What’s your ADHD love language?
Love languages are the ways people express and perceive love and affection. The five love languages are: gift-giving, words of affirmation, quality time, acts of service and physical touch. Your love language can be a mix of multiple languages, you may express your love through gift-giving and receive love from words or affirmation. They’re pretty well known, but do you know about the ADHD love languages? These love languages speak to the ways that neurodivergent people express their love. When you have a better understanding of how you express and receive love, it can truly help your relationship.
Infodumping
Are you someone who loves to learn and share that information with your partner? Your love language is probably infodumping. This love language is when you’re allowed to share and connect through a topic you find interesting. People who have this love language feel loved when someone encourages them to share the things their passionate about.
2. Body Doubling/ Parallel Play
This love language is like the ADHD alternative to quality time. It’s when you can spend your alone time with someone. You don’t have to talk, you can do your own thing and share occasionally with the other person. You can read your book while the other paints, or you can play a video game while the other person works.
3. Support Swap
This love language is the alternative to acts of service. An act of service would be doing your dishes for you, support swap is when you mutually decide to keep each other accountable. One partner keeps the other in check of their sugar intake, while the other reminds them to pay their bills.
4. Eliminate Distractions
Distractions can be a significant barrier to productivity, particularly for people with ADHD. Identify the things that distract you and try to eliminate them as much as possible. For example, if you find that social media is a significant distraction, consider disabling notifications or using a website blocker to limit your access to distracting websites during work hours.
5. Deep Pressure
This love language is like physical touch, but specifically, tightening touch. Neurodivergent people often find that exerted pressure or weight, like a weighted blanket, can calm them down. If you find that a tight hug calms you down when you’re stressed, this might be your ADHD love language.
6. Penguin pebbling
This is gift-giving but on a smaller scale. Examples are sharing memes about the other person’s favorite show, bringing them flowers that you picked on your walk or giving them something that reminds them of something they love. This is often a way of showing that you’re listening to your partner’s interests and that you’re thinking of them.
