How to Live With Someone Who Has ADD

According to several members of the APA, ADD is 100% genetic and 100% Environmental. You won't be able to change the genetic part, no matter how much you talk, argue, or avoid it. You can change the environmental part with a much better relationship as a result. Knowing how to ignite the ADD person in the right ways can build amazing, dynamic, high-density partnerships and families. In this article you'll learn some practical things you can do to create the right ADHD environment while still meeting your own needs.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

What to Expect and What to Look For

1. The interesting thing about ADD behaviors is that everyone does them some of the time. Everyone is some 50% more likely to do them when they are under stress, in new surroundings, doing something they don't want to be doing, or being kept from something they would rather be spending their time on. If you have ADD, and you throw stress or argument or interruptions on top of it, or if someone insists on making you do things their way, you have a recipe that adds up to ADD on the rampage. Fill in the relationship consequences from your own experiences from there.
2. There are a lot of behaviors and they differ between individual and situation, but they share some core things. What is the key to knowing if ADD behavior is just visiting, or if it is the real genetic ADD stuff ? Real ADD doesn't go away. In fact, things that the other 80% of the population need to do or take to get active, motivated and in gear, ADD people feel and act almost all of the time. They are the people you see around you who talk a lot and are always just on or over the edge of too much. They always have interesting things to say, but may be hard to follow along down the twisted path of their inter-related thoughts and energy. They always have a lot of energy; sometimes negative, sometimes positive, but always strong energy. In fact, sometimes the energy is so potent, it looks like the person is stuck or obsessing on something. People with ADD almost always include the word intense, in a statement of their personal profile. People who live with them often say they are way too intense.
3. The key to managing ADD is in re-evaluating Dr. Thom Hartmann's theory of Hunters and Farmers. Some people may be familiar with it, but you need to know that there is genetic evidence out there now that shows people with ADD share some interesting genetic patterns that split off about 130,000 years ago – about the time when societies started depending on the more energy efficient life of farming. Think of the plight of the fierce hunting tribes on the Native American population 100 years ago, and you can see what happens in a modern version. Put that type of person in a drone-like job and a relationship that offers more out-of-sync things and you have trouble brewing.
4. Expect independent behavior, but turn it into enjoying a lot of personal freedom! When your ADD partner is hyper-focusing, try to let them be. It is not the time to tell them about all the other chores or social things that you think they should be doing. Try it, and chances are you'll have an argument on your hands. If you prevail and pull them off task, you'll likely be subject to their forgetfulness, their lack of planning, loss or misplacing of things like car keys and sunglasses, and lots of time spent looking for the misplaced articles. You'll likely watch them rushing to do a lot of unimportant, unfocused things on the way out the door. Bottom line is you will be late and unprepared when you arrive, followed by all the attendant apologies, guilt, and arguing that follow. It may be a good idea to take two cars and let your ADD pal arrive in their own time. You don't have to miss something to fit in with their mental time zone, but they shouldn't have to be forced or interrupted to live in yours.
5. Still arguing about time and priorities? Try agreeing to spend 15 minutes on important or routine days to share what your expectations are for time and organization of steps in the day. Then tell them at what time you will be ready to leave. Tell them if they are not ready or able to go with you at that time, they can arrive later when they are ready and prepared. Then, leave without them if they are not ready to go on time. If you see them lagging behind, encourage them to stay on track by asking if they are still on schedule about 2 hours before it is time to leave. If they are not, help them reprioritize whatever they have on their plate, and ask them how much time they will need to physically get ready. Expect that they will be that many minutes or hours late in being ready to walk out the door. Add to it any time you will need to go to the bank, store, gas station, or other errands and side journeys along the way. Try to take care of those things in advance, and give up arguing about it if you insist on demanding they work at being on time. They are. They just have a different way of looking at things; especially time.
   
   By the way – the more you let their beautiful hyper-focus operate in the right way, the more on time they will eventually prove to be. They just have to be working on something they care about, and on things that keep them involved with a lot of passion.
6. ADD people are "big picture thinkers" ADD folks are really great at things like big picture thinking and brainstorming. Its in their genes. They hyper-focus on it when they are allowed to follow that with passion. First, however, they have to find their passion. That can be tricky in a relationship. The overall trait of ADD'ers is the ability to hyperfocus when they want to, but they look like they're all over the place if you watch them in general. They always seem to have too many irons in the fire, and it is difficult for them to tell you what their priorities are. To them, they are all an intricate, accumulating pattern that will suddenly become very clear. While they are accumulating the pieces they tend to look around in a lot of places. If they are not focused, they actually are all over the place. It is not pretty when obstacles to finding or pursuing their personal passion is involved. When they're organized into a great plan with their talents and likes structured into a funnel of closely related fields or results, they usually do great things! In our society, that looks like the difference between becoming a super industry giant or innovator, like Leonardo daVinci, Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, Robin Williams, , or being called unfocused. They can't stay on task – they don't want to do just the simple job, they want to know and manage and run the entire process. Sometimes that is a good thing, and sometimes it gets in the way.
7. People with ADD are always alert to either a lot or a very few things. ADD'ers are hunters who have to be constantly scanning the trail for signs. Some people have to be able to visually read things into symbols that constantly change, and they have the visual and the mental acuity to do so in their biology. Unfortunately, a lot of them in today's world have trouble with society and with looking like something everyone expects them to be. They will never fit in the normal mold, nor do they want to. They will run or rebel accordingly. They will go back and forth from demanding to be entertained and doing things to gain your attention, and retreating into a zone where you are ignored and treated like they aren't aware of your presence. It can happen at good and bad times.
8. If your ADD partner is acting to the extreme of either end of the run or fight spectrum you can expect one of two things to occur; they'll either expect and demand that you leave them alone and trust them, or they'll start off on new adventures that have nothing to do with actually solving the problem at hand. You can usually rely on ADD folks who are generally pointed toward life's more positive directions. They've been repeatedly shown to have a talent for devising solutions and fixing nearly impossible things. Just make sure they are well fed, and that you check in with them to plan needed resources, time and money along the way. If the run away behavior takes hold they need some help either getting back on track or by having you step in to do the fixing while they run away, usually to play. Yes, that is also when any self-medicating adventures are likely to occur. You'll have to decide whether you want to continue in a relationship with someone who continually becomes combative about their choices on running away.
9. You can also live better with ADD energy by eating right, and making sure the ADD person lives with a consistent body-mind-soul connection. The diet is simple. Complex carbohydrates and protein are the diet mix that works. Add vitamin B complex, Omega 3's and Anti-oxidants, and you have the key. Even with the best food and exercise program in place, the soul connection can't be left out of the formula. You may need to help keep them generating energy in the right direction and toward creative and interesting things that have a definite cause or tied-to-their-dream outcome. That means if they're not tied to their dream, they are very likely to go looking for it, even if it doesn't exist where you want them to be. Sometimes, they are so hot on that trail they talk about things in some pretty crazy ways. Sometimes we like what they say; when they base things on hyper-focused research and trial-and-error experimentation. When this energy is being pointed in the warrior instead of the hunter direction, we see things like thrill and adventure seekers whose outcomes span the negative and the positive outcomes and consequences that go with them. Building passionate visions and dreams into reality are the best rewards from living with a person who has ADD.