How my ADHD makes handling relationships difficult

https://www.aaronjy.me/writing/how-my-adhd-makes-handling-relationships-difficult

23 18 1 year ago

jmathai• 1 year ago

I haven’t been diagnosed with ADHD and this isn’t a particular weak spot for me but even I can relate. I find it most hard when there’s a mismatch in reciprocity.

I enjoy learning from posts like this because it can help identify patterns I might not have otherwise noticed. From there I can do something.

Something I do periodically is scroll my iMessages and see if there are conversations that have been dormant longer than I’d like. If so, I try to think of something to resurrect the thread.

a5c112• 1 year ago

Nothing worse than a conversation about nothing for a pure sake of having a conversation. That's one of my anxiety triggers - pointless talks. People seem to demand them, even love them, yet there's me hating those accidental talks without a subject. Double my anxiety when the conversation suddenly stops, and there's nothing in my head to talk about.

rchaud3• 1 year ago

I find it most hard when there’s a mismatch in reciprocity.

A sad part of life is acknowledging that in relationships, one person usually cares more than the other. This is why we're encouraged to build OK friendships with several people instead of putting all our apples in one really good friend.

astrange• 1 year ago

Recently I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking around developing mechanisms to help with all this, and I stumbled on another term that may be familiar to those familiar with ADHD, too: Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria (or RSD)

It should be noted that this is just a term one guy made up, and isn't medically accepted as an ADHD symptom.

Of course it is a legitimate thing that happens to people.

cornhole• 1 year ago

I felt the same way until I took antidepressants and stopped giving a shit. It’s really amazing to see how the situations that gave me anxiety was not a big deal at all.

braebo• 1 year ago

I remember taking SSRI’s in the past and being amazed at the “emotional forcefield” effect… it was as if I was suddenly moved to the eye of the storm. The storm was still there, but I could observe it from a distance, no longer consumed by it.

hcfman• 1 year ago

It gets a lot easier if you trim down the number of relationships you actually want to maintain.

There's my partner. Heck, now I'm almost full!

znpy• 1 year ago

There's my partner. Heck, now I'm almost full!

Been there, done that, i can tell you it’s a bad approach, because relationships don’t last forever and aren’t always smooth 100% of the time.

Having friends is often also having somebody that you can talk about your issues (even about issues with your partner) and get a different opinion.

bravetraveler• 1 year ago

Been there, done that. Most of the opinions I've sought - not just received - haven't been worth the time, opportunity, or oxygen they consumed. Winging it has gone well. It's a wash.

Opinions are like assholes, we all have 'em and they all stink. Take care :)

codelikeawolf• 1 year ago

There might already be something out there that can help with this. I haven't tried it, but I've been meaning to: https://www.monicahq.com/

a5c112• 1 year ago

Spoiler alert: building up notifications from the reminding app will end up just like building up notifications from messengers. The author basically proxied notifications, which won't help him with his issues.

rchaud3• 1 year ago

I wish this guy the best, but a "technology solution" is not going to be able to address the psychological burden of RSD, nor the executive functioning issues of ADHD. An Airtable sheet with a "Mark as Contacted" flag is something a business analyst would come up with after speaking to an person with ADHD.

RSD can't be solved 100%. At best, you can give yourself some guidance on how to resume contact with someone:

1) When was the last time I was in touch with this person?

2) How would I rate my relationship with them on a scale of 1-10 -- this is important because in adulthood friendships can fade even if nobody did anything wrong

3) Why do I feel they would not want to hear from me?

4) List 3 light topics of conversation that are low-risk, and choose one to reach out with. That can help reduce the internal resistance, which is a key factor in RSD.

aaronyarborough2• 1 year ago

Hey, I'm this guy :) And I think you're right. The technological solution was semi-serious (though I'm not sure that it came across in the write-up)

What I expect to get from it are hopefully new insights on the behaviours I described, not from my dumb Airtable setup, but from just putting _something_ new in to try and break the cycle. While setting it up (and writing this post), I was thinking about the problem in-depth, which is what's really valuable here.

Tip #4 on your list might work for me. I'm going to try that next time it comes up. Thanks!

rchaud3• 1 year ago

I appreciate your response. I didn't mean to dunk on the idea; it is just that I too defaulted to trying to find the "right app" to fix these things and years later came to realize that tech is too general by design, and struggles to work effectively for such niche use cases. Tech can help provide a reminder, but ultimately can't force us to confront the heart of the issue. And sometimes that confrontation is necessary for us to agree to a new course of action, while accepting that it likely won't be a 100% solution. Good luck to you on your journey!

Spunkie• 1 year ago

I believe the initial not quickly replying is also in itself a type of coping mechanism to try to hang on to any possibility of having productive days.

I know if I "just replied quickly" to all of my personal text in a day I would almost never get any work done, and my circle of friends/family isn't even particularly large.

But yeah... once the initial chance to reply passes it quickly turns into anxiety/dread/avoidance. ADHD is a tough one to rangle, especially unmedicated.

aaronyarborough2• 1 year ago

That rings true for me too. Interestingly, I've never considered returning to ADHD medication to try and manage this, but now I've thought about it, I'm not sure it'd help in this specific scenario (though I know your comment was about ADHD generally being tough to rangle, rather than just this specific aspect)

rorylaitila• 1 year ago

Virtually every email and text message I write (particularly when I'm initiating) comes with some dose of anxiety, except with immediate family. I don't know if it rises to the level of RSD, but in certain situations with close friends, I've had panic attack level of anxiety. My coping mechanism is to tell myself "the best I can do is good enough and if not, that's on them" and force myself to just lob messages, like little grenades.

However because I have a lot of 2nd and 3rd level relationships to keep in contact with (for business) the stress can accumulate. My technical solution was to create my own CRM (https://humancrm.io) that is entirely oriented around follow ups with important people. It helps me quickly process follow ups and remove the analysis paralysis.

I also am told all the time "Thanks for following up, I am so bad at it" - so I've just accepted that a lot of people feel the same way and I'm going to have to make the first move.

mdberkey• 1 year ago

As someone with ADHD-PI, I've dealt with this as well. What's helped me a lot is using the GTD technique (https://hamberg.no/gtd) and making sure to add "respond to X" to my "In" list. It's not perfect and sometimes it still takes me a while to respond, but at least I eventually get to it.

How my ADHD makes handling relationships difficult

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