Hello everyone! I am reaching out to see how to navigate this situation. My girlfriend has ADHD, and most of the pandemic we have been long distance. Unfortunately, she isn't great at texting and takes a long time to respond, and has been deeply hyperfocused on school and future careers. She's super smart and will definitely be successful in the future! I don't want to get in the way of that and be a distraction. But I also feel a little left behind. When I am with her in person and talk to her she seems almost zoned out. Like she isn't fully listening to me, but I know it isn't intentional! I brought this up to her and she didn't notice at all and felt super bad. It has resulted in me worrying about seeing her, because when I am with her I feel lonely. It is hard being around someone who isn't really with you mentally, even if I can tell she really cares about me and is trying her best . I feel like when we text she is also in her own head, even when she asks me about myself and what I am up to. I really care about her, but I feel unhappy. I don't want to feel unhappy because she's such a great girlfriend in other ways, but this is really stressing me out! How should I navigate this situation? Will it get better? Can anyone relate from either my or her point of view?
Been there, done that. It is not easy to live with. I know that it feels at times like "they just do not care about me" It will most likely not get better on its own, the problem is with her neurology. There are things that can be done with training and getting a (unsure how to spell so I will say it the long way) therapist who specializes in neurological type issues. The therapist can help her learn skills to do better, it is not easy and would take a lot of effort on her part. It would also require that she be motivated to change and not everyone is (my exhusband was not). There are also medications which can help but there are side effects with them and it can take time to find one that will work with the least side effects.
If she seems zoned out and she is not listening to you when you talk to her she is listening trust me I have ADHD and I do the same thing just because it seems like she is not paying attention she is. And the being super focused it might be harder to get her to pay attention to you when she is doing something because when I get focused on doing something I am quiet and will focus on what I'm doing like school work because I forget to eat when working on my assignments because I get so zoned into the task. Sorry if it doesn't make much sense or if I repeated the same thing it is hard for me to word some of it.
Thank you for your reply! The issue is that when I tell her things, like if I tell her a story that happened to me, she will just reply "oh" sometimes and then go back to what is currently on her mind. In those situations even if she was listening to me, that response is pretty disheartening.
With my exhusband I had to specifically stop them to get their attention or they would not hear what I had to say. At times even in the middle of me talking they would turn back to what they had been doing and "tune" me out, they always blamed that on their ADD.
Yea sometimes because we think way different and with ADHD you are thinking of so many things at the same time that you just don't know how to respond with anything but oh I do the same thing when someone tells me a story or I just say cool or something but when typing this I can stop and think for a minuet about what to say instead of trying to reply as fast as I can so I don't come off as being rude and ignoring someone.
That seems super frusterating, I'm sorry My girlfriend does really care about me and I know she tries to listen! I know that if this continues I would never try to make her feel bad about it or change her, but my friends have been clear in telling me that if she isn't interested in improving then I would have to end it, rather than making a bigger deal about it. But I hope it doesn't come to that soon.
