RSD, ADHD Relationships and Love: Embracing Novelty & More Self Kindness

Speaker A: 00:01:15

Hi everyone.

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Welcome back to another ADHD Women's Wellbeing Wisdom episode where I bring back to you little interesting parts of our conversations throughout the past year or so, where I want to reinforce back to you some powerful insights.

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And today I have Mo Arie Brown, who is a relationship expert marriage and family therapist and he's actually hinges love and connection expert.

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So helping people build stronger and healthier connections in in modern love with all the understanding of neurodivergence and the different needs and sensory differences that we have.

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And so I really enjoyed this conversation with Mo.

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So in this clip you'll hear how to embrace our ADHD traits strengths while also understand the impact of RSD in our relationships.

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Something so vital that when we understand rsd, it doesn't feel like it's always coming there to block us.

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It kind of helps us with our communication a little bit more.

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And why perhaps our different ADHD traits show up, such as craving, novelty or change in our relationships and how ADHD and other neurodivergent traits can complement each other in relationships.

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And again, really importantly, why self awareness is key to knowing our needs, our triggers and our strengths in our partnership.

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So I'm really hoping that this part of the conversation with Mower E. Brown really helps you wherever you are today in your relationships.

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Here it is.

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What is interesting is if more people understood things like RSD rejection, sense of dysphoria and how much that impacts dating, I presume.

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And also that feeling, I mean, I can't even imagine.

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But if you.

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And again, forgive me if I don't quite know the, the literacy with Hinge, but if you're.

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I don't know if it's swiping or not swiping, but if you kind of see someone that you like and then they don't reciprocate, that can feel like a bit of a dagger in the heart.

Speaker A: 00:03:18

How do you navigate that with rsd?

Speaker B: 00:03:21

Yeah, no, it's a really great question.

Speaker B: 00:03:23

I think at Hinge, we really are prioritizing quality over quantity and really encouraging daters to really focus in on, I would say especially daters experiencing any kind of ADHD symptoms like to focus in on quality matches, quality connections, people that share your interest instead of focusing on a lot of people at once.

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I think that that's overwhelming when you have too many messages on any, any app, your email, whatever is just too much.

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It can be overwhelming.

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I think for daters with adhd, we're more likely to turn off our phones to stop getting that incoming contact and Then we might not end up responding to our messages and things.

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And so for daters experiencing any kind of rejection sensitivity, I think it's important to take your time, be compassionate with yourself.

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This rejection is, it's, I, I would, I would say if you're experiencing rejection sensitivity, I as a therapist want to normalize it.

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Like that's going to happen as you're putting yourself out there.

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The dating process is so vulnerable.

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It is like you showing your best self and putting your best foot forward.

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And so I think that some of that is a lot of this process is necessary.

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And though the rejection sensitivity is also a real painful experience that can kind of hijack this, the beauty of that process as well.

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And so it's important to kind of check in with yourself regularly as you make connections and notice for yourself it when those check ins need to happen.

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For some people they need to happen after dates.

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So after you go on a date with someone, checking in with yourself about how you're feeling or checking in after if the date doesn't go well or if you don't want to continue matching, checking in after that.

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But for other people, the check ins might need to happen.

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If you've tried to match with several people and you haven't gotten any matches, that can be the moment to check in.

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So I'd say knowing yourself is really important in that process.

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And then I am a big supporter of like affirmations and having like a toolkit, like a little backpack if you will.

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And so in my backpack it's like a lot of affirmations and reminders to myself that I am love, that I am worthy of love, that love easily comes to me, that I easily, easily attract love, that I easily put out love.

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And so those are what my affirmations look like.

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And I just encourage daters to have their own toolkit of like self love and self encouragement in that process.

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But RSD is a real thing.

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And so if you're also experiencing those symptoms, talk to a therapist about those symptoms as well as you navigate the dating process because there is a lot of rejection inherent with that process.

Speaker A: 00:06:26

Yeah, I love that.

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And I'm also a big fan of, of having the affirmations and also recognizing the triggers of when we're looking for that external validation.

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What I wanted to also ask is again we have with adhd and I don't want to generalize too much, but this sort of novelty seeking, we can get bored easily and without using the dreaded word, the ick.

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But I always, I, I also see this happen where if I using this term correctly, because again, I'm like in my 40s, but when people love bomb and they, they have this sort of novelty and everything's amazing and all of a sudden just something happens and it could just be they, they said something in the wrong way or they, they saw a picture and all of a sudden they got this ick and then the novelty's gone.

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They want to shut the whole thing down.

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It can be related to this kind of like all or nothing thinking where I see it happen with, with business and career and friendships that we get totally all involved, all consumed and then we could just wake up that next day and go, not feeling it anymore.

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I'm done.

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And it's, there's a lot of.

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Sometimes it can be self sabotage and sometimes it can be like, what is wrong with me?

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Why can't I just be on this more even keel and we kind of live life a bit more of it in a roller coaster until, and I feel from a personal perspective this is what happens until we just find that sweet spot that really works for us.

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And I'll use say a career as an example that we could work in the corporate in like in a corporate field for years and years and years and we feel burnt out, exhausted and drained.

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It's kind of a bit like a toxic relationship.

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We, we kind of get rewards from it, but actually the benefits are just not, not there anymore.

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And then we say we become an entrepreneur, we work for ourselves, we work for more like holistic smaller boutique agency, whatever that might be.

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And all of a sudden we kind of blossom again and we kind of get our environment.

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We, we working within what, all the modalities, I guess, that are helping us thrive.

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Do you see this happening a lot with the neurodivergent dating world where it is a bit kind of up and down and you know, this sort of contrast of we're all in and then that's actually, I'm done, I'm out.

Speaker B: 00:08:58

Yeah.

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Many daters with ADHD desire like diversity, excitement, novelty excitement for certain.

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It's like once things become a little bit more routine or boring, it can be harder to keep engaging.

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And for some people this happens quicker than others.

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And so I guess my advice would be to, and I love the example of your friend from earlier because I think this is something you can do throughout the dating process is to infuse excitement back into the process.

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So even if you're with the same person or you've been seeing them maybe like four to five dates and you wake up one morning and you're like, this is just.

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This is boring.

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I don't want this anymore.

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Really check in with yourself around your boundaries.

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Have you asserted all the necessary boundaries?

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Is there some part of your communication that does not work for you?

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So I encourage daters to switch from texting to talking or something that's a little bit more animated.

Speaker B: 00:10:02

Interesting.

Speaker B: 00:10:03

So if there might be things that you need to switch up that are causing that feeling that you're having, so continuing to check in with that, I think will help figure out if you're just done with the relationship or if there is some monotony happening.

Speaker A: 00:10:17

Yeah, I think it's so powerful, isn't it, when you have that.

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Understand that self understanding of, like, is it a novelty thing?

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And do we need to switch things up if, like, we've done three dates with the same person as each one has been going for a drink or, you know, going for a meal and actually going to do something fun or active or creative or go, go to a concert or, I don't know, do something that's just totally different.

Speaker A: 00:10:43

Because even when you've been in a relationship for as long as I have, sometimes it can be like, oh, I don't want to go out for another meal, let's go and go for a swim.

Speaker A: 00:10:52

You have to, you have to constantly seek that novelty when you do have adhd, because you kind of know what happens on the flip side, where we can just, maybe just throw a match and want to burn it all down when we know even though that person could be really good for us, and also recognizing that that person who potentially you might be getting a little bit bored with or the novelty is going because the mundanity of life's coming in with adhd.

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And again, I'm generalizing, perhaps speaking from my perspective, we kind of need a bit of a solid foundation.

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So we might need a partner that might not be exactly the same as us.

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Because if we're prone to kind of spontaneity and flightiness and impulsivity, to have two people like that is a bit chaotic.

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But if we kind of seek someone who compliments that side and doesn't criticize it or denounce it or ridicule or invalidate all those different things, but kind of like hold that space for us so we can be the.

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The one that is like, oh, let's go and do something fun today, and, you know, forget all our chores.

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But.

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And then he would be like, that's really fine.

Speaker A: 00:12:05

Well, they would be like that.

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And they could just be.

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But we need to get home because there is stuff that needs sorting in the house as well.

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And that I think sometimes we need to understand that we, even though it might not be the most exciting option to have a little bit of difference where we complement each other and then that other person who might be more kind of routine led or structure led by, might need someone like us who can kind of, you know, be like, let's do something different.

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Let's try something new.

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Let's break away from the routine.

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And I actually spoke to a journalist about this a few weeks ago.

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They were writing an article about neurodivergent dating and how ADHD and autistic partners tend to find each other.

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It's not uncommon for one to be ADHD or want to be autistic or the neurodivergence sort of spectrum to be kind of slightly different on each side.

Speaker B: 00:13:02

Wow.

Speaker B: 00:13:03

Very interesting.

Speaker A: 00:13:03

It was so interesting.

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And what we worked out was that we do complement each other and as long as we have awareness there, it's when neither one of the partners understand their neurodivergence and they, they, there's shame there and there's guilt and there's blame and there's self criticism.

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But when we understand it and when we give it space and compassion and tenderness and all of that, we can hold space for each one.

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So we know when there's anxiety or when there's worry or overwhelm.

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And my overwhelm might show up differently to my husband's overwhelm.

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And it's, it's like complimenting.

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So I guess it's, I comes, it comes back to awareness and getting to know yourselves.

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Maybe before you go on the dating apps, kind of maybe a bit of self love and, and working on that, doing the inner work before we go on the apps to do the kind of, the external validation.

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I'd love to hear your therapist.

Speaker B: 00:14:06

Yeah, no, I love what you just said.

Speaker B: 00:14:08

I, I think you gave a beautiful case for where I center a lot of my therapy work, which is a strength based approach.

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And so when I think about strengths, I think about what you described, which is like knowing yourself, knowing your partner or the person you're dating and um, everybody kind of bringing their own things to the table, putting them out in the open, having conversations about them.

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And what you do well, you just keep doing.

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And what they do well, they keep doing and we compliment each other.

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I think like you said, if we come to the table and we're not aware of our Strengths, oftentimes we just focus in on the challenges.

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And so what strength based approaches do to relationships, to therapy, to anywhere in the world, to work environments, they help us to collaborate better because everybody's bringing their best to the table and we're, we're taking the best of each person and we're putting it together to make something amazing.

Speaker B: 00:15:04

So I really offer that to daters with adhd.

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Not seeing how you show up as a deficit, not seeing your challenges always as weaknesses or growing edges.

Speaker B: 00:15:17

Certainly the parts that maybe make it harder for you to listen may feel challenging in the dating space, but then there are parts for, for many people with adh, we have this ability to focus on things that we're really interested in for a long time.

Speaker B: 00:15:33

And so that might make dates feel very seen and heard if we are just so into their conversation that we are, we are not breaking eye contact for a long time.

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And so whatever your strength is, really amplify that in the dating space.

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Be encouraged because you don't only have challenges, you do have strengths.

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And so identifying them and really amplifying them can help you to know what you bring to the table.

Speaker B: 00:16:00

That's also good.

Speaker B: 00:16:02

I am definitely a supporter of coming to the dating space, really knowing yourself, being self compassionate, being self loving, and not only seeking that externally, really having that internally before you come to the dating space.

Speaker A: 00:16:19

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker A: 00:16:21

And I think, you know, this generation, and I say this generation because it's maybe my generation, your generation, younger generation, is that we, we're the probably the first, I would say maybe my generation, like 40s, 50s, who are understanding the neurodivergent patterns in their family, they're understanding this awareness.

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So if they're getting a diagnosis later on in life, they can then look back and kind of go, I can kind of understand why my parents split up.

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I can understand where there was dysfunction, there's chaos.

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There was several, you know, different relationships, different partners in and out the house, all of that.

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They can start connecting those generational, connecting those dots and recognizing what and using that, unfortunately, the pain.

Speaker A: 00:17:06

But also as for like productive power and to kind of say, I don't want to do that, I don't want my relationship to be like my parents relationship or I don't want my kids to be brought up in a house the way I was brought up.

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And so we do have this responsibility to do the work because we have this awareness, which is amazing, but we have to do that work and kind of say, right, well, this is an amazing strength that I have with my adhd, but I also have these challenges where I can go from 0 to 100 in like emotional dysregulation or I can misconstrue a situation because of rsd.

Speaker A: 00:17:48

So I hope you enjoyed listening to this shorter episode of the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Podcast.

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I've called it the ADHD Women's Wellbeing Wisdom because I believe there's so much wisdom in the guests that I have on and their insights.

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So sometimes we just need that little bit of a reminder.

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And I hope that has helped you today and look forward to seeing you back on the brand new episode on Thursday.

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Have a good rest of your week.

Speaker B: 00:18:15

Sam.