Advice for dating people with ADHD and/or Autism

opalescent

Active member
So I've been struggling with some of Whip's behaviors. He really, really does not think at all like I do. He has ADHD and possibly a much less severe form of autism although I do not believe the latter has been confirmed by a doctor. Much of the behavior is in the 'mildly annoying' range like his propensity not to make appointments. Others are painful and difficult for me to deal with. He does or doesn't do things that make me feel ignored or not heard or just exhausted. It's not on purpose.

I would love other people's perspectives on dating someone with these conditions. I've done some reading and will do more but the general research sof far has not helped me much in how to adapt, how to manage my reactions better.

So, to people who are dating folks with the various types of ADHD and/or autism, how do you cope? How to understand better? How to communicate better? Any helpful techniques on, well, anything on this topic? Anything I should read? (I have read some of the websites other folks suggest via blogs and such but more recommendations are not a bad thing.)

And to folks with these conditions, please tell me what helped you communicate to others what your life is like, how to understand you better, or whatever else you think you want someone dating you should know.

Thank you!
 
Unfortunately everyone is unique. This is true for every relationship as well.

Autism is a broad term to indicate that the individual either can't or won't conform to social norms. Not that they have a choice, but that their neuronal wiring may actually prevent them from even understanding said norms even exist.

Autism is characterized as a disorder but at the higher levels of functioning it may be more apt to say it is a personality type than anything else. Can you describe some of W's behaviors? It's tough to speak broadly of an entire spectrum without concrete points to anchor the discussion.

I've always been worried I was mildly autistic, and others have pointed out I may be as well. One of the things I have done to cope is to treat life like a giant video game or role playing game (which insults some people I talk to!), and my goal is to ferret out the hidden game mechanics to allow me to maximize my score, minimize the damage I take, and allow me to level up and progress to the next level and stage.

Years of doing this have allowed me to internalize some of the process so that I may actually appear normal, but for the most part I feel like a photographer wearing a humanoid robot exoskeleton reviewing recorded footage to improve the performance of the pilot of said robot, which happens to be another personality than the photographer. The pilot is trying to maximize the sensations (vision, smell, sight, touch) while controlling the robot while the photographer is directing the pilot with meta-game instructions.

If this sounds totally bizarre to you, then welcome to my world. Sometimes the world seems totally bizarre to me.
 
... One of the things I have done to cope is to treat life like a giant video game or role playing game (which insults some people I talk to!), and my goal is to ferret out the hidden game mechanics to allow me to maximize my score, minimize the damage I take, and allow me to level up and progress to the next level and stage.

In reading this, it occurs to me that you might like one of my favorite books:
Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse

IIRC - the goal of finite games is to win, while the goal of infinite games is to continue the game...
 
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No experience with autism, but I have had experience with ADD. You are on the right track in realizing that the not hearing you, not paying attention is not on purpose. I think there are two important things off the top: one is his desire to develop compensatory coping skills, and the other is your desire to trial and error with him until you find what works.

My love and I had this running joke: I'd say, "I told you about that two days ago," and he'd respond, "was I listening?" But that exchange really is telling. You can't walk up, start a conversation and expect him to automatically tune in; he had to consciously tune in. Even then while he was getting up to speed, sometimes he would tell me to start over because he'd missed the first few sentences. So it takes effort and awareness on both people's parts. He has to realize he has responsibility to speak up if he isn't following and you have to be patient about repeating.

Sometimes, it's good to be blatant, "This is important, so I need you to pay attention. Are you ready?"
 
The main thing is for the person with the condition to acknowledge what they do is not conducive to maintaining relationships and take steps towards avoiding those behaviors. It's hard and you have to want to do it. When you do, people around you seem more tolerant and even seem to admire the unusual traits you have.
 
I feel you Opalescent, I have been there, more than once in fact and I now realise that I just cannot do it again, this last time was a kick in the arse for me I need someone in my life who can focus and not need to be micro managed in how to relate to another human all the time.

I am afraid I can't give you tools for coping, I just wanted to commiserate.
 
I seem to have the karma of having multiple family members who are on the autism spectrum.

I never understood my dad until 15 or so years ago when autism became more prevelant or more often diagnosed. I found an online test and took it as if I were him, and, bingo!

My sister and I used to call him the mechanical man. He was much more interested in cars and other mechanical things like our camper and other camping gear, than in us and our emotions and needs. My mom was neurotypical and used to "translate" Dad for us, when my sister and I didn't feel he loved us. She passed away 5 years ago and it's been rather bloody hell caring for him now in his 80s, especially because of his Asperger's. He's turned off all the friendships my mom carefully nurtured for decades with his socially inappropriate behavior. My sister drives across the state to care for him once a month (they are down in Fla, I am far north in Mass). She's begged him to move to her town but he won't. He doesn't care how much work it is for her to drive 150 miles to do his laundry, change his sheets, grocery shop and cook. He also resists the idea of a home care worker, he's so rigid.

A niece of mine on my ex h's side has 2 autistic sons. They are young teens now and got lots of special ed which has helped a lot with their communication skills.

Now, of course, my bf Ginger is Aspie. So is his wife and their 2 twentysomething sons.

All people with this condition are unique of course. Sheldon on Big Bang Theory is a bit of a caricature. Ginger is quite different from Sheldon and so is his family! They are more or less radical hippies, social norms do not affect them much. Ginger and his boys ID as genderqueer. Unlike Sheldon, Ginger loves sex.

I think the most common trait I have seen is a tendency to not say "I love you." Also the Aspies I know become EXTREMELY focused on an interest, tuning everything else out. They can also monologue instead of having a back and forth conversation. They also tend more towards emphasizing logic over emotions (Sheldon loving Spock is an example).

I get frustrated with Ginger when we try to discuss more sensitive topics in chat (Aspies tend to love their computers). He's better in person because he loves to hold me and cuddle and sex me to show he cares. He's better at that than saying it in words. He also does acts of service.

He and his family (and my dad) HATE gift giving. Especially at holidays. They will sometimes surprise you with a gift which is given for a logical reason.

I tell you, I am so glad I am poly because I can get emotions that I understand from miss p, and tons of sex from Ginger!

Read the Curious Case of the Dog in the Nighttime, a novel written from an autistic teenager's POV. It's eye opening.
 
The funny thing about Sheldon is that the writers of The Big Bang Theory have never said he is autistic or thought of him as autistic. The actor, Jim Parsons, however, read the autobiography of someone with autism and harnessed the character through the knowledge he gained.
 
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I feel you Opalescent, I have been there, more than once in fact and I now realise that I just cannot do it again, this last time was a kick in the arse for me I need someone in my life who can focus and not need to be micro managed in how to relate to another human all the time.

I am afraid I can't give you tools for coping, I just wanted to commiserate.

The funny think about autistm/adhd is that the problems stem from too much, not enough, focus. The hard part is steering said focus.

Which is why I brought up video games and role playing games. The secret to winning said games is to ferret out the secret rules the creators set up.

Then the question is if whip has the willingness to do so, as well.

What I know of ADHD isn't so much that a person can't focus, it's that if they get distracted they lose focus. Likewise that they can tend to focus too much on something irrelevant, to the point that it seems like they are distracted when told to focus on something else.

An example; one of my co-workers was diagnosed ADHD and copes by hyperfocusing on weather (he's got apps, a weather station at home, and such), but does so in a way that lets him satisfy his need to focus on weather (he can glance at his phone any time he wants to know the weather in a dozen places!), which lets him then concentrate on his actual work and such.

My wife and daughter seem to hyperfocus too, in that they can clearly not hear me when I talk to them, so I have been trying to reduce the number of interactions to boost the signal, using handshaking protocols to synchronize the communication channel, and then introducing error correcting codes and redundancy into the signal to reduce the error rate.

See, that's me turning life into a game with a set of rules so I can master them.
 
My wife and daughter seem to hyperfocus too, in that they can clearly not hear me when I talk to them, so I have been trying to reduce the number of interactions to boost the signal, using handshaking protocols to synchronize the communication channel, and then introducing error correcting codes and redundancy into the signal to reduce the error rate.

My coworkers and I are a bunch of engineer types, so I see this regularly. Spock's got it right (although I had to laugh to myself as I instantly thought of an old Hayes modem when I read his description). Even from my end, if I don't think of it as rules in a game, I know there are certain signals that let me know that I will NOT be listened to if I talk now (or even heard). If my boss is not looking at you, he isn't hearing you, period.

Recognizing those "tells" may be something you can do on your end, which may lead you into being able to steer a particular situation in the right direction for you to be able to communicate. Good luck. Some of my coworkers are just personalities you learn to deal with.
 
You have to want to do that, though. I find myself very reluctant to adjust my behavior to pander to what I term stupid neurotypical insecurcities which makes me somewhat unpopular.
 
My coworkers and I are a bunch of engineer types, so I see this regularly. Spock's got it right (although I had to laugh to myself as I instantly thought of an old Hayes modem when I read his description). Even from my end, if I don't think of it as rules in a game, I know there are certain signals that let me know that I will NOT be listened to if I talk now (or even heard). If my boss is not looking at you, he isn't hearing you, period.

Recognizing those "tells" may be something you can do on your end, which may lead you into being able to steer a particular situation in the right direction for you to be able to communicate. Good luck. Some of my coworkers are just personalities you learn to deal with.

That was an intentional tell on my part because some of the people I talk to wouldn't understand (they think it, as London puts it, as pandering) unless I can couch it in a way that captures the problem and solves it.

And I figured out maybe a decade ago that a lot of people who struggle playing video games do so because they don't think mechanically enough.

1) Wait for behavior A, respond with behavior B (behavior B is tough for some people)
2) Behavior B triggers behavior C, react with behavior D
3) Behavior D triggers behavior A; repeat and defeat boss

Like, it blew my mind watching my son do this playing Skyward Sword at the age of 4 (he's only 5 now!) Actually, what blew my mind was that he had discovered an entirely different set of behaviors to get what he wants out of the game.

Now he isn't skilled enough to regularly defeat bosses that way, but normal monsters are up his alley.

So now instead you want to do this in the real world.
 
As far as "pandering" to neurotypicals goes, Ginger tells me he has become less Aspie as a result of (maybe maturation, he's 61 and also) advocating for his 2 sons in the public school system. He didn't have the luxury, like london does here, of just telling typicals to go fuck themselves. He had to learn to imagine how the typicals were thinking to do what they were doing to his sons, that was harming his sons, and come up with ways to satisfy both parties, reducing harm and helping his sons, and letting teachers and admins hold on to their dignity.

There was an incident in the hallway with one son when he was about 8 and EXTREMELY attached to his backpack that became very ugly, for example.

I sometimes wonder how london can make a living as a midwife, since birth is such an emotional transition. Unless you're the OB-GYN drug 'em and tell 'em to lie back and think of England sort.
 
As far as "pandering" to neurotypicals goes, Ginger tells me he has become less Aspie as a result of (maybe maturation, he's 61 and also) advocating for his 2 sons in the public school system. He didn't have the luxury, like london does here, of just telling typicals to go fuck themselves. He had to learn to imagine how the typicals were thinking to do what they were doing to his sons, that was harming his sons, and come up with ways to satisfy both parties, reducing harm and helping his sons, and letting teachers and admins hold on to their dignity.

It's tough though, I can understand how a teacher can lose patience after dealing with dozens of kids a day after having to deal with my own two kids for a weekend.

There was an incident in the hallway with one son when he was about 8 and EXTREMELY attached to his backpack that became very ugly, for example.

Oh, I've seen a smattering of that with my son; carrying a Captain America shield everywhere, taking it to school, sleeping with it, etc. The thing is that I know then I can take advantage of his proclivity to 'role play' as a vector to introduce neurotypical thoughts if he is having problems with it.

He's gone through Thor, Captain America, Link, Sonic, Mario, and Luigi phases so far.
 
Ha many people had similar fears. Actually, because I can have this sort of detachment, it helps me be a good midwife. I don't think about how much I like the people, or feel any kind of emotional attachment to those who for whatever reason are "like me". I just look at each women and their families and think how to best meet their holistic needs. To do that, I have to form a bond with them. You can read a book or two on ways to form positive bonds with people using verbal and non verbal communication. I'm not socialising in the workplace, I'm working. I work to the standards set by my profession. I just follow the rules.

I also have to deal with neurotypical people every day. I often need stuff from them. That's why I'm forced to operate in a way they can cope with or I won't get what I need. That's what I meant by one having to want to change; there has to be an incentive. The incentive might be a negative consequence for not communicating in a way that the other person can deal with.

You're right though, the rare occasions that I can just say fuck off, I do.
 
I'm trying desperately to hone what I'm saying in relation to this thread. Okay, basically, in my opinion as an autistic person and the mother of an autistic child, if you're unhappy with your relationship with an autistic person but you continue to meet the needs they have of you, it doesn't give us any reason to change. If we get sick of you complaining about it, we'll just distance ourselves.

You see, logic says that you can't be that unhappy about the things you complain about if you keep putting up with them. Why would you do that? I wouldn't repeat an action that makes me feel negatively or stay somewhere that doesn't make me happy, so things can't be that bad for you. Change is really hard for me and not something I particularly want to do unless I feel that it's absolutely crucial, which is hard to do if I additionally feel that the thing you want is a wee bit stupid. So a negative consequence such as you meeting less of my needs when I'm not pulling my weight in the relationship is the only way I'm going to be encouraged to either do more or have less. Of course, the gamble is that we might decide we can live perfectly well with less from you. But if that is the case, it's better out in the open as soon as possible, for your sake.

This sounds rather cold, like I only give to receive, and it is kind of like that. I, personally, do like to make the people I care about happy and sometimes the inventive for me going that little bit extra to meet their needs is simply their happiness. Sometimes, I'll be forced to change and the effort surprisingly gets me heaps back because those I changed for are so much happier to embrace my idiosyncrasies. Having lots of positive experiences with changing how you relate to people, learning how to communicate differently and consequently getting your needs met or otherwise enhancing your life encourages you to be more willing to adapt in the future.

I don't think that the idea of giving to receive is such a bad concept in relationships. We're forever telling people that they should look at whether their needs are being met as well as whether they are efficiently meeting needs. I don't see how that differs.
 
I'm trying desperately to hone what I'm saying in relation to this thread. Okay, basically, in my opinion as an autistic person and the mother of an autistic child, if you're unhappy with your relationship with an autistic person but you continue to meet the needs they have of you, it doesn't give us any reason to change. If we get sick of you complaining about it, we'll just distance ourselves.

I don't think that's a problem. I mean, I understand what you're talking about.

The problem in this case is that opal hasn't created the necessary understanding either. Relationships are two-way streets and both sides need to meet at a satisfactory middle.

You see, logic says that you can't be that unhappy about the things you complain about if you keep putting up with them. Why would you do that? I wouldn't repeat an action that makes me feel negatively or stay somewhere that doesn't make me happy, so things can't be that bad for you. Change is really hard for me and not something I particularly want to do unless I feel that it's absolutely crucial, which is hard to do if I additionally feel that the thing you want is a wee bit stupid. So a negative consequence such as you meeting less of my needs when I'm not pulling my weight in the relationship is the only way I'm going to be encouraged to either do more or have less. Of course, the gamble is that we might decide we can live perfectly well with less from you. But if that is the case, it's better out in the open as soon as possible, for your sake.

This is pretty frank, and not conducive to growing an existing relationship. If you're at level 1 and want to get to level 10 you will need to put more effort than that. I mean, that's always the gamble, that the relationship falls apart altogether.

Relationships are a bit like plants and need constant upkeep just to stay alive. The question is whether you're a cactus or a hydrangea.

This sounds rather cold, like I only give to receive, and it is kind of like that. I, personally, do like to make the people I care about happy and sometimes the inventive for me going that little bit extra to meet their needs is simply their happiness. Sometimes, I'll be forced to change and the effort surprisingly gets me heaps back because those I changed for are so much happier to embrace my idiosyncrasies. Having lots of positive experiences with changing how you relate to people, learning how to communicate differently and consequently getting your needs met or otherwise enhancing your life encourages you to be more willing to adapt in the future.

True, and some of this goes back to opal's OP:
Others are painful and difficult for me to deal with. He does or doesn't do things that make me feel ignored or not heard or just exhausted. It's not on purpose.

I don't think that the idea of giving to receive is such a bad concept in relationships. We're forever telling people that they should look at whether their needs are being met as well as whether they are efficiently meeting needs. I don't see how that differs.


opal isn't really trying to change whip but come up with the necessary coping mechanisms on the assumption that he is trying, even if he is failing.

Not being neurotypical myself, I can't really give her coping mechanisms per se, but can explain some of the behaviors I engage in, and have coped with around me. I can't really be that autistic since I can pretend to be human, and it's something my brother has said himself; he is a robot stranded on Earth.

The thing to take away is that whip is possibly an alien robot, stranded on Earth, trying to simulate being as human as possible to reduce the loneliness of being here until he passes.

Which sounds horrible to anyone not in love with him, possibly, except that opal is in love with him. Something in him is human enough to trigger her love response, and enough for him to at least try to reciprocate.
 
I also believe I have ADHD (probably without the H), and I am also a midwife. London, I absolutely get what you say about how being somewhat unattached allows us to be more present for the woman and family. Many times, we are witnessing women in great pain and we need to remain detached from that and not get caught up in "fixing" that for her. It is simply part of the process, and while I can offer some ideas for comfort, I cant take it away. I have to accept that. But you are right, that when we decide to focus on them, we can absolutely make the connection needed in the moment. It's just not necessarily how we approach the relationship all the time.

I would probably need to ask my partners how they handle dealing with me. Sometimes its fine, sometimes not so fine. My BF also has ADHD tendencies, and he and I really "get" each other in ways that I dont share with my husband. BF and I have some similar behaviors that could be interpreted as OCD and also anxieties.

I definitely often dont hear the first part of a conversation. When people talk to me, I often ask them to repeat themselves. Sometimes, as soon as I ask them to, I suddenly "remember" what they said. It's interesting, at best.

Reminders are good for me. I resent them. But I also realize I do need them. Sometimes even with reminders, I still dont get it done. Honestly, right now I am doing my best, which unfortunately doesnt always meet everyone's needs.

Opalescent, things that work for me are having lists, in writing, that I can refer back to when I dont remember things we agreed to, or discussed. Calendars with reminders. And patience from my partners. Yes, I am exasperating. But like you said, not on purpose. It is hard to be us, and we definitely know that we come across as not being as organized (which we often arent) or as capable (which we most often ARE)...

Hope that helps a bit...

Willow
 
Dr. Hallowell has a book on having romantic relationships with someone who has ADHD. I havent read it. I have read other books by him regarding dealing with ADHD and found them very helpful.
I will consider your question and write more from a comPuter soon.
 
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