ADHD, AuDHD & The Fear of Leaving Relationships When Faced With the Unknown

What if the intensity you’re feeling… isn’t connection?

In this episode of Dating on High Alert, we’re looking at something that doesn’t get talked about anywhere near enough - the way ambiguity, inconsistency, and mixed signals can feel like chemistry.

Especially for ADHD and AuDHD brains, where dopamine is driven by uncertainty, not stability. Ambiguity can be particularly activating, exhausting, or destabilising for many autistic people.

That pull you feel?
 The constant thinking about them?
 The high when they show up and the drop when they don’t?

It can feel like meaning. Like something important is happening.

But sometimes, it’s not about the person.
 It’s about what the situation is doing to your nervous system.

We also go deeper into what happens when you ignore your internal signal for too long - how self-abandonment doesn’t happen all at once, but slowly, quietly, and reasonably… until you realise you’ve lost yourself inside something that no longer fits.

And then comes the question so many people sit with:

Do I stay, or do I go?

This episode breaks down why that decision feels so difficult, especially when you can’t visualise a better future, don’t feel confident, and are waiting for clarity that never seems to arrive.

And more importantly… what actually moves you forward when none of those things are in place.

This isn’t theory.
This is lived experience, pattern recognition, and truth, without the fluff.

If this episode resonates with you:

• Listen to the full episode via the link in the show notes
 • Share it with someone who needs to hear it
 • Follow the podcast for more honest conversations around dating, ADHD, trauma, and relationships

Work with me:

If you’re stuck in patterns you can’t seem to break, navigating neurodivergent relationships, or trying to make a decision you keep avoiding - this is exactly the work I do.

→ Coaching, support, and contact details: https://iljaabbattista.co.uk/
 → Support the podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2463815/support

Important Support Resources:

If you are in a situation where you don’t feel safe, please reach out for support:

• Refuge (24/7 helpline): 0808 2000 247
 • Women's Aid: womensaid.org.uk
 • Men's Advice Line: 0808 801 0327
 • LGBT+ Domestic Abuse Helpline: 0800 999 5428
 • Samaritans: 116 123

You don’t have to navigate it alone.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi and welcome back to Dating on Highlight. And before I get into today's episode, I want to say something briefly about who I am and where this comes from. Because I think it matters. I'm not a therapist and I don't have a psychology degree. What I do have is a brain that is hyper focused on ADHD, autism, Aud and trauma. Partly because I had to, partly because once I started I just couldn't stop. And I've put everything I talk about into practice in my own life. And the results do speak for themselves. Not perfectly, not without setbacks, but genuinely. And one of the things that comes with being Audi HD is pattern recognition. In fact, well, that's how it shows up for me. I spot patterns everywhere. Paper and gravel, films, which I, you know, can be genuinely annoying because I always know who did it before anybody else. And in people, in relationships, in the dynamics that keep people stuck in situations that stopped serving them a long time ago. And that capacity didn't just arrive from nowhere. I learned to read body language and tone and the gap between what somebody says and what they mean. From a time when that information was the only information I had. When reading a room accurately wasn't a skill, but it was survival. And yet, and this is important, I became uh an expert at ignoring those very same patterns in my own relationships. The person who spots everything everywhere, who can read a room before she's properly walked into it, spent years not listening to what her own body already knew. And last week we talked about the signal your body sends and why you learnt not to listen to it. And this week we're going to take a step further. What happens when you keep ignoring it? What does it cost? And what actually moves you forward when the confidence hasn't arrived and the picture of the better thing just won't come. And that's what today is about. And I would also like to talk about something that doesn't get discussed honestly enough in the dating world. You know, with relationships. The feeling of intensity that gets mistaken for the right connection. You meet somebody and something about them produces a feeling that is strong and immediate and consuming. And because that feeling is that strong, you assume that it means something that this person is significant, that this connection is real. And the intensity of evidence of something important. And sometimes it is. Sometimes the intensity is genuine and the connection is solid. And what you're feeling is exactly what it looks like. But sometimes, and this is what I also want to discuss today, the intensity isn't about the person at all. It's about the situation, it's about what the situation is doing to your nervous system. And for ADHD and Audi HD brain specifically. Dopamine doesn't work the way it does for most people. It shows up for things that are new, uncertain, exciting, and it disappears when things become predictable and routine. Which means ambiguity, the not knowing, the mixed signals, the person who shows up fully one day and goes quiet the next can produce a dopamine response that feels exactly like falling for somebody. The rush when they appear, the flatness when they don't, the constant low-level monitoring of whether they're going to even show up today. And then the relief when they do. That's not connection. That's a nervous system responding to inconsistency. And this isn't always about it coming from the wrong person. Sometimes it's a perfectly decent person who genuinely doesn't know what they want, and that's how they show up. They might like the connection enough to stay, but isn't really ready or willing to meet you where you are. They're not necessarily doing anything deliberately, but the effect on your nervous system is the same. Then being so great makes it even harder to spot the signals. The ambiguity creates the intensity, and the intensity gets mistaken for meaning. And if you spent your life reading signals, if your nervous system is already wired to scan for information, to fill the gaps, to monitor tone and body language and what isn't being said, then the ambiguous person is the most activating room person in the room. Not because they're right for you, because your system is working overtime, trying to decode them. And that can feel like chemistry, it can feel like connection, it can feel in the early stages like exactly what you're looking for. And there's something else worth saying here too. Sometimes you miss the signs, not because you weren't paying attention, but because the signs weren't there to see yet. Some people genuinely are the person they present at the beginning. The warmth is real, the effort is real, the connection is real, and then something changes. Or the version that they could could sustain runs out. Or the person they were on best behavior for stops feeling like somebody that they need to work for. And that's not your fault. And I just want to make sure that you hear that clearly. Most people also don't set out to be fake or manipulative. Though I'll be honest, I've met some who do, who go out of their way to get you exactly where they want you to be. Both of these versions exist. And either way, it doesn't, it doesn't change where you start from now. And don't beat your, you know, don't beat yourself up for what you've already missed. Start from where you are at this moment. That's the only place that anything can be built from. Until the honeyfo honeymoon phase ends, until the flags that were always there or that appeared later start becoming impossible to ignore, until you're working harder than you should have to, until the person that you fell in love with has quietly become somebody different. And you're left trying to find your way back to something that may never have been fully what you needed in the first place. And I just want to be open and honest here and some things to think about. What happens when you ignore the signal for long enough that you start losing yourself inside that relationship? It doesn't happen all at once. And that's the thing, it's gradual, gradual, incremental. Each individual accommodation seems reasonable at the time, but it's each individual piece of adapt adapting makes sense in that moment too. And you dial yourself back slightly because you're too much. You agree to something you wouldn't normally agree to because it's easier than the conversation. You stop bringing up the thing that bothers you because the last time you brought it up, nothing changed, and it costs you something to say it. You start performing the version of yourself that keeps the piece rather than living the version of yourself that's actually true. And somewhere along the way, without a single dramatic moment to point to, you've made yourself smaller. You've adapted so thoroughly that you're not sure where the adaptation ends and where you begin. And the relationship keeps going because you've made it easy, because you're carrying most of the weight, because the other person doesn't have to work at it when you've already done all of the work of making yourself manageable. And meanwhile, something underneath is getting quieter. The signal that was there in the beginning, the one that noticed things, the one that knew things before you were ready to know them, you suppress it. Not because you're not hearing it, but because hearing it means deciding. And deciding means facing something that you're not ready to face yet. So you try harder instead. You go back to look for the beginning. You work to recreate the feeling you had when things were good. And you make excuses for the behavior that a year ago you would never have accepted. And you tell yourself that all relationships go through hard things. And maybe you tell yourself that you're just being too sensitive, that what you're asking for is too much. And the person that you fell in love with, who who was maybe always a little different to who you needed them to be, or who genuinely has changed over time, that person isn't really there anymore. And neither, if you're honest, are you. So you arrive at a question do I stay or do I go? And some part of you already knows the answer. Some part of you has already known for quite a while. But knowing and deciding are two very completely different things. Because deciding require it needs you to move towards something that you can't see yet. And for a brain that needs options to be present before it can choose, for a brain that that can't be in a room that it's never stood in. The future doesn't exist yet, doesn't pull hard enough against the present that is familiar, even when the familiar is painful. And part of what keeps people stuck is object permanence. The future that isn't present yet doesn't pull as hard as the relationship that is right in front of you, even when the relationship is painful. What's known and concrete is always going to feel more real than what doesn't exist yet. And for those of you who think rather than visualize, who can't construct an internal image of something that you've never seen, that pull towards the unknown is even weaker. And you can't be drawn towards a picture that won't come or that won't form, which means that the decision to move has to come from something other than being able to see the destination. And then there are the stories, the the ones planted so deep that they begin to feel like facts. It's good enough. Starting again is just too hard. I don't know what's um I don't know what's out there. I don't know if I can do this on my own. Or what if I leave and it doesn't get better? Or what if this is just what relationships are? And what if the problem is me? And the conventional um advice says believe in yourself, visualize the life that you want, build your confidence and then make the move. But what if the visualization won't come? Or what if it looks different to you? What if you can't picture the better thing because you've never seen it? What if confidence feels like something other people have that you've been waiting for your whole life and it just never keeps it just never arrives? And then there's something harder than that, than than all of that. What if you're too scared to leave? I want to name that clearly because it's real and it matters and it deserves more than a passing mention. If you're scared to leave because you don't know what comes next, that's something that we can work through. The fear is about the unknown, and the unknown becomes less frightening once you start moving towards it. But if you're scared to leave because you don't feel safe, that's completely different, and that needs different support. I've put some contacts in the show notes who are there specifically for that. Please use them if you need them. The cost of staying in something that isn't safe is always greater than the price of leaving. Always. And I know this. I I was in that very situation and I escaped, and I had absolutely no idea where I was going or what it even looked like. I just knew that I had to go, and I made that decision and I acted on it. And you know, it wasn't immediately, it took me a long time to get to that. And every step I took, um, the path became clearer, the belief that I could do it became stronger, and that is not a motivational line, that is what actually happened. And for anybody else, um, the ones who are emotionally stuck rather than physically unsafe, I want to say this. What if you've been waiting for something that can only be built after the decision, not before it? You don't need the confidence to leave. You don't need to see the destination, you don't even need to have it all figured out before you move. I didn't have it any any of it figured out. You just need to take the courage to make that one honest decision. That's it. That's the whole thing. And the duck the sorry, the path doesn't become clear while you're standing still waiting for it. It becomes clear whilst you're moving. The answers come as you go, the options become visible once you've stepped away from the thing that was blocking your view. And you've made hundreds of your uh of decisions in your life, significant ones, difficult ones, ones that required you to act without certainty. The story that this decision is different, that this one requires something that you don't currently have, and that's that's a story, it's not a fact. What if you didn't need to know where you were going? What if you just needed to be honest with yourself that where you are isn't it? And what if the only thing that is standing between you and the something better isn't the confidence or a clear vision or the right moment, but it's the courage to tell yourself the truth and act on it. And here's what I know from having been inside of this. The moment that you make that decision, the real one, the the one that your body has been building towards for longer than you've admitted, something shifts. And it's it's not everything, it's it's also not necessarily immediately, but something. The signal that's been getting quieter starts getting louder again. The self that got smaller inside the relationship starts finding its edges again. The questions that you stopped asking yourself start becoming available again. And it's not, you know, because suddenly everything's fine, but because you're moving and because movement changes what's visible. And when you have some space, real space, you know, not just physical distance, but internal quiet, you can start asking yourself the questions that really matter. Not what do I think I deserve, but what do I actually want? Write it down, say it out loud, read it back to yourself. You know, you don't have to do it as a performance, but make it a practice and create a habit. And that's the beginning of a relationship with your own knowing that is more honest than the one that you've been in. And I tell myself every day what I value and I adapt it when something no longer serves me, I change it. When I realize I need something that I hadn't named before, I add it. It's not fixed, but you know, it's it's alive and it moves with me. And because you are alive and you're always becoming something more than what you were. And that clarity changed what I was willing to accept and changed what I was putting out into the world. And sometimes you meet someone good, and you're not just a great match, and that's not a failure, that's that's just information, and that's perfectly okay too. But not being able to make a decision based on what you don't know, that's real, and that fear is real. And the unknown is genuinely scary for a brain that needs options to be visible before it can choose. And here's what I would like to leave you with you'll never know all of the answers before you move. Nobody does. The confidence that you've been waiting for isn't going to arrive whilst you're standing still, that's for sure. And the picture of the better thing isn't going to come into focus while you're still inside the thing that is blocking you. And nothing changes if a decision if the decision isn't made. And you are more than capable of making it than the story in your head has been telling you. And if any of this landed to you today, if something in this episode describes something that you've been living but didn't quite have the words for, I want you to know that this is exactly the kind of work that I do. I work with people who are dating and keep finding themselves in the same patterns. Um, those who keep arriving at the same place and just don't really know why. Um, also with those who want to get clearer about what they're looking for and start making decisions from that clarity rather than from fear or habit. And I also work with couples navigating neurodivergence, where one partner has ADHD, autism, or Aud. Or both of you are where the wiring is different enough that communication breaks down in the moments that it matters most. Finding the right language for the times when the words just don't come. Understanding what's actually happening underneath the shutdown, the withdrawal, the reaction that's seemed out of proportion afterwards. And I work with people who feel stuck in relationships, in dating, in life. Who knows? You know something needs to move but can't quite make it move. Waiting for the confidence. Or the vision or the right moments, and are ready to try a different approach. And if that's you, everything you need to take. Uh the next steps is the is is going to be in the show notes. And if this podcast has been useful to you and you'd like to support it, there's a link in the show notes for that too. It means more than I can say, and it keeps these conversations going for those that need to hear it. Thank you for being here today, and thank you for being honest enough with yourself to listen to this. That takes something, doesn't it? Don't underestimate it. And as always, until next spiral.