ADHD, Impulsivity and Women: When Good Intentions Aren’t Enough (PART 3)

Featured Image by Tung Lam from Pixabay

ADHD impulsivity in women can be difficult to recognize and even harder to understand. Impulsive spending, rapidly changing plans, interrupting, emotional reactions, starting new projects, rushing into relationships and struggling to follow through can all create significant challenges for the woman herself—and for the people who love her.

In Part 1 of this series, “Understanding the ADHD Brain Transforms Relationships”, I elaborated on how ADHD affects motivation, executive functioning and relationships. In Part 2 of this post, “ADHD in Girls & Women: Why So Many Go Undiagnosed“ we explored why ADHD in females is often overlooked and diagnosed late due to its specific presentation. Both posts introduced you to a mother-daughter relationship with the daughter being the ADHDer. In this post, you will meet Kim, whose mother has the impulsive form of ADHD.

There are three presentations of ADHD: predominantly inattentive, predominantly hyperactive/impulsive and combined.

The inattentive type is characterized by having at least six of the following traits:

• being “zoned out” or in a “dream world”
• being distracted by what’s happening around you or by your own thoughts
• trouble staying focused and on-task
• making mistakes because of inattention
• starting projects but having trouble completing them
• difficulty organizing and setting priorities (projects or tasks that involve multiple steps feel overwhelming)
• losing, misplacing or forgetting objects
• avoiding boring or tedious tasks
• forgetful in your daily life (forgetting promises, appointments, tedious chores like paying the bills)

The hyperactive/impulsive type is characterized by having at least six of the following traits:

• feeling restless
• fidgeting
• frequently needing to stand up and walk around
• trouble staying quiet (talking to themselves or saying nonsensical phrases or sounds)
• unusually active, and always busy (others have trouble keeping up)
• talking excessively (e.g. over-explaining or “info-dumping” about topics they enjoy)
• conversational habits of interrupting people or finishing their sentences
• trouble being patient and waiting
• lack of social boundaries (interrupting, intruding)

 

“My Mother is Irresponsible Like a Child”

There are some ADHD traits that are extremely hard for the ADHDer to have and can also drive family members to exhaustion and constant worry, especially when impulsiveness leads to serious consequences.

For my client Kim, this had been her experience with her mother for as long as she could remember. Her mother Nancy was 78, and the consequences of some of her lifelong impulsive behaviours couldn’t be overlooked anymore.

Nancy had a shopping problem that had resulted in so much debt that she was at risk of losing her home. Her daughter and son-in-law had to take over the mortgage to prevent that from happening.

But addictive shopping wasn’t the only thing that made Kim feel exasperated. Her mother spoke loudly and excessively, often being very opinionated, which embarrassed Kim at social gatherings. She always regaled her audience with stories of a colourful, adventurous life, but Kim only saw the failures. Throughout her life, Nancy had passionately started three different businesses, convinced each time that this was going to be the next chapter of her life. None of them became very successful. Yet Nancy had a big heart and made many connections and lifelong friends along the way.

Unfortunately, that also meant a pattern of falling in love and moving in with men remarkably quickly. Kim was already 21 and living in another province when her father left. She watched her mother go through three live-in boyfriends over the next two decades. None of them was particularly financially stable or responsible. As her mother’s alcohol addiction became worse, Kim had to cut contact with her completely for several years. After hitting rock bottom at age 60, Nancy quit drinking and reconnected with Kim.

The relationship was easier to navigate without an active alcohol addiction, but over the next 18 years, Nancy’s financial situation and her health declined while countless promises were made to live more healthily, spend less, be more responsible and make better choices. The intentions always seemed genuine. But somehow, good intentions rarely translated into lasting change.

For her daughter Kim, these behaviours became incredibly frustrating. She was on a roller coaster of disappointment, hurt, fear, and exhaustion.

Then, through coaching, she began to look at her mother’s behaviour through a different lens. She started wondering whether some of the things that had driven her crazy for decades could actually be connected to ADHD and neurodiversity. And suddenly, her mother’s behaviour began to make a different kind of sense.

 

Impulsivity Having Serious Consequences

Impulsivity is one of the characteristics associated with some ADHDers.  But when we hear the word impulsive, we may imagine someone who simply doesn’t care about consequences. That’s not necessarily what is happening. An ADHD brain can have difficulty creating enough space between an urge and an action.

For most neurotypical people, there is an almost automatic pause:

“I want this.”

“Wait. Can I afford it?”

“What will happen if I do this?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t.”

With ADHD, that pause may be much less reliable. The desire, idea, emotion or opportunity can feel extremely compelling in the moment, while the consequences exist somewhere in the future. This is one reason ADHD can affect executive functions such as inhibition, planning, delaying gratification and regulating behaviour.

It isn’t a lack of intelligence. It isn’t a lack of caring. And it certainly isn’t always a lack of understanding. This is one of the themes I explored in Understanding ADHD in Relationships, where I look at how ADHD-related challenges can be misunderstood as laziness, selfishness or a lack of commitment.

Sometimes the person knows exactly what the consequence will be. They just struggle to consistently stop themselves in the moment.

This is one of the most frustrating things for family members. You might think:

• “She knows that she can’t afford it. Why did she buy it?”
• “She knows this relationship is moving too quickly. Why did she not slow down?”
• “She knows she needs to follow through. Why does she keep starting new things?”
• “She promised she’d stop. Why does she not keep her promises?”

And sometimes our judgments lead us to label the ADHDer as “wasteful”, “irresponsible”, “flighty”, “lazy”, “deceitful” or even a “liar”.

What if, instead, we default to assuming the person really meant the promise when they made it? Saying something you know you will not do is deceitful. However, making a promise you intend to keep and then struggling with time management and habit changes does not stem from dishonesty or a desire to mislead others.

That is an important distinction. With ADHD, knowing what you should do and being able to consistently do it are not necessarily the same thing.

Someone can sincerely want to save money and still impulsively shop. They can genuinely want to become healthier and still struggle to follow through. They can know that starting another business isn’t financially sensible and nevertheless become completely captivated by the excitement of a new idea.

Understanding this doesn’t remove responsibility. But it can change how we understand what is happening.

 

How Impulsivity Can Look in Women

As I explored in  “ADHD in Girls & Women – Undiagnosed”, many women have spent their entire lives learning how to hide or compensate for ADHD symptoms, especially masking behaviours that don’t fit social expectations, which means their struggles may remain invisible—even to themselves.

Girls are often taught to be organized, polite, quiet, helpful and emotionally controlled. So hyperactivity and impulsivity may become much less obvious. Instead of physical disruption, a woman might talk constantly, interrupt, finish people’s sentences or blurt out whatever has just entered her mind. She might send a very long message and then immediately regret it. She might overshare personal information and later experience what some people describe as a “vulnerability hangover.” Or her impulsivity may show up through shopping, eating, relationships, hobbies or sudden life changes.

What looks like a collection of unrelated personality traits may sometimes have a common thread.

 

The Shopping Impulse

Shopping is a powerful example. Buying something new can provide immediate stimulation, anticipation and reward. The financial consequence, however, may not arrive until later. That creates a dangerous mismatch: The reward is now. The consequence is later.

An online purchase can take seconds. The credit-card bill is due weeks later. By then, the excitement has disappeared—and the person may genuinely wonder: “What was I thinking?”

This was one of the most serious problems for Nancy. Her shopping had gone far beyond buying the occasional unnecessary item. It had contributed to debt so significant that her home was at risk.

Understanding possible ADHD-related impulsivity did not make the debt disappear. It did, however, give the family a more useful question. Instead of only asking: “Why can’t you just stop shopping?” they could ask: “What can we put in place to make impulsive shopping less likely?”

 

Starting Versus Sustaining

Her three unsuccessful businesses are another interesting example. People with ADHD can have extraordinary creativity and an abundance of ideas. The beginning of something new can be incredibly stimulating. There is novelty, possibility and excitement. But starting something and sustaining something are very different skills. The initial idea may be energizing, while the less exciting parts—administration, bookkeeping, repetitive tasks, planning and long-term follow-through—can become much harder.

From the outside, this can look like: “She never sticks to anything.” From the inside, it may feel more like: “This new idea is finally the thing that will work.”

Some helpful Task and Routine Strategies to implement are

• The “Micro-Step” method: Break overwhelming tasks into very small steps. Completing a tiny step triggers a small dopamine hit, creating momentum for the next one.
• Novelty and gamification: Rotate your workspaces, use colourful timers, or set up artificial rewards to trick the brain’s reward center into engagement.
• Body doubling: Working alongside someone else—even virtually or silently—reduces the friction of starting a task and keeps attention from drifting.

Many people with ADHD are highly creative and successful entrepreneurs. The issue isn’t having ideas. It is that motivation and attention can be strongly influenced by interest, novelty and stimulation, while routine and delayed rewards may be harder to sustain. So an ADHDer often benefits from having a neurotypical partner in business who takes care of the mundane, boring, everyday tasks.

 

Friendships and Romantic Relationships

Relationships can also become an area where impulsivity creates difficulties. Falling in love is exciting. It is emotionally intense. There is novelty, connection and anticipation. For someone who experiences life intensely, a new relationship can feel almost irresistible. The challenge may not be the ability to love. It may be the ability to slow down and to ask:

• “Do I really know this person?”
• “What do I actually know about our compatibility?”
• “Is moving in together a good decision?”
• “Am I making this decision because it is right for me—or because the excitement feels amazing right now?”

A similar dynamic can show up with new friendships. The connection is instant, exciting and inspiring. Getting to know each other speaks to the interest- and novelty-based brain of an ADHDer, and all the focus and attention is directed at the new friendship.

Understanding the possible ADHD component doesn’t mean every impulsive relationship decision is caused by ADHD. But it can provide another piece of the puzzle.

 

Emotional Impulsivity

Impulsivity isn’t only about money or major life decisions. It can also involve emotions. An ADHDer may go from calm to intensely frustrated, angry or upset in a very short period of time. They may send the angry text. Say something they don’t mean. Threaten to quit. Make a major decision in the middle of an emotional storm. Have an affair because it feels thrilling. And then, once the intensity has passed, regret what happened.

This can create exhausting cycles in relationships: trigger → intense emotion → impulsive reaction → regret → apology → repeat

Learning to create even a small pause between the feeling and the response can make a remarkable difference.

 

Good Intentions

This may be the part that families find hardest to understand. The person promises:

• “I’ll do better.”
• “I’ll stop spending.”
• “I’ll exercise.”
• “I’ll eat better.”
• “I’ll be more organized.”

And perhaps they mean every word. But good intentions are not the same as executive functioning. A person can genuinely want to change and still struggle to turn that intention into consistent action.

This is why it is so important to move away from: “Why don’t you try harder?” and towards: “What support or structure would make this easier?”

 

A Buffer Between the Impulse and the Action

One of the most helpful concepts when working with impulsivity is creating a buffer. We can’t always prevent the impulse. But we can make it harder for the impulse to immediately become an action.

Create Steps Between the Urge and the Execution

Before making a non-essential purchase, wait. Your waiting period might be 1 hour, 24 hours, or 48 hours, depending on the situation. The purpose of this waiting rule isn’t punishment. It is to allow the initial excitement to settle and to make impulsive shopping harder.

In addition:

• Delete saved credit-card information.
• Remove shopping apps from your phone.
• Unsubscribe from promotional emails.

The more steps between the urge and the purchase, the more opportunity there is for the rational brain to catch up.

Create external accountability

Don’t rely entirely on willpower. Spending limits, banking alerts, separate accounts, agreed financial boundaries and another trusted person checking in can provide an external brake. For someone whose impulsivity has created serious financial consequences, this can be far more effective than repeatedly saying: “Please don’t do it again.”

Use an “if–then” plan

Decide what you will do when an impulse arrives. For example: “If I suddenly want to buy something expensive, then I will wait 48 hours before purchasing it.”

Or: “If I feel like sending an angry message, then I will put my phone down and walk outside first.”

The decision is made when you’re calm rather than when the impulse is already in charge.

Find healthy stimulation

ADHD brains can respond strongly to novelty, challenge, interest and stimulation. That doesn’t mean stimulation is bad. Exercise, creative projects, challenging hobbies, games, dancing, music and outdoor activities can provide healthy sources of novelty and reward.

The question becomes: “What does my brain need—and how can I meet that need safely?”

Understanding is not Making Excuses

There is one important distinction I don’t want to lose. Understanding ADHD does not mean excusing harmful behaviour. If someone’s impulsive spending is putting the family home at risk, financial boundaries are still necessary. When impulsive behaviour is damaging a relationship, the other person still has the right to set boundaries. When an ADHDer repeatedly makes commitments they cannot keep, the people around them are allowed to stop relying on promises alone.

Understanding the reason behind the behaviour can actually make boundaries more compassionate and more effective. Instead of: “You obviously don’t care.” We can say:

“We understand that impulsive spending is difficult for you. And because it has put your home at risk, we need a system that protects you from making these decisions in the moment.” That is both compassionate and responsible.

 

Seeing Someone Differently

But the possibility of ADHD and neurodiversity gave Kim something she had never had before: a different explanation and more compassion.

Her mother hadn’t suddenly become a different person. The past hadn’t changed. The debt hadn’t disappeared. The frustration of decades of difficult behaviour was still real. But the story had changed.

Instead of seeing a mother who simply didn’t care about consequences, she could begin to see a woman who may have spent much of her life struggling with impulse control, executive functioning and the powerful pull of immediate reward without understanding why.

And once the family understood that, they could stop relying on promises alone. They could create strategies, build safeguards and make impulsive spending more difficult. They could protect what mattered, like their family home. And perhaps most importantly, they could replace some of the frustration with understanding.

Because sometimes the most powerful change in a relationship isn’t changing the other person. It is finally understanding why they have always been the way they are.

 

If you recognize yourself in this

If you have spent years wondering why you know exactly what you should do but repeatedly find yourself doing something else, ADHD may be worth exploring.

And if you are the partner, parent, adult child or friend of someone whose impulsivity has affected your relationship, understanding ADHD may help you see the behaviour differently—without giving up your own boundaries.

Reach out for a free 15-minute Zoom consultation

Angelika Baum

Belief Change & Relationship Coaching

905-286-9466

greendoorrelaxation@yahoo.ca

 

If this is your first visit to the series, you may also enjoy:

• Part 1 – Understanding ADHD in Relationships
• Part 2 – ADHD in Women: The Hidden Struggle of Being Undiagnosed
• Part 4 – ADHD Myths and Misconceptions: Separating Facts from Fiction
• Part 5 – 5 ADHD Strategies That Actually Help: Turning Intentions Into Action