Jeff's ADD Mind » Relationships

Sex And The Adult ADHDer: When Fantasy Meets Reality

Jeff — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 04:23:39 +0000

Part I
Part II

Reality continues to ruin my life. – Calvin (of Calvin and Hobbes)

Image source: http://rhonabennett.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/jennifer-lopez-2.jpg

Damn! JLo looks mighty fine!! Curves in all of the right places and she’s looking right at me!! And once she gets with me, I’ll have her screaming in ecstasy!! She’ll beg me to stop!! She’ll wonder how she managed to live without me all of these years!! She’ll get rid of Marc Anthony so she can be available for me and ONLY me. Bet you don’t think this will happen, eh? Well, you are wrong! She owns a house here on Long Island and it’s only five miles from my home. One day she’ll walk into the local Wendy’s. I’ll be there enjoying a Number 6 Combo (Spicy Chicken Sandwich, French Fries, Diet Coke). Her spicy Latina blood will notice my Spicy Chicken Sandwich. As the soft fluorescent lights create an Adonis-like glow around my bald head and I turn in her direction, she will notice me, stop and smile. I will smile back. Her gaze will shift to my t-shirt. She will notice my ham radio call sign emblazoned across my chest and, at that moment, an epiphany. She realizes she is in the presence of greatness: the blogger extraordinaire, the founder of Jeff’s ADD Mind, is looking right at her. He is here in the local Wendy’s, the VERY SAME Wendy’s that she has entered. JLo’s sexual autonomic system takes over. She pushes Marc aside. She comes to my table. She extends her hand. All is quiet. I look in her eyes and hold her soft, sweet hand in mine. I bow my head. I caress her hand with my tongue, each gentle movement expressing my love for her. I close my eyes. I sense the movement of her body, her womanly hips slowly moving in rhythm to the movement, to the heat of my tongue. She imagines what pleasures await her when I can finally use it to bring her womanhood to the height of multiple orgasmic pleasure. Then…I pause. I lift my head, her eyes communicating her growing desire for me. I rise up. (Yes!!! I RISE UP!! My 52 year old plumbing is still working!!) My hand caresses her hip as we slowly move to the middle of the restaurant. The customers move their tables to the back, arranging them as if we were in the Copa, the Copacabana (it’s the hottest spot north of Havana). Music and passion takes hold of our tingling bodies, the music comes up and the lights dim. We move in sensual rhythms. I can hear the other women moaning as they watch me, this Don Juan of the blogosphere, with my HOT Latina lover. We feel their pheromonic intensity sweep over our bodies. JLo’s eyes tell me that it’s time for us to leave, it is time to take our love to the next step. I don’t say a word. My gaze moves downward towards her sweat-glistening breasts. We stop. I bring her close to me so my tongue can move down her neck. I taste the droplets of love. My tongue pauses, for what seems like an eternity, in her womanly cleavage. I hear her voice. JLo is talking to me. Her voice gets louder. I lift up my head and look in her eyes. She has my full attention.

- dad. Dad. DAD!! EARTH TO DAD! EARTH TO DAD!

- Uh…yeah. What is it?

- [sotto voce] Can I finish your fries?

- Sure. You can have them.

Handing my french fries to my younger daughter, I stand up and take my tray to the garbage pail. I scan the restaurant. JLo is nowhere to be found.

Here lies the major problem with ADHD and sex: reality keeps rearing its ugly head. Not that the sex life of some adult ADHDers is necessarily terrible, it’s just that things tend to be much hotter, much kinkier in your mind than in reality. Sometimes (alright, I’ll admit it…ALL THE TIME) you want to push reality in the direction of the “imagined” sex life. Yet no matter how many black leather outfits or toys you bring to “the event,” still, something is not quite right. To make matters worse, the reality of our sex lives are entwined with the fantasy of our sex lives that, in turn, are entwined with the cinematic version of our “imagined” sex lives. (ADHDers are certainly not the only ones who suffer from this problem.) In this fantasy scenario of me and JLo, there are bits and pieces of reality. It is an amalgam of experiences culled from 35 years of experiences, entwined with various fantasies and numerous movies I have seen.¹ However, only in our minds or during the rarest of occasions do so many of these experiences unfold as one complete movie, as one complete script that is read (performed!) from beginning to end. Perhaps an ADHDer’s abbreviated sexual attention span is, in part, an effort to create a sexual cinematic experience in real time that has all the action adventure of their imagined porno movie. Their internal “sex director” is thinking about the next scene even though the current scene may not have been completed. (“Okay. Let’s wrap up the ‘Screaming in Ecstasy’ scene and move onto the “Swing from the Ceiling” scene. Make it fast! We have twelve more scenes to go!”)

This movie was meant to be a spoof of the television show

My imagined porno movie begins with a soft touch, a gentle kiss that builds to deep, passionate kissing that then builds to a swashbuckling frenzy of sweat, scent and heat that reaches a crescendo of ecstasy culminating in a climactic ending leaving me and my partner exhilarated and exhausted as our sweat-drenched bodies fill the room (or our car…or our secret spot in the woods) with the heat of passion. I will bet that at least once (maybe more than once?) in your life you had an experience that was very much like this. The problem, though, is some ADHDers want it to be this way every single time. Unfortunately that’s not always possible. There’s that annoying “reality” that gets in the way. Your mind may be willing but you or your partner are too tired. Then there are work pressures, financial pressures and the pressure of daily life itself that may interfere. Even when the sex is really good, it may still fall short of the fantasy (cinematic) version. But even if it does approach it or even reproduces it(!), it does not matter to the ADHDer. Once the dopamine levels drop it’s time to do it again.

POSTSCRIPT

As in many things concerning adult ADHD, there are no definitive statements about sex and ADHD. Some ADHDers are sex-obsessed because sex has become a means of self-medication while others, when they do have sex, do it halfheartedly at best because their minds are thinking about other things, such as their gardening project.

The links below address the various dimensions of ADHD and sexuality. You may find them to be of interest.

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Part I

Part II

Allow me to clarify. I didn’t have sex for 35 years. I had sex at various times over the course of 35 years. Further, while some readers of this blog know that, of my many careers, I was once a movie projectionist, they may not know that for the first two years of that career that I worked in adult movie houses, aka porno theaters. Talk about an ADHD fantasy come true!

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Looking At A.D.D. From the Other Side of the Glass

Jeff — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:46:14 +0000

[This post was written by Crimson, the spouse of an A.D.D.er. Crimson does not have A.D.D.]

There is a thought stuck in my head today. I want to have ADD. Please don’t take offense, it’s not a joke – I feel left out. I feel like a freak in my own home. Feelings are just that – emotion. No logical sense to them, they just are. It’s not supposed to make sense. Practicality and logic are at war with emotion. I want to be able to understand the ADD – I want to be able to live in the moment and not be constantly worried about the future. I want to be unaware of Time. I want to live by my thoughts, desires, and emotions…and not be aware of the thoughts and emotions of those around me. I want to be creative and have dreams.

I can feel it – it’s in the air and it’s real, the difference in time, the difference in thought, the difference in speeds.

I am like the slow and steady plowhorse that somehow got hitched to the cart with a racehorse. He sets the goal and I try to go in that direction, steady and slow – but it doesn’t take long and he’s chomping at the bit. Life at Slow and Steady isn’t very interesting. The goal has changed and the direction has changed and poor old plowhorse is being dragged along and hasn’t gotten a chance to get it’s feet under it, or for it’s head to stop spinning. Productive it’s not. There’s usually a mess from such a change in destination – maybe bits and pieces of plowhorse hide and expensive cart repair…and hmmm lost a wheel somewhere…I want to feel alive and desired and appealing. I want to be lively and fun. I want to be loved and respected. I want to be a partner and to be important for what I bring into this partnership.

NT’ers (neurotypicals) read body language. To us, a lot of what is said is body language. When an ADD’er is off in hyperfocus constantly, say on the TV, or a video game, or the internet, to us they are removed from Life, and from us. When we speak and aren’t heard, or are shrugged off, or feel not heard… well, our brain says “hey he doesn’t think you’re important”. When we have issues and we speak up, it’s like we are saying that there is something wrong with you, when all we mean is “I have a problem, help me.” We can’t get by the anger, or the wall of defensiveness ADD puts up when you feel threatened…our needs, and us with them are brushed off, we are a problem and worthless. We are unloved. We internalize all of this because we know the only thing we have control of is ourselves. We know it’s not done on purpose once we know how ADD traits affect you – but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t do damage. When our ADD partner is having a bad day, hurting and angry…we see they tend to lash out, perhaps say things they don’t mean about us, pick us apart. Or they withdraw from reality and hide in hyperfocus.

I wish I had that somedays. To say what I want and not care who catches the shrapnel. To be able to brush it off. To not be bound by the subtle rules of society and the boundaries of responsibility. To not be the bridle and the brakes. To be able quit my job on a whim and have no doubts there is another one to take it’s place. To not worry about next week, next month.
I want to lift up my ADD’er, not hold him back. I want to be his strength and his shoulder when he needs to take a breath and refocus. I want to be benefit, not nemesis.

It’s like a foreign country, and damn it I lost my guidebook!

Teach us how to reach you, how to build the bridge. We think we find a way through the wall, only to be shoved out by stress and life and issues we have no comprehension of. It tires us to try and find a new way through, the old way has usually been cemented over. I try not to judge. I try not to resent or hold anger. I try to find some comprehension, to adapt. Some days I fall down, I only wish there was someone to notice and pick me back up.

- Written by Crimson

“Love all, trust a few. Do wrong to none” ~~ William Shakespeare

“Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings – always darker, emptier and simpler.” ~~Friedrich Nietzsche

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Adult A.D.D. & Sex

Jeff — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 21:37:10 +0000

Sex is a difficult topic to discuss in the United States. The puritanical strand of our society labels it as dirty and something to be avoided except, of course, for procreation. Our prurient side is highly attracted to it and whole industries would not exist if not for this attraction. In addition, there is an uneasiness in discussing the topic that is worsened by our stunted vocabulary. We can use terms that are cold and clinical or mere street slang. And there is another problem. The very act of discussing it is often interpreted to mean that we must be obsessed with it; after all, why would anyone discuss it unless they were obsessed with it? However, not discussing it and pretending it doesn’t exist can be worse (and maddening). How can you solve a problem unless it is discussed?¹ Despite the lived contradictions and discomfort in discussing the topic, I offer the following excerpts (safely written by someone else, I might add) as a means of starting this discussion. Read the excerpts – and the entire article from which they come – with an open mind. You may not think that it applies to you but I will bet that you will find faint echoes that will make you pause and think.

[I]mpulsiveness are the hallmarks of ADD, as well as of sex addiction. Unable to set boundaries on their own behavior, those with ADD feel an intense need to continue forever” whether it is on a work project or an involvement in a sexual enactment. One definition of compulsion may very well be “a loss of control characterized by an intense desire to continue despite adverse consequences.” A sense of deprivation emerges when compulsive sexualizing does not provide the gratification and satisfaction that results from experiencing intimacy with another person. Rather than sex being a way to bring two people closer, sexual enactments for the person with ADD can stem from intra-psychic conflict, from a narcissistic need for validation, and as a way to medicate the physiological symptoms of brain chemistry deregulation. The result is that sex takes up a disproportionately large place in his psychic equilibrium. His very sense of self depends on his sexuality.

Source: The Vicious Cycle of Adult ADD, Shame and Compulsive Sexuality