get the hang of this. What finally made it click was doing some coursework in community organizing and anti-racism. That work consists of some seriously heavy conversations about race, religion, economic class, and gender. I was lucky that the teacher/facilitator of the was truly excellent; she was able to allow each participant to speak and respond to one other in a safe, supportive environment, and I learned some of my life’s great lessons from her.

I had had plenty of difficult conversations myself by that time. I’m married after all. But what I’d never done before was to observe someone else negotiate an emotionally volatile conversation. I noticed immediately that certain conversations were more charged than others. In these conversations, one participant was reacting to what she thought she heard, or what she wanted to hear — in these cases, the other person inevitably became frustrated and angry.

In these cases, the facilitator would not intervene. At first I was terrified by all the anger and sadness floating around the room; wouldn’t somebody say something — anything — to diffuse the situation? And if nobody else would, shouldn’t I? But I held my peace, and in doing so learned one of the most valuable lessons of my life: that I am not responsible for what other people feel. I can listen to them tell me how they feel, I can communicate that it’s OK for them to feel that, but I can’t “fix” it.

My next observation came from the conversations that went well. I noticed that a surefire way to diffuse rising tension was to respond by simply telling the other person what you’re hearing them say. This is beneficial for many reasons. Even if you’re hearing the other person incorrectly, it will communicate that you are nonetheless making an effort to understand them. It also provides the other person feedback for how they come across — perhaps angrier or less respectful than they meant to be. And of course, it offers an opportunity to clarify what the person actually <i>is</i> saying. If, on the other hand, you <i>are</i> hearing the other person correctly, you are validating them by aknowleging that you understand them.

Getting back to Jane and her boyfriend, it seems entirely possible to me that Jane might be saying “I need to hear that you love me” and her boyfriend, for whatever reason, is hearing “you neglect me” or “we don’t spend enough time together” or “I am angry with you”. Likewise, when the boyfriend says that he’s tired after a long day being a doctor, Jane might be hearing “You’re not important to me” or “this relationship is a much lower priority than my job”. From my comfy seat on the virtual sidelines, it seems to me that they could both use some coaching to help them describe what they hear their partners saying.

Active listening is skill worth learning by anyone. But I think it’s of particular benefit for people with ADD. For various reasons, not least of which is our intuition, we don’t tend to have great boundaries. We feel too much of what others feel, and take too much upon ourselves. When someone in our lives is angry, we take a mental inventory of everything we’ve done that day to see if maybe they’re pissed because we left the milk out.

One of the best gifts I’ve given myself is the ability to say to my partner, “You seem angry right now. Is it because of something I did?”

Because what I’ve learned is that most of the time, the answer is “no”.