Change Your Brain Every Day - ADHD & Intimacy: The Physical Intimacy No One Talks About – Part 2

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

ADHD doesn’t have to come between you and your partner. In this practical and eye-opening episode, Dr. Amen and Tana reveal why people with ADHD may feel rejection more intensely and might be more likely to cheat on their partners. They share proven strategies to rebuild connection, improve communication, and reignite passion—both in and out of the bedroom. Plus, you’ll learn that medication isn’t the only answer for ADHD—there are powerful, natural ways to heal, reconnect, and create deeper intimacy. 00:00 Intro 00:53 Tana’s Thyroid Cancer/ADD 02:04 Serotonin & Dopamine Levels in ADD 07:00 Rejection Sensitivity Syndrome 08:45 Cheating 11:18 When the Medication Wears Off 13:18 Sponsor 14:38 The Most Important Thing to Remember 18:29 The Link Between Teenage Pregnancy & ADD 21:25 The 7 Types of ADD 26:17 What Do You Want? 27:33 Wrap Up

I certainly didn't think I had it because I was doing pretty well in life, right? Did well in school, had a good job, didn't have debt, was like I was doing pretty well in life. What I didn't realize, that I couldn't realize was that when I did treat the ADD, how much easier things were. It's not that I wasn't succeeding before, it's that I didn't realize how hard it was. And so the same can be true in relationships, right? It doesn't have to be that hard. And I think that's a really important thing for people to realize. It doesn't matter if you're doing okay, if you're not meeting your potential.

The point is, are you meeting your potential and how hard is it for you to get there? Every day you are making your brain better or you are making it worse. Stay with us to learn how you can change your brain for the better every day. Welcome back to Change Your Brain Everyday podcast. We're talking about ADD and sex part two. How's it been for you? So much fun. I'm here talking with my favorite person about my favorite topic. So I love you so much. Thank you for being my partner. Can we get personal?

We haven't been. What else are you going to say? I want to talk about it. And you wrote about this in the relentless courage of a scared child, that when you were in your 20s, you had thyroid cancer. And then you got really depressed, in part because you had thyroid cancer, but they also didn't replace your thyroid quickly enough. And you wanted to die and you went to UC Irvine and saw a resident and he put you on Prozac and um, it was almost ruined my life. Almost ruined your life. And I want to, before you tell the story, I want you to tell it. There's a teeter totter in your brain with serotonin and dopamine.

When serotonin goes up, dopamine goes low. And when dopamine goes up, serotonin goes low. And when dopamine goes up, serotonin goes low. So if somebody raises dopamine with cocaine, they get more obsessive, which is what happens when serotonin goes low. When the doctor gives you an SSRI that raises serotonin and it takes dopamine and it lowers it. So it takes people who have ADD and it makes them more ADD. And so a lot of times women who have ADD or men who have ADD because of the circumstances in their life, they get depressed.

And now it's common practice. Everybody who's depressed ends up on an SSRI. And so it takes people who are ADD and actually makes them more ADD, but they don't care they're more ADD because it's also lowered their anxiety. So with that- It's interesting. I knew, I knew. So when I started taking the Prozac, I instantly didn't feel like pretty quickly, I didn't feel the depression, but something wasn't right. And I knew it wasn't right because I'm normally a very anxious person.

And so the anxiety in my life is what kept me out of trouble. Even though I have ADD, I can acknowledge now looking back at my life, maybe I had ADD, but I was actually a good student. I didn't get in trouble. I was a very anxious person. I show up on time. I'm like, not that person.

And that anxiety was suddenly the brakes were off and I didn't have the anxiety. That's what I noticed was I didn't have the anxiety. And now, you know, now I understand it. I didn't understand it then what was happening when I met you actually, you actually said to me after looking at my scan, you're like, you know, Prozac probably would never be a good drug for you

without knowing my past. And I was like, wait, what? Whoa. Because I had taken Prozac and it almost ruined my life. So then I wanted to know more. Because you made impulsive decisions. Because it dropped my frontal lobes more and it took away my anxiety. So it made me more impulsive and got rid of the anxiety. So I made, you know, thank God I recognized it. The doctor actually, when I told him, I don't feel like myself, this doesn't feel right. He's like, you need more of it. It takes time and let me increase your dose. So that was his brilliant move was to increase the dose. And I waited longer. In the meantime, I was making decisions that were crazy for me. Like, it's not like me. And so like I ended up on a dare in Costa Rica with nothing.

And I was stupid. And what did your mother say when you said? I called her because I was supposed to be at work and she goes, I said, I need you to do something for me. And she goes, well, where are you? And I go, I'm in Costa Rica. She goes, you mean, Costa Mesa? And I'm like, no, I'm in Costa Rica.

She's like, the country? She thought I got sex trafficked. It was really bad. So like, I country. She thought I got sex trafficked. It was really bad. So like, I was just doing stupid stuff and just getting myself into trouble and saying things. And I can remember looking back and going, that's where shame came in because I would never normally say things like I said, or you know what I'm saying? I'm like, that's when I realized I, this doctor's not listening to me. And I don't recommend you do this. If your doctor's

not listening to you, get a different doctor. I took myself off of it cold turkey. Probably not a good move, especially for someone who had been really, really depressed. Well, one of the benefits of Prozac, it's half life is six weeks. And so if you would have taken yourself a Paxil cold turkey, you'd have had the flu. You'd have felt awful. Yeah, I don't remember feeling bad. Prozac is one of those medicines when you stop it and don't stop it unless you talk to your doctor. But when you stop it, people generally don't have bad withdrawals.

Yeah, so thank goodness I wasn't on it for years because I think that I could have ruined my life. It was months, not years, but it was not a good time in my life. And I think it's really important for people to understand that, because then someone else tried well, butrin and with me and it was great. Completely different response to it. Like wildly different. So tell them why.

Well, how would you know unless you looked? No, why different? Why the difference between? Because well buterin increases dopamine. That's how it works. There you go. So it's better for ADD. Where Prozac increases serotonin. Right. So for someone who's anxious, the well buterin might have made them more anxious.

But but if. Yes, that's one of the side effects. If they have OCD. If if they tend to be overly anxious. And that did happen to me when they put me on too high of a dose. But when they put me on a low dose, it actually balanced me up. And like with glasses, to come back to that analogy, the dosages are different for everybody and has nothing to do

with height or weight. It's one thing that gets in the way of intimacy is rejection sensitivity syndrome, which is very common in ADD people. Often because of the impulsivity, they wear their feelings on their sleeves and are often very sensitive to not being noticed, very sensitive because they think they've done something wrong. And it's on top of years of perhaps impulsivity where they did things that got them into hot into trouble. Right, where they did feel like it was wrong. Into trouble. So if an ADD partner feels rejected,

even over something small like not tonight or I'm tired or something like that, it can trigger shame or withdrawal or even anger, I think sometimes is what you've told me. And the best way to handle it is gentle communication. best way to handle it is gentle communication. Instead of, I don't feel like it, say, I love you and I want to be close. Can we plan for tomorrow? Right. Make sure that they understand that it's not about them. It's not personal, but rather it's something else. Even though it feels personal. Right? So, you want to understand the ADD brain, that their emotional responses can be intense,

so small rejections might feel bigger than they are. And that can also lead to cheating. Now we haven't talked about this, but cheating is more common in relationships where one or more people have ADD or ADHD because of the excitement seeking, novelty driven, rejection, sensitivity, impulse, control. And I had this one friend once who had ADD and he came to have lunch with me and we're in my office and he's telling me about a plane trip. He took coming home from a conference and he met this really cute woman and she'd already

been to his office and my eyes got really big and he said, why? I'm like, play it out. That's often one of the things people with ADD don't do. They don't play it out. I said, play it out. You're going to have an affair with her. Your wife's going to find out. You're going to lose half your net worth and you're going to be visiting your children on the weekends. And he's like, whoa. He's like, buddy, I'm like, play it out. That's what your frontal lobes are supposed to do. They're supposed to see the future. And if they're not working hard, and we're just about ready to publish another study on ADD, low frontal lobe function, play it out. And the pain associated with that. And if you feel like you've been rejected, everybody's rejected, right? I mean, matching libido's all the time is hard,

when there are children and responsibilities and work and all the things that go into life, but that sensitivity could lead you to look around, which might cost you half your net worth. It's a good way to put it. A whole lot of emotional pain. Yeah. And so you want to build emotional safety. So making sure. And this is very important. I've said this a lot over the last 40 years to my ADD patients. I say, make sure you treat it. And sometimes it's with medicine, sometimes as we talked about, it's natural treatments, but don't have significant arguments when the medicine

has worn off. So, if you take a stimulant for ADD, whether it's Conserta or Vyvanse or whatever, often, and I used to hate this, guys in particular, they'd take it when they went to work. And they wouldn't take it on the weekends because they don't think they had to focus. And when you're home and you're dealing with your partner and kids and everything you have to do on the weekend, I'm like, no, you should take it. It's never good to be without your frontal lobes. Yeah. We have one of the kids in our family who I could always tell when she wasn't taking her medicine. So we have one of them that needs medicine and she, I could always tell. And it's like the minute and I didn't even need to ask her. I'm like, okay, how long

has it been since you, cause she would get in trouble at school. She would get in, you know, she'd have more conflict with her relationships. And it like, there was always this drama that followed her. And she's like, how did you know? I'm a mind reader. What can I say? Well, and for girls, they can often when they're off their medication be hyperverbal. Now sometimes when people take their medicine, they're more verbal,

but often it's the hyperactivity of speech. That can happen. But just the drama and the highs, the lows, and I'm just like, okay, I could always tell without knowing. Hi, I'm Dr. Daniel Lehmann. I've experienced firsthand the powerful impact that proper supplementation can have on your brain, your body, and your mind. That's why I founded BrainMD.

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Visit brainmd.com and use the code podcast 20 with a better brain, always comes a better life. Let's wrap this up. If you or your partner have ADD, what's the most important thing to remember when it comes to sex and intimacy? Well, I think we've learned that it can hurt intimacy if you don't know it and do something about it, if you're not focusing on it and you're not treating it. It's not that it's a problem that you have it. It's a problem if you're not aware of it and you don't do something about it. So I think that's really important.

But even like glasses, right? If we go back to the analogy of glasses, people who need glasses are not dumb, crazy or stupid. Their eyeballs are shaped funny. People who have ADD are not dumb, crazy, or stupid. It's they just don't have full access to their frontal lobes. And a lot of people go, well, I don't want to take medicine because it'll make me somebody different. And I often say, you know, after seeing all the scans that I've seen,

well, don't you want to be who you really are when your brain is working optimally? At full capacity. At full capacity. And often, when I see adults who have ADD, I want to see their partners. I see ADD as a family issue, I see ADD as a family issue and I want to make sure the partner is not blaming everything in the relationship on that person's ADD, but also I need feedback because many people have ADD, they'll come, they won't come. In fact, I sort of made it the rule in my office. It's like, we start on time and we end on time. So if you're late, call me. I started, because I'm like,

you know, I'm not going to run because you're dealing with the rest of the day. Right. Exactly. Right. Because someone just, they're not time sensitive, but they learn, they have to learn they have to be on that anxiety probably helps them a little bit. So I think one of the big ahas for me, because I didn't believe in ADD and I thought it was an excuse to fail and I thought it was, you know, nonsense and whatever. All these people have ADD and, you know, it's like this convenient bucket that everything falls into when something's not working in their life. That's how I used to see it. And then I think the big aha for me,

I certainly didn't think I had it because I was doing pretty well in life, right? Did well in school, had a good job, didn't have debt, was like, I was doing pretty well in life. So I didn't see that as someone, that wasn't classic ADD in my mind. What I didn't realize, that I didn't see that as someone that wasn't classic ADD in my mind. What I didn't realize that I couldn't realize was that when I did treat the ADD, how much easier things were. It's not that I wasn't succeeding before. It's that I didn't realize how hard it was.

And so the same can be true in relationships, right? It doesn't have to be that hard. And I think that's a really important thing for people to realize. It doesn't matter if you're doing okay, if you're not meeting your potential. The point is, are you meeting your potential and how hard is it for you to get there? And I often say, I don't take broken people and fix them.

I take awesome people and help them be more awesome. Awesome. Right? awesome people and help them be more awesome. Right. And you've written a New York Times bestselling book and you've written eight cookbooks. Yeah. And my memoir, The Relentless Courage of a Scared Child, which is really what it's like growing up with a mom that has ADD, theough and Endless Courage of a scared child and some of the craziness there. You know, there's a very interesting statistic and why it's so important to recognize and

treat this. Girls, teenage pregnancy is very high among ADD, untreated ADD girls. And over a hundred years, because ADD is increasing in the population, and why is it? And there's a very interesting statistic. On average, a woman who has ADD has her first baby when she's 20, where girls or young women who do not have ADD have their first child at the age of 26. So, think about that with me. Over a hundred years, people have ADD will have five generations where people who don't have ADD will have four. So all by itself, that is going to increase the population. Well, and then if you add in technology and food and all the other things that are increasing

ADD. Increasing the expression of ADD for sure. But with treatment, there is great hope. Now sometimes, I'm not going to lie about this, treatment can cause problems. I scanned someone who was just a wonderful world leader, a terrible ADD. And when I treated her and activated her frontal lobes, she started having problems with her husband because she goes, oh, I want to see the books and I want to see how things are managed. And it just sort of upset the relationship because he was just behind running everything and not getting her input.

And when she had more focus that caused conflict. Now I would say that's good conflict because you absolutely want to know what the books are like if your name's on the business. So that sort of reminds me of when someone in the family gets treated for alcoholism and suddenly the entire dynamics of the family get changed. So this is a little different, but it still affects the whole family. It's the same. The same concept.

And that's why it's a family issue. And it's why I always, I think of myself as a family psychiatrist. Like if you were with someone really unhealthy and you, but you were figuring out how to make it work, even though you knew it was unhealthy, but you suddenly get treatment and now you're healthy or healthier.

And then you, you know, you're doing therapy, you get treated for all of this stuff. And now you're back with this person who's unhealthy. You might notice it a lot more. Yeah. So just to summarize, ADD is real and when it's left untreated, it causes real problems. Now, there, we really talk about this, there are seven types of ADD and I always think their intimacy strategies are a little bit different for each of the

seven types. So maybe we can talk about that just for a second. So there's classic ADD or ADHD, short attention span, distractible, disorganized, procrastination, impulsive to this one at hyperactivity, restlessness. They need novelty in order to focus. And if you want to have great sex, take them to a scary movie. Scary movie, there's all sorts of dopamine associated with that the sex will be wonderful and wild. Type two is inattentive ADD. It's where OCD and ADHD get married. Short-distance is bad, distractibility, organized, often very overly organized, put things off, not terribly impulsive, worried,

rigid and flexible. Things like, go with it. Tuesday's my night or Thursday morning. Go with it. Type four is what I call temporal low, ADD symptoms plus mood instability, sometimes temper problems, dark thoughts. So these are the ones that will tell you how, like your patient that was gonna kill herself in all these different ways?

Yes. Also sometimes spiritual connections because the temporal lobes tend to be involved in spirituality. Sometimes it's a little bit of an anti-seizure medicine or raising GABA or magnesium can be so helpful with them. Getting that type treated is really important. Type five is limbic ADD where their emotional brain

is really busy. They have all the ADD symptoms, plus they can be sad and look at the world as the glass is half empty. Saffron is miraculous. And the reason I love Saffron is it can increase your mood, it can help ADD, but it's also pro-sexual. And it helps memory. So I'm like, mood the day of connection, they're not someone like type one will just hop in bed with you. Type five, they need to know you're thinking about them. Type six is the ring of fire. It's people who have significant mood swings, so you have to sort of catch them at the right time.

And seven, which is your type, it's they need to be soothed a little bit. So whether it's soft music. So it's anxious. anxious ADD. Yeah. So I think I have a little bit of the overfocused and a little bit of the anxious. So not if makeup sex is not the right thing for them. So type one and two makeup sex could totally be a not with type seven. I like structure and routine and winding down or winding up winding down or winding up.

That's good. There's just so much to learn. And if you're in a relationship, the most important thing is what do you want? Like with you, I'm so clear. I want a kind, caring, loving, supportive, passionate, long-term relationship. You were so hard to catch. You were so hard to catch. And I love what you said once. The only way I'm running is if I'm chasing you. And I'm like, yeah, once I finally settled in, that's perfect for want. And then you ask yourself every day, does my behavior get me what I want? And that's, I almost think of it as a secondary frontal lo to just help you manage your behavior so you live a life that is driven by the purpose you've set forth. I like it. Well, I like you. There you have it. Thanks for listening. We love if you

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