When Chaos Wrecks Companionship — ADHD and Intimacy
Intellectual Intercourse
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There are many common misconceptions about Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Perhaps the most pernicious myth is it doesn’t exist, and it’s all a scheme by pharmaceutical companies to make more money. The existence of Martin Shkreli doesn’t negate reality and scientific evidence.
We’ve seen the differences in brain scans between people with ADHD and those without. Then there’s the claim that people don’t need the medication. Bullshit. What about the idea people with ADHD are lazy and just need to try harder? That’s more bovine fecal matter.
Some people point to rising ADHD rates as “proof” it’s being overdiagnosed. While there may or may not be environmental factors increasing the prevalence of ADHD, it mostly boils down to the fact we are better at detecting it. In fact, underdiagnosis might be more of an issue, especially in women and girls. And that’s not just a slight inconvenience.
Undiagnosed and untreated ADHD increases a person’s risk of depression, anxiety, and drug addiction. One of the root causes of undiagnosed ADHD in women and girls is a false impression that ADHD is only hyperactive “boys-being-boys” behavior and all that’s needed is more discipline — which usually translates to spanking. Spanking kids, in general, is a bad idea, and corporal punishment is more likely to increase misbehavior in kids with ADHD.
But what about the “positive” side of ADHD? Attempts to link ADHD to higher or lower intelligence are not only wrong but harmful either way. While it might sound paradoxical to a disorder with “Attention Deficit” in the name, a common symptom of ADHD is hyperfocus, an intense concentration on one task to the exclusion of all else. That might sound like a good thing.
Being able to focus on one task sounds like an efficient way to work. If that task is something like writing an article on ADHD, it means finishing it faster, right? Not quite. In this case, it meant the project ballooning into something larger than I intended and taking longer than expected.
It also meant ignoring the growing pile of laundry for several days and having to do an emergency load of laundry at 3 AM so my kid could have pants to wear to school.
Still, I got it done. I have something to show for it. But I enjoy writing. It’s fun. ADHD people don’t regularly hyperfocus on things they find boring. (I’ve yet to hyperfocus on my taxes.)
While writing this, I ignored a ghostwriting project that has become dull — and that’s the thing that’s actually paying me. I also enjoy video games and can lose hours of a day trying to get every achievement in Stardew Valley. (And still not get the laundry done.)
When you move past all the myths, misconceptions, and misunderstandings, what you have left is a disorder that ranges in severity from “I lose my keys a lot” to “I feel like I’m a barely functional human-shaped object with depression, anxiety, and a higher likelihood of fatal car crashes.” While some people do “grow out of” ADHD, it’s more likely to follow you into adulthood and affect adult relationships.
Your Love Language Is Interrupting People
ADHD can make managing intimate relationships especially fraught. Many of its symptoms look like the warning signs of a bad partner:
- Interrupting and talking over you.
- Not paying attention to what you’re saying.
- Forgetting things you tell them.
- Acting impulsively.
- Having a low frustration threshold, and more.
Navigating these relationships can be difficult but not impossible, especially if you understand the issues. I was finally diagnosed with ADHD in the last half of 2021. After my diagnosis, I was talking with my wife. I’d forgotten … something. I can’t remember what exactly. (How ADHD, right?) But I said to her, “I hope you know it’s not that these things aren’t important to me, but I just can’t remember them sometimes.”
Her response, “I do now,” shows how understanding ADHD symptoms changes how someone looks at a relationship.
Romance writer Roxie Noir (she/her) and her husband both have ADHD, which can be a struggle.
Both of us have a bad tendency to say we’ll do something, and then three weeks later realize that it hasn’t gotten done — not because we were lying about our intentions, but because we’re both completely time-blind and truly think we said that yesterday.
Time Agnosia, or time blindness, is a common ADHD symptom. It makes it much more difficult to prioritize tasks, note the passage of time, or figure out how long a specific task should take.
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Elizabeth Snow (she/her) is in a relationship like Roxie’s, where both partners have ADHD. Her and her partner’s symptoms are different, though. “He has a harder time keeping track of things, so I handle the finances. I have a harder time breaking things down into small manageable pieces, so he helps keep me grounded.”
And while there are some advantages to their differences, that also comes with additional challenges.
Organization is one of my coping mechanisms, and it’s something he’s pretty much literally incapable of. He can’t put things away in the kitchen in the same places each time, so he isn’t allowed to empty the dishwasher. It stresses me out. I have to go in and rearrange the spice rack and pantry every couple of weeks because he doesn’t pay attention to where things “live.”
But since she’s been rearranging the spice rack for almost two decades, they’ve figured out how to make it work. Snow says, “I’ve had to intentionally keep the ADHD in mind and remind myself of all the ways he has to be patient with me.”
Having been in a much less functional relationship where both partners had ADHD, Chel (they/them) has some advice on what did and didn’t work. If your ADHD causes issues, you must work with your partner. “Because I guarantee you, we don’t WANT to be mad at you when mess-ups happen, I promise. Everyone has to be willing to recognize what’s happening, why, and how to change the approach to different things.
But communication is a two-way street. They stress that partners of people with ADHD must clearly communicate their feelings and needs. “If there IS an issue with something, it cannot be fixed by beating around the bush or staying silent. If something bugs you, TALK about it.” They also suggest that if your partner gives you links on ADHD,
Please, click and read them, or watch the video, or whatever it is. Because we are basically saying, “THIS! THIS IS ME TOO!” We won’t always be able to articulate clearly what our brain is doing and why, so it’s helpful to refer to outside resources. I’ll also say: please bookmark them and refer to them often, for our sake because we likely won’t remember to.
If your partner sends you a link, it may be one of Cate Osborn’s (she/they) TikToks or an episode of their ADHD podcast. Osborn has ADHD and is a Certified Sex Educator specializing in how the disorder affects intimacy. People often tell them something like, ‘I just sat in bed and played your TikTok really loudly for my partner to hear.’ It might be a roundabout way of starting the conversation, but it is a start.
When Osborn began discussing what it’s like navigating relationships and intimacy with ADHD, they quickly discovered an underserved population desperate for information.
Every single time I do a video about ADHD and orgasms, I get ten thousand comments. I get a thousand emails. And it’s all people saying the same thing, which is, nobody has ever told them this before. “I’ve never heard of this.” “You are the first person to say this.” “You just saved my relationship.” “I understand my partner so much more now.”
That’s why Osborn chose to focus their sexual education efforts on the disorder that robs so many people of focus.
I started talking about it because nobody else was. There’s been a lot of research done, but the research isn’t being disseminated. A lot of doctors are still very out of date in terms of their fundamental understanding of what ADHD is and how ADHD affects people, especially sexually.
Then questions started rolling in. Now with 1.5 million followers on TikTok, the number of questions has increased dramatically, but one thing has remained the same.
“The answer to about eighty to ninety percent of comments and questions I receive is ‘Have you tried talking to your partner?’” Osborn is aware it can be harder than it sounds. “A lot of people are raised in this way where communicating needs is just not a thing. It’s not a thing that we talk about.”
Then there’s the fact that “a lot of people with ADHD, and neurodivergent people in general, sometimes struggle to articulate their emotions. They can also struggle to understand what those emotions are doing in their body — a sense called interoception.”
Interoception is the awareness of your body’s internal processes, especially the interplay between emotional states and physical reactions.
Even though there are complications, it doesn’t change the fact that the solution to many relationship issues starts with talking with your partner. “I run into this a lot, especially when people feel like their partner doesn’t appreciate them.” Osborn offered a perhaps only slightly fictionalized example of how that conversation plays out.
DM: I want my partner to hug me and tell me that he loves me every night before we go to bed, but he doesn’t do that. What should I do?
Osborn: Have you asked him to hug you and tell you that he loves you every night before bed?
DM: I could never do that. That’s so embarrassing.
Osborn: But how would your partner know that you want that unless you communicate that?
DM: Well, he should just know.
Osborn: Why should he just know?
DM: Because he loves me.
Osborn: That’s great, but love involves communication.
Osborn tries to get people to understand that:
Communication is absolutely vital in any relationship, but especially in a neurodivergent relationship where you might have two different neuro types, two different types of brains in a relationship, and — spoilers — nobody is a mind-reader. So, learning how to vulnerably and respectfully communicate, advocate for yourself, and articulate your needs is really important.
But there’s a significant roadblock to communication that goes hand in hand with ADHD: Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD). “Rejection sensitivity is an extremely strong, emotional reaction to rejection — and this is the important part — real or perceived,” explains Osborn. “The perceived rejection often affects people with ADHD the most.”
This goes beyond just being turned down or broken up with. Actual rejection hurts, and RSD intensifies that. But it also makes even the gentlest criticism or critique feel like an attack. And someone expressing even a minor frustration so that you can fix a problem feels like they’re saying you’re worthless. We’re still not sure exactly why RSD happens or why it is almost universal among those with ADHD.
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“The current hypothesis and understanding are that Rejection Sensitivity is a collection of traumas. We call that trauma reaction Rejection Sensitivity to give it a name and give us a baseline to discuss it.” Osborn compares it to how we take a collection of physical symptoms — runny nose, sore throat, fever — and give it a single name — the flu — instead of listing all the possible symptoms each time. “It’s like that with Rejection Sensitivity. It’s ‘I worry about stuff.’ ‘I’m constantly over apologetic.’ ‘I’m looking out for rejection.’ ‘I’m seeing rejection where there is none.’ Those are all trauma responses.”
In a relationship, that can look like really struggling with criticism. It can look like constantly thinking that somebody is mad at you or feeling like you’ve done something wrong. It can just be the gut-punch of always assuming that you’re being rejected, or there is an inherent rejection in whatever criticism you’re getting.
It’s easy to see how RSD hinders effective communication. The ADHD/RDS brain turns, “Next time you make spaghetti sauce, can you use a little more salt, please” into “You’re a failure as a human being, and I want a divorce.” So many people with ADHD/RDS end up becoming people pleasers or giving up — neither is particularly healthy. But you have a better chance of recognizing the mental process and avoiding the behaviors if you can name it. There’s also some comfort to be found in knowing you’re not the only one.
Knowing Is Half the Battle
If you’re suddenly uncomfortable with how much this describes you, you’re not alone. People diagnosed with ADHD later in life, or those still learning about the symptoms, can have a lot of epiphanies about past and current behavior.
Roxie was diagnosed with ADHD when she was 29, several years after starting her relationship with her husband. “Learning about Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria has made some of my early 20s make more sense in terms of the anxiety I sometimes felt about our relationship.”
After 18 and ½ years together, she doesn’t wrestle with it as much when it comes to her husband, but she still feels it interacting with other people. “I really wish I didn’t. It’s so unpleasant to care that much about what other people think!”
Eliza S. (she/her) was 40 before being diagnosed with ADHD. She may never have been if she hadn’t read up on it when her daughter started having issues in kindergarten. “Suspecting she had it and researching it suddenly made so many things that felt like oddities to me make sense.”
She recalls a conversation with her now-husband when they’d just started dating.
I asked what he was thinking about, and he told me nothing. Not in a brush-off way; he was truly just laying still, enjoying the sun. It was a totally foreign concept to me that someone could just not be thinking of five or ten things at any given moment.
It didn’t just help her understand the ways her brain worked differently from her partner. After things ended in disaster at her last full-time job, she felt insecure. “It was a relief finding out that I wasn’t actually just a lazy procrastinator.”
She now knows that her ADHD made it impossible to do a task she wasn’t interested in without significant external pressure beyond just understanding the necessity. “It went a long way to making me feel validated and whole. I wasn’t just a fuck-up!”
Knowing she has ADHD has led Eliza to be kinder to herself “because things that I assigned a negative value judgment to are not moral choices on my part — they are limitations of my brain.” Since the diagnosis, she’s focused on accepting, accommodating, and adapting to her symptoms.
A Pound of Cure for an Ounce of Prevention
It is easier to mitigate ADHD symptoms once you understand what they are. But easier doesn’t mean easy. There is no silver-bullet solution that will work for 100% of people 100% of the time. Some people don’t tolerate medications well or can’t afford them. But even for those with the proper medication, it will often take more than a daily dose to keep symptoms under control. There’s a lot more work involved.
“While my medication has helped tremendously, I still also have to monitor my own behavior to make sure I am not slipping into old patterns,” says Savannah Smyles (she/her). “My ADHD is well managed, though there have been times when I have gone without my meds for a day or two, and that is generally hell for me.”
Unfortunately, her partner has yet to find an effective and accessible medication or therapy. “For my wife, a lot of her behavior and anxiety can be traced back, I believe, to the fact that she is currently not being treated.”
Some people, myself included, need the medication before we can get to the point where we can utilize other techniques. People suggest using a paper planner to combat time blindness, but you still have to remember to write things down and look at your planner later.
You also have to remember where you put it, which can be tricky since ADHD impairs object permanence. But taking medication can help with that. You just need to remember to do it. Maybe if you write it down in your planner…
Roxie says, “My husband has constructed a truly impressive system of automated calendars and phone reminders and manages to make a lot of our day-to-day lives run because of that.” But it can be a double-edged sword. “He also has a habit of losing hours upon hours optimizing these systems — that’s the hyperfocus.”
This doesn’t mean it’s hopeless, and you should abandon attempts at managing ADHD. It means finding the right treatments and strategies won’t be easy. You need to understand that you’re likely to have some setbacks — like a medication not working or insurance refusing to pay for treatment. It can be a frustrating journey, and you must prepare for that.
Dealing with some symptoms like RSD might require some out-of-the-box thinking. Osborn has an unconventional strategy that worked for them.
“I literally externalized my rejection sensitivity.” Taking a cue from Muppet Treasure Island, “because I’m a dork,” Osborn named their finger Mr. Bimbo.
Every time I had one of those thoughts, I’d pop up my hand, and I’d say, “Is this an actual authentic, real valid thing, or is Mr. Bimbo being a fuck?” The couple days where I started doing that as an experiment, I spent half the time with my hand in the air. I was shocked. I always thought, “This is a normal amount to think about this thing,” or “This is a normal amount of worry.”
Then I realized just how much of my life, how much of my energy, how much of my time I was spending not communicating and not advocating for my needs because Mr. Bimbo was telling me, “Oh, he’s going to hate you,” or “He’s really mad at you,” or “You’re an inconvenience,” or “You’re being a bother,” or whatever. And none of that was true. That was just my rejection sensitivity popping up.
(Yes, it does sound like a bizarre strategy, but you do what works. I used a similar technique to deal with my mental illnesses. But instead of Mr. Bimbo, I just called my externalized depression, anxiety, and intrusive thoughts Jerk Brain.)
“You have to learn how to ignore what your brain is telling you,” Osborn says. “And that can sometimes be really, really challenging.” Learning to ignore Mr. Bimbo, Jerk Brain, or whatever you might choose to label it is a process. “But it can be done. You have to be patient. You have to be patient with yourself. You have to be kind to yourself. You have to be gracious to yourself. You have to be kind, compassionate, and grateful to your partner.”
It Takes Two To Tango
An ADHD relationship can work. Many do. All long-term, functional relationships require communication and patience, but patience has its limits. ADHD symptoms cause stress, and if either partner isn’t able or willing to put in the work, there’s only so much you can do.
Chel’s relationship ended after 12 years. “Even taking into consideration we both had ADHD, it felt like I was always putting in more effort. I ended up carrying a lot of the emotional weight.” While not every issue with the relationship could be traced back to ADHD, it was a significant stressor.
Whether it was knowing what gift an extended family member wanted for their birthday or scheduling and remembering medical appointments, it ended up being Chel’s responsibility. It didn’t matter if the doctor’s visit was for herself, her partner, or their “Mini Human,” or if it was something critical to health and safety; they were put in charge by default.
“At one point, we were driven into debt from the unhealthy coping mechanisms they used to help with the dopamine deficiency while between living places.” It all became too much. “With a Mini Human involved, something had to give way. I couldn’t carry parenting a child and an adult at the same time and keep being put at risk. Not after I had begged them to get help for years.”
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Osborn says,
I hear a lot of really scary and really sad stories from people about things like, “oh, my husband doesn’t believe in ADHD, or “He thinks I’m just making excuses.” I hear a lot of “My partner has taken away my medication and won’t give me access to it.” Or “My partner is angry that I want to go to therapy.”
On the day of our interview, Osborn had just released a TikTok about it. “I desperately want people to know that you have a right to care for yourself, and you have a right to make your mental health better, and a partner who doesn’t support you isn’t a partner.”
They stress how vital it is for people who are neurodivergent or have mental illnesses to surround themselves with a kind and compassionate support network. If you’re not getting that from your partner, “I really, really encourage you to seek out counseling, therapy, or whatever may be right for you because it is so unhealthy to live in that environment.”
But Osborn also understands that sometimes, you can’t just leave. While dropping everything and leaving is hypothetically always an option, “for a lot of people, it’s not a practical option, and finding ways to navigate through that safely is absolutely vital.”
Symptoms Sometimes Sideline Sex
But even if your partner is ready to support you, navigating sex and ADHD still comes with some unique or enhanced complications. About 50% of men and women with ADHD experience sexual dysfunction or disorder symptoms. (Non-binary people get left out of these studies or perhaps lumped in with the gender they were assigned at birth.)
These symptoms include persistent difficulty becoming and staying aroused, struggling to focus, sexual aversion, difficulty orgasming, erectile dysfunction, orgasming much quicker than desired, negative emotions during or after sex, and hypersexuality.
People with ADHD are less likely to be satisfied with their sex life. In the general population, 68% of men and 65% of women reported satisfaction. But for those with ADHD, the numbers are 27% and 35%.
Regarding things like sex drive, Osborn prefers the term sexual disappointments rather than dysfunction.
Dysfunction implies that there could be something inherently ‘wrong’ with you, that there is a medical issue at play where something isn’t specifically functioning as it should. Whereas disappointment really highlights that sometimes, what you are expecting, is not what you get. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s anything medically wrong with you.
It just means that because of all of your external circumstances, it can be less than desired. It is totally normal to have your sex drive be really high sometimes or really low sometimes. But that’s not a dysfunction, that’s just the natural ebb and flow of libido.
But with ADHD, it can be really frustrating to manage that, because a lot of times, it’s more outside of your control, so it becomes a disappointment, another thing on the pile to sort through in the complex conversation about sex and intimacy with ADHD.
Chel was borderline sex-repulsed when they first started dating. Once ADHD-fueled curiosity kicked in, “I swung almost completely in the opposite direction. And I now know that if someone hits that curiosity just right, it can almost end up like an addiction, which definitely isn’t healthy.”
Looking back, they can see, “I definitely attracted and accepted the wrong people because of crushes becoming hyper-fixations. Once the hyper-fixation was broken, because of whatever horrible behavior, I was always left wondering what I had found so interesting in the first place.”
With a better understanding of how ADHD affects their sexuality, Chel has developed strategies to navigate attraction. Stepping back for a few days after crushing on someone “can help me reassess if I’m interested because they’re a good person or if I’m confusing that with interest because they’re a new person who happens to be nice to me.”
Even though it’s a challenge, they give themselves the time to recognize “the difference between genuine romantic feelings versus new-person hyperfocus.”
ADHD symptoms can tank your libido, leaving you dissatisfied. Cas (she/her) says, “ADHD does affect my sex drive. I can feel that urge, but my mind goes somewhere else.” She is single at the moment, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t still want sexual release.
Or at least she wants to want it. Without something to focus on, her sex drive can disappear for weeks at a time. She often turns to NSFW Twitter for inspiration. “Talking to some sexy mutuals helps because it keeps everything flowing in my brain.”
Struggling to “stay in the zone” while enjoying solo pleasure can be discouraging. Having your partner check out during intimate moments can be downright disheartening.
Jim’s wife has ADHD, and she has trouble with starting things and not finishing them, forgetting what she’s doing, and having a pile of partially completed tasks. It’s been frustrating for them both. But there’s frustrating, and then there’s frustrating. “She has been easily distracted during sex since we were married 30 years ago.”
But they’re talking about it more now and exploring therapy options. Acknowledging it has already led to changes. “She is quicker to try to knock down external thoughts when we are having sex. I am not sure what she is doing differently, but she is no longer blurting out something she needs to do or forgot to buy while we are making love.”
ADHD, coupled with a possible Sensory Processing Disorder, makes it more difficult for Snow to handle touch as she becomes more stressed. “And the more overwhelmed I am, the less I can disconnect from the mental load and to-do lists and everything else in order to relax and respond to sexual intimacy.”
Almost anyone can have trouble getting in and staying in the right headspace for sex from time to time. But ADHD can turn the occasional sexual disappointment into a persistent, chronic issue. That unending uphill battle to stay in the moment can put a strain on relationships.
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Eliza says the most significant impact ADHD has on her sex life is mood changes. “I can gain or lose interest in sex relatively quickly, and my focus and attention can wander while engaged in sexual intimacy. It is no reflection on him or his skill in the bedroom, but just a facet of how my mind works.”
When studying to be a sex educator, Osborn had one teacher say, the moment is not precious. This teacher gave several examples of times you’d stop or pause having sex — you need to readjust or take care of something else, grab a snack, whatever, and said, “That’s okay because the moment isn’t precious.” And while the idea behind the aphorism is good — don’t keep doing the thing if it isn’t working — the way it was discussed struck a sour note.
That was the first time I realized how much sex education is taught under the assumption that everybody involved is neurotypical. And that was really frustrating for me because I was sitting in this class thinking, ‘If I get up during sex, I may never come back. What are you talking about? The moment is absolutely precious.
The question then becomes, what do you do to preserve the moment?
Is Kink the Cure?
ADHD interferes with executive function, the cognitive process by which we choose a goal, monitor our behaviors, and prioritize tasks to achieve that goal. “Our brain does not distinguish between having sex and doing the dishes,” Osborn explains. “It is still a task. It is an enjoyable task. It is a task that you might look forward to and want to do. But fundamentally, it is still a thing that involves doing other things … literally.”
Everything you must do to have sex and keep having sex is a series of steps, a series of tasks that afford executive dysfunction multitudinous opportunities to strike. If you’re prone to hyperfocus, Netflix and chill can turn into binge-watching and sexual frustration for your partner because, step number five, turn off the TV and pay attention to the person trying to sex you up, got missed.
Eliza has found that besides having more “quickies” before her attention can wander, kink has helped. “Indulging in fantasies — even if it’s just dirty talk about a fantasy rather than full acting out a BDSM scene, for instance — helps to keep things focused.”
People with ADHD often ask Osborn how to keep their attention on what they’re doing — or what’s being done to them — during intimate moments. “I have a lot of solutions and strategies, especially as a certified sex educator. The one that I come back to all the time is kink.” They admit, “It’s sort of a personal bias because I’m also kinky as fuck.”
Even considering that “What I found in my studies is that kink is sort of perfect. It’s perfect because it can be whatever you need it to be. It doesn’t need to be paddles and whips and chains.” Though, it can certainly be that if you wish.
The kinky sex can be tailored to how ADHD impacts your sexual satisfaction. Just imagine what a little bondage might do for someone who has issues with sitting still.
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ADHD makes getting distracted easy, and it doesn’t have to be a fun distraction. It won’t take much for something like a ceiling fan clicking or a neighbor mowing the lawn to take you out of the intimate moment you’re trying to have with your partner.
If you’re prone to distraction, Osborn suggests you try something like sensory deprivation. A blindfold and earplugs are reasonably easy to acquire and can block out those pesky distractions. “If you struggle to stay focused, let’s do sensation play, like wax play. We’re really going to draw it out. We’re going to put you back into your body and focus on the sensations that are happening.” Pain does have an incredible ability to focus your attention.
Exploring kink opens up all sorts of possibilities. “I really struggle with Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria,” Osborn says. “I built my entire brand on the back of making jokes about praise kinks. Kink can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. It’s an incredibly useful tool.”
When anyone explores and engages in kink, you must do so safely and with an educated understanding of what you’re doing. Communication and trust are vital. You need to find people who will respect safewords. But engaging in kink with ADHD, as well as other neurodivergencies and disabilities, requires some special considerations. Osborn uses themself as an example when discussing this since they’re a heavy impact bottom.
Impact play involves hitting or striking. One of the most commonly known forms is spanking. Heavy impact play introduces more force, often with implements like whips, riding crops, and floggers. A bottom takes on a submissive or receptive role. (Translation: when engaging in BDSM, Osborn wants to be hit hard.)
I really struggle with time blindness. Time blindness can be exceptionally dangerous if you are a heavy impact bottom because you’ll think you’ve been going for 10 minutes, and it’s fine.
And then you look at the clock, and you’ve been going for 45 minutes, but because you can’t really feel much, it can result in a lot of injuries. Bad things can happen, and they have happened to me before, and that’s why I’m pretty outspoken about it.
Osborn makes a point to communicate with partners about it. They specifically say they deal with time blindness, and the top — the one who provides the impact in this scenario — will need to be the one keeping track. “Being able to communicate with a partner and advocate for yourself in those ways is really, really important if you decide that kink is right for you.”
Exploring kink with ADHD comes with another additional challenge. “For many people with ADHD, our brains are constantly seeking that new stimulation, that new dopamine,” Osborn explains.
People with ADHD can very quickly change their minds. They tend to hobby-bounce: quickly pick up a new hobby, hyperfocus on it for a limited amount of time, and then just as quickly abandon it for something new. They might see a YouTube video and get really into painting for a bit.
Then, after buying all the materials and doing it for an indeterminate amount of time, never be interested in trying it ever again. Then they’re interested in locksport. Then découpage. Rinse. Repeat. Since ADHD’s impulsive symptoms can manifest as impulse buying, hobby-bouncing can be a costly cycle.
It can work the same way with sex and kink. Let’s use a hypothetical to explain.
Jack sees a TikTok about pegging. He gets curious, looks up some pegging porn, and now he suddenly really wants to be pegged. He works up the courage, suppresses heteronormative sexual shame, overcomes his occasionally debilitating Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria, and asks Jill if she’d be willing to wear a strap-on and rail him. She says yes.
They talk about it. Jack does some quick research and purchases a cheap strap-on just in case it’s not for them. The couple tries pegging, and both enjoy it. They buy a better strap-on, have a few weeks of role-reversal fun, and then Jack loses interest in it. Now he really wants Jill to spank him with a flogger, and the cycle begins again.
“And that can be so awkward,” Osborn says. “There can be a lot of guilt and shame involved when someone’s like, I just sat down, and I had this big conversation with my partner about how I really want to be spanked, and now, that seems awful.”
The mood can change quickly. “The same way that desire waxes and wanes, our tastes and what types of stimulation that our brain needs are constantly changing. So, especially with sex and intimacy, checking in is vital.” Every relationship will be different, but it’s better to start with checking in too much rather than not enough. “Consent is revocable at any time, but when time blindness comes into play, that can be really challenging.”
Osborn gives an example of how that plays out.
I consented to something eight months ago. Then I completely forgot about that conversation, completely forgot that we had ever talked about it. And then all of a sudden, this person does this thing, and I’m like, “What the fuck are you doing?”
To Osborn,
One of the hardest things is that sometimes there are going to be situations where nobody is at fault. It’s just a breakdown in communication. We should have talked first. I should have advocated for myself. You should have checked in. We’re both at fault, but it’s cool, and we’re going to work through this together.
Osborn wants to be clear, though, that there’s a difference between a temporary miscommunication and those who are unwilling to communicate or respect boundaries. Any partner should understand that checking in every time is a valid and vital safety mechanism anyone can use to keep themselves safe.
Some people need to have the conversation each time, and that is okay. You are allowed to advocate for yourself. You are allowed to protect yourself, and if that’s what you need to feel safe and supported and okay, in a sexual environment, that is fine. And I will die on that hill.
Anyone who thinks the consent conversation or checking in is too much of a burden should be avoided.
So, is kink the cure to the havoc ADHD can cause in the bedroom? It would be great if it were that simple. But, in the broadest sense, it’s no different from attempting to use a paper planner, setting a dozen phone reminders, or testing out a new medication. You don’t know how effective it will be until you try.
Slightly to very kinky play might work for you and could significantly improve your sex life. Or it might not. Comfort levels willing, it’s certainly worth exploring.
Don’t Forget
ADHD is a real disorder. Denying it or downplaying its effects on people’s lives needs to stop. There’s no single solution or strategy for managing every symptom in every person. It is vital to learn what the symptoms look like and explore different options for managing them.
When it’s in the context of an intimate relationship, the process must incorporate open, honest, and vulnerable communication. If you have ADHD, you need to be willing to put in the effort and consider a variety of treatment options and mitigation strategies.
The choices you have may be limited by various factors — like your finances, access to healthcare, or other comorbid conditions and traumas. Still, you’ll need to keep an open mind. That could mean looking for a therapist, trying a medication, or exploring kink.
If your partner has ADHD, you’re going to need to be supportive and reassuring to help them work through the Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. Otherwise, it can interfere with the conversations you need to make your relationship work.
ADHD can quickly become a point of friction if not addressed. Both partners need to be open to hearing what the other has to say and willing to try a new approach if something is not working.
“Communication really is invaluable,” says Snow. “You have to be open about how you’re experiencing everything, what you are feeling, what you are struggling with. You have to trust each other, and you have to support each other.”
![](https://res.cloudinary.com/jerrick/image/upload/d_642250b563292b35f27461a7.png,f_jpg,q_auto,w_720/6408c2b9b00b9a001db8dabc.jpg)
About the Creator
Guy White
I write about sweet-hearted guys in sexy situations. Respectfully naughty. Sometimes funny & always dyslexic and ADHD. 37 he/him 💍
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