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4.       Emotions are INTENSE or nothing at all. There is no in between.

Love at first sight? That would be ADHD “I recognize your vibes I love your vibes and now I am high on fuzzies, overstimmed whenever I’m around you and feel the need to get your attention constantly and make you feel fuzzies-high so you’ll reciprocate the slightest measure of affection that’ll instantly shoot us off to the moon with warm fuzzies.”

ADHD bonding tends to look like SUPER INTENSE hovering around you/trying to see how much you’ll endure our presence and trying to adapt our behavior to that and constantly trying to do something to keep us on your mind because our brains work like – completely forget everything exists – so we’d be like “If I don’t bond every time we meet until we have a genuine connection they’ll completely forget we ever existed”

In a fairly healthy ADHD relationship, this means ADHDer will be intensely sensitive to all your interests and needs and test for boundaries constantly and be VERY responsive to any boundary communicated (although we might forget and stammer apologies the first ten times or so) and will also share a lot of feelings and sensations immediately on their mind, and over time become comfortable/”safe” enough with friend to develop a much deeper connection with a lot less anxiety and clinginess.

Buuuuut, ADHD people are especially prone to getting into abusive relationships and here’s why;

Boundaries don’t entirely make sense at first, and we often don’t respect our own boundaries. An ADHDer can very easily be so overwhelmed with warm fuzzies that they’ll completely forget their own boundaries and just go along with whatever person-they-want-to-be-friends with says until they stop being so overstimulated and think “what did I just get myself into I need to say no next time but I didn’t establish that boundary and I don’t know ‘socially acceptable’ boundaries are coz I’m always accidentally crossing personal/social boundaries.”

And then as I said before – brain forgets anything outside of hyperfixation while hyperfixation lasts – so if the other person does the normal emotional manipulation thing and comes back, apologizes and makes us feel good and like this was a bonding thing, ADHDer are more likely to get hooked on the ups and downs of emotions like a stimuli-junkie. Plus not having a good reference/grasp on what a healthy relationship is supposed to look like is fairly common with ADHDers too.

And oversharing! As I said ADHDers will vibe with someone and this means they will instantly trust that person totally and completely unless consciously slowing things down which means they’re pretty likely to overshare before a good connection/relationship has been established and thus screw themselves.

5.       Eyecontact is funky; if once we look you in the eye we physically cannot look away until the other person does; we freeze like we’re hypnotized.

This gives us very wide expressive eyes that tell people we’re listening even when we aren’t, and makes us look ages younger than we actually are, I swear the whole class has decided I’m the youngest in class even though half my classmates are exactly my age.

6.       REJECTION SENSITIVITY!!!!!!!!!!

ADHDers have INTENSE EMOTIONS and read subtext with such a nuance and sensitivity that we get completely overwhelmed and freak out. If someone looks at us too long we be like “THE WHOLE STORE HATES ME THEY HATE ME!!!!!!!!”

If you start talking to someone with ADHD you’ll typically see them twitch every couple seconds – re-evalling every emotional subtext and social cues you’re giving them with the every millisecond thought that if they do something wrong AGAIN you’re going to get impatient with them and hate them and never trust them/think they’re silly.

You will get very strong puppy vibes from us the more nervous we are; ya’know the puppy vibes with that puppy who wants so much to do whatever you’re trying to tell them to do but they’re just too dang excited and can’t sit still and pay attention?

I have never seen an ADHD person who wasn’t INTENSELY friendly if given the chance to be.

At some point most ADHD people reach the realization that every slight emotional shift and every “sudden” burst of anger (read we’re too overwhelmed to pick up most of the build up in that moment), that all that isn’t actually reflective of their behavior but actually what the other person is going through and their attitude. At which point, ADHDers are…confused, sense the emotions and the reasons behind them and just like…”ok…” non-judgmentally psycho-analyze and move on to “how do I support the people I love having emotions?” and *accepts strangers/acquaintances and people they didn’t vibe with having these emotions and learning how to navigate that without sponging their emotions*

Once an ADHDer matures a little and becomes more self-confident, they tend to have vividly accurate intuitions and dangle between blunt and sensitive to others, very accepting of other people’s emotions but with a kind of innocence like “this is wrong and irrational but I get wrong and irrational too so I guess this is what we’re doing now…”