ADHD = No Friends
Anybody else feel like ADHD makes it super hard to make friends? 😔
Anybody else feel like ADHD makes it super hard to make friends? 😔
Posts and comments here share personal experience — not medical advice. For treatment questions, talk to a clinician.
I know exactly how you feel. You wrote it perfectly. I wouldn’t be able to simply put it like you did. I feel like this all the time now. When I was working and doing better in life, I didn’t have any of these problems. I don’t understand how I have them now. I guess I’ve grown and changed more I thought in life? I don’t know. I’ve become so introverted.
I think about this constantly. Everyone is out on a Friday night and here I sit per usual. I think about all the times I e gone out with coworkers and made some great friendships with them. I used to be busy everyday and night. Now that I’m on disability I never leave the house and not having a vehicle is the extra punch in my gut. How do I cope? It’s hard to make new friends at my age. I look like I’m in my 30’s and feel younger! I have
Yep. I can barely keep my kids alive let alone maintain friendships 😬 a friend texted me in October and asked to meet up - I was away at the time and said "sure! I will text you when I get home" .... did not text her, have thought about it every day since but feel so much shaaaame about it. 😢
Really hard. I get so excited and make plans to make new friends, or go out and meet with some people and then it all becomes too much and I bail and stay at home…..or I force myself to go and then spend the next few days recovering from all the excess emotions. It’s a lot. I feel things deeply way too much. I want friends, I’m afraid too that people will judge me because of how I act, speak and my random interests. I’m new to this. I know that the doctors told my parents when I was little that I had ADHD but nothing was done about it, no help….just told at 16 I have depression and anxiety and now I’m in my late 30’s and waiting for my appointment to get an official diagnosis so I can get some help. Maybe then it’ll be easier? Also….I want people around and I want to be invited to things, but then I don’t at the same time because my mind starts racing and it’s too much. Not sure how that makes sense, but that’s how I feel.
YES absolutely. Whenever you make friends you get really bad social anxiety and you just feel more comfortable backing out of group efforts. It sucks we all have this and it make its super hard because of either you worry that not your good enough for them or you feel like that person is slipping
110% I feel unless you have it no one understands you. Especially because you look 'normal' to the outside world so no one adapts their behaviours to help what's going on inside your head. Plus I have super bad social anxieties so just find I'm so awkward when around people and have no idea what to say or how to be friendly! Xx
Actually, I found out that: A. Making friends online works better (yes, they count!) and B. I tend to feel most at home in neurodivergent groups. Also.. there seems to be some overlap between ADHD and the Autism Spectrum, while it also kind of masks each other.. Have you considered a screener, and maybe talking to a professional ? Knowing can actually help.. Just something to think about.. ? ♥️
i’ve found that i can make friends, and quite easily (ty masking). it’s the maintaining it part that i struggle with, and as a result - have no friends 😅 sometimes i’m pretty sad about it, but the thought of putting continuous effort into something puts me off changing it. constant paradox 🙃
100% have this issue. My best friends that I’ve known for years all live in different states from me. Our communication is solely through text and memes. I have one friend locally but again, our communication is basically via text and never in person. I wish I had a way to help all of us make friends easily but I do not. It’s ok though - you are not alone.
I’ve gotten entirely new groups of friends pretty much every year of high school so far bc I tend to be really loyal while everyone else is being fake so towards the need of the school year everyone starts showing their true colours and I end up being the one getting hurt. At this point I’m thinking of saving friendship for college.
Yes, sometimes I feel I am not in the mood to comunicate..at all..no responding to messages, no call, no meetups. I just feel IT drains me to even rekord a voice message. It leads to me desapearing fór my friends for weeks, which is hard for them and not all wish to have such a friend. But I do not know how to change it.
True,but ngl I've been blessed with a bff that also has adhd so it's smooth sailing between us. We always wondered how we get along so well even tho we go for periods of time in which we don't really talk,or talk at all,but we found out recently that we both have adhd so that explains it
I see myself as an extraverted introvert sorta. So I make contact easily, but I'm not good at actually making a connection and keeping it. I read about someone being extremely aware of what they're doing since they know they got ADHD. It can be truly overwhelming, but the more you openly communicate it with people, the easier it becomes. It's not about you "justifying" why you do things the way you do, but it takes away any thoughts someone could have. For example; I interrupt people often and speak reaaallyy fast. When it happens I just tell them. And if needed I'll ask them to tell me if it annoys them. This way they get their chance to say something. If they don't say anything after that I can accept that all is good 😊
I was just thinking about this last week. I have no tribe right now. I used to have one, but since Covid and my adhd diagnosis, I am uncomfortably aware of how often I interrupt people, forget names, forget that we saw X movie or talked about Y. If I’m not grounded when this is brought to my attention, I feel like I just planted my hand on a flaming hot burner and just clam up. I am hopeful that I’ll figure it out, that we’ll help each other figure it out 🥰
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