ADHD and friendships

When I first started reading about ADHD traits, one of the earliest realisations was how much they had shaped my relationships, for better and for worse. Like most ADHD traits, what helps you in one direction can trip you in another. There are things to manage, and there are also genuine strengths.

I need be straight about something. Friendships have been a great joy in my life, but they have also been a source of anxiety and stress. Diagnosis helped, and I’ve learned coping strategies. A lot of those strategies came from fear of driving people away. For years, my way of coping often involved turning the stress inward. I’d worry until reassurance arrived, and then relief would set in. That pattern still shows up sometimes now.

Anyway, I’m going to name a handful of traits and describe how they’ve helped and hindered my friendships over the years.

Dopamine

Friendships are a plentiful source of dopamine, especially at the beginning.

We all recognise the joy of connecting with someone who feels like-minded, or someone who simply gets you. For an ADHD brain that’s craving dopamine, that initial hit is intense. Your new person can quickly become one of the most exciting parts of your world.

I think this is part of why I’ve always been able to form friendships quickly, including with people I’ve worked with.

Intensity

The challenge is that dopamine and impulse control combine in ways that can be tricky.

My natural instinct at the beginning of a new friendship is to come on strong. I tend to want to talk to the person a lot, think about them when they’re not there, and chase that “first high” of connection. Some people call this love bombing. I don’t mean it manipulatively. It’s more like enthusiasm with poor volume control.

If you meet someone who is wired similarly, it can be wonderful. It might also help explain why ADHD people seem to find each other. But to a more reserved person, it can feel intense or overwhelming. It can also frustrate your existing friends if you keep talking about the new person constantly.

I learned this at a young age, but I still wrestle with it. I can have near-constant anxiety about messaging someone too much. That early phase of friendship can burn bright and fast, with everything that brings.

Repetition

Once you’re safely through the early exchanges, another version of the same dynamic can appear.

If something felt good, I want to relive it. The joke you laughed at. The sketch we both found funny. The in-joke that made a moment feel like ours. I can feel a compulsion to replay it again and again because the original hit was so good.

That can be a strength. It can bring warmth and continuity. It can keep a bond alive.

It can also wear thin. I remember being a teenager and seeing eye-rolls from friends after the umpteenth repetition of a joke that had already passed.

That is one of the places where sensitivity worked for me, because it hurt. The pain of seeing that reaction made me suppress the impulse. It also created shame. I felt stupid, like an idiot, even though what I was really doing was chasing connection.

Interruption

Interrupting is another classic trait. I was taught early that it was rude, and it’s something I try hard to moderate. But the urge is there.

It’s particularly hard when you learn something new about someone and suddenly realise you share something. It can feel like an explosion of enthusiasm. You want to close the circuit of shared experience immediately.

This can be misread as making it all about you. Often it isn’t that at all. It’s not attention seeking. It’s the rush of finding common ground and wanting to affirm it.

If you have an ADHD friend, a bit of leeway helps. Often you can see the effort they are making. They might be holding back, but their face looks ecstatic because you’ve said something that makes them feel connected to you.

In moderation, it is actually quite lovely to have someone feel that delighted that you’re in their life.

Sensitivity

After dopamine, the second major theme in friendships for me is sensitivity.

This can be a real strength. I overthink everything. That means I don’t only war game my own life. I think about you too. What might help you. Whether you’re OK. What you might be carrying quietly.

People have told me I’m good to talk to because of this. I’m always honoured when someone lets me into their hopes, worries, and inner life.

The downside is that sensitivity cuts both ways.

Rejection

Many ADHD people experience rejection sensitivity, sometimes described through the term rejection sensitive dysphoria. The key word here is perceived.

It isn’t only actual rejection that triggers the feeling. Even the sense that you might have been rejected can feel as real as if it had happened.

Combine that with a brain that overthinks, and you can end up monitoring the state of the friendship constantly. You start feeling that a single wrong move will bring the sky crashing in.

When I was a teenager, I sometimes tried to hide that fear with bravado, by being louder in the group. I was hopeless at it. It was all coming from fear of ending up alone.

As I got older, the stress just moved inward. That stress then became anxiety.

I’m much more comfortable now than I was, but in new friendships or ones that matter deeply to me, small things can still trigger a pang. A text left unreplied. Worse, a message marked “read” with no response.

There’s also an irony here. I’m also forgetful. If we haven’t spoken for a while, or I miss a text, it isn’t that I don’t care. It might be that I thought I replied because I meant to, but I got distracted and didn’t actually do it. This is why I use Reminders on my phone as religiously as my brain allows.

Work

The internal work is constant.

I worry about having said the wrong thing. I worry about how something landed. I worry about whether I’ve become too much. Sometimes I worry even after reassurance has arrived.

CBT has probably been most useful for me here. If I leave doubt unchecked, I can worry myself silly. I’ve got better at this over time, but it still takes effort to show up in a way that looks calm from the outside.

The upside is that I don’t think many people work as hard as this simply to show up for you as well as they can.

Humour

The third trait I want to name is divergent thinking. This one has been a friend to me.

I’m quick with humour. I can make people laugh. My brain goes fast and it goes sideways, and that can produce jokes and unusual turns of phrase. There are a lot of ADHD stand-ups out there, so I do wonder if there’s something in that.

I also have what you might call florid language, which people laugh at and sometimes find endearing.

My working memory might be terrible for practical things like shopping lists, but I can remember a joke we laughed at when we were ten. I can be a treasure trove of obscure shared memories that everyone else has forgotten.

The downside is that it can make you seem random. If I feel I’ve come across as odd, I can withdraw. That’s rejection sensitivity again.

Gratitude

What I feel most strongly, looking at my life now, is gratitude for the breadth and diversity of my friendships.

Across different circles, there are people who matter deeply to me. Whatever ADHD has done to my relationships, I don’t think I would change anything. The fact that people who have known me since I was small still greet me fondly is evidence that I can’t have been that bad a friend.

If you’re reading this and you are a friend of mine, I hope I haven’t been too difficult over the years, and thank you for persevering with me.