r/adhdwomen • u/fickleliketheweather ADHD-PI • 23h ago
General Question/Discussion Those who were diagnosed as adults… have you also always felt left out and could not make friends as a child… then it just clicks as to why once you got diagnosed?
I don’t want to make everything and every experience of mine as something to do with ADHD, but it gets difficult because things in the past start to make sense once I got officially diagnosed.
As a child (even now as an adult), I have always had difficulty making friends or have any sort of relationship. It just seems so hard for me and all along and I thought maybe it’s just my life to always feel left out.
But I got diagnosed with adhd a few months ago and I started thinking could it be that I had trouble making friends due to me acting differently from “normal” people but I don’t realise since well, I’m not “normal”?
I’m not flexing or tooting my own horn, but I actually think I’m a decent person, and I can be a very good friend. I just have difficulty making or maintaining relationships…
Anyone here have similar experiences?
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u/Eficientana 23h ago
It's wild how getting diagnosed felt less like "I’m broken" and more like "ohhh so I’m not lazy, just running on Windows 95 this whole time."
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u/ego_dystonic_0918 23h ago
I’ve always been a clumsy kid that really was clueless about social norms, and man did kids have social norms.
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u/BoysenberryMelody 23h ago
I’ve only had a few close friends. I never had a large friend group. There’s been times when I felt like I couldn’t find my place or I chose the wrong people. I lagged behind socially. I didn’t hit the same milestones at the same age as my peers. I’ve always felt left out.
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u/SyrupStitious 21h ago edited 20h ago
Yes. I usually always had a friend, starting in 3rd grade. I had no friends in 1st or 2nd grade. Like, at all. I was bullied some in 1st grade, but that's another story.
We moved a lot, but I could usually make A friend. Never friends, plural. I couldn't figure out group conversation dynamics well through college.
Then I discovered alcohol as a social lubricant. Fortunately I eventually reined it in and don't drink now.
The closest I've come to a friend group was my last 2 years of college and we were all leftist art or art-adjacent students who were "weird" too.
I've yet to properly navigate the group social rules... so I don't. That sounds lonely, and it probably is, but i feel like the world is on fire, and everyone says community will be everything if we're to stay alive and that terrifies me more.
Sorry for babbling.
Edit- wrong reign/rein
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u/Purlz1st ADHD-C 23h ago
When I was diagnosed at 60+ and did some reading about symptoms, the massive click could probably be heard in all surrounding states.
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u/amandazzle 22h ago
Yes. I thought as an adult I had gotten away from the painful childhood of being the weird kid, but a coworker that I really enjoyed a great relationship with brought back all those painful memories when she was telling everyone her goodbyes and how she would miss them at her going away party. When she got to me, she said loudly that I was the weirdest person she ever met. That was it.
in my 40s, I finally was diagnosed and it kind of helped me see that I was a weird kid for a reason and that I was also destined to be weird adult. Wish I could tell that little middle school girl that being popular was never going to be in the cards for her and that she should just be herself.
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u/Ok_Veterinarian_3082 21h ago
Nothing wrong with being weird! Embrace the crazy 🥰 we’re out there. Won't judge when you need to isolate, don't answer texts and then want to talk for hours about everything and nothing, then not hear from you again for six months.
Some people get it. Not a lot but enough 💕
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u/starlightdreamer16 22h ago
I've always had a friend, singular. I'll attach myself to one person and they will be my person and anyone else is just a bonus but I can't really understand how to manage multiple complex relationships at the same time. I'm closer to 30 now and a lot of my friends have shifted into that 'we'll catch up once a month but I love you and obviously we're friends!' stage and that's still weird to me because I want to spend every second with my best friend like I did when I was a teenager because I love them and they make me happy.
It just feels exhausting sometimes to have to juggle so many people and the way friendships strengthen and weaken over time because if someone isn't giving me back the same energy my brain will immediately assume they hate me. I actually stopped being friends with my HS best friend for a few years once we graduated because I assumed she didn't like me anymore so I stepped away but now I can see that it was just the pressures of early adulthood and me not understanding how to balance that compared to how we were in high school.
Similarly to how I don't really have casual interests and hobbies, I don't really do well with casual friendships and I can see that in how I struggled to expand my friend groups as a child. I find that surrounding myself with other neurodivergents is helpful because they understand how my brain works a bit better and won't be weirded out if I act 'strange'.
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u/fencite 21h ago
Are you me? Seriously your post sounds exactly like my experience. Other than when I was in a core friend group in high school I've had one main friend and then various levels of acquaintances that I can't keep up with unless they chase me. I haven't spoken to my longest term friend in years because I stopped communicating by accident and can't get up the nerve to try reaching out (got married and kind of replaced her with my wife as top friend?). It's too much to have multiple people who need my attention at once.
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u/GenXMillenial 22h ago
Yes, but the recent therapy and other lifestyle changes I made along the way also help me function better overall in society. The late and recent diagnosis just lifts the shame and self hate. Which, it turns out is huge. I continue to look back and think, wow, that clicks, that was ADHD. The RSD, thinking they all hate me and that made it so hard to make and keep friends as a child and teen. I don’t have many friends now, but I do have a couple and that’s priceless. You’re right - it does help make sense of so much
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u/lulurancher 23h ago
I’ve always had a lot of friends and been “popular” ish however I’ve always internally felt slightly on the outside of a group. No one else perceives it that way (I’ve asked lol), but it’s just a sense. And I’ve always felt very aware of anyone being left out or “different” and wanted to make sure they felt included. Once I got diagnosed it kinda clicked!
HOWEVER! Now that I am diagnosed and in therapy I feel more “myself” and am usually masking less and that’s actually made me feel less out. Like I guess I care less about what people think and am able to be myself? So then I feel more accepted for me vs masking me.. if that makes any sense at all
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u/Weird_Positive_3256 20h ago
I totally understand. I kept myself buttoned down for 40+ years. Since I’ve been diagnosed and medicated, I am a whole lot less restrained. Knowing my brain is built different helps me feel less defective.
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u/lulurancher 17h ago
Yesss this!!! And just being open and unashamed of who I am. It lets others just see and love you as you are and then you don’t feel as misunderstood
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u/StayAwayFromMySon 22h ago
Absolutely. Hard not to sound like I'm full of myself, but almost objectively I'm a really helpful and nice person, to the point people think I have ulterior motives. I can be a great friend, and yet I have a total of 1 friend.
What I've heard is that people either don't know how to connect with me, think I'm not interested in them, or appear cold/aloof.
I think a big part of the problem is friends are made in groups: school, sports, work, etc. And I suffer in groups. I can't follow along or focus, it exhausts me, idk when to participate and end up talking over people just because I want to add my opinion before the conversation topic shifts and I get lost again.
I'm really good at connecting with people when it's one on one or max two people.
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u/Beginning-Celery-557 22h ago
They loved me in elementary because I was fun and hyper, they hated me in middle because I was weird, they loved me in high school because I was artsy fun and weird. I always had a couple of besties and not much more.
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u/Natenat04 23h ago
Exact same. It didn’t help growing up in a cult, and when I got pregnant at 17, the one person I thought was my friend, ended up telling a ton of people I was pregnant. I found out on a Friday, and by Sunday, everyone in the church knew.
The betrayal was so awful!
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u/Jigree1 22h ago
Yes!! My life!! I've always been so sad and lonely and had no friends despite wanting them. I'm starting to think that it's actually tied more to the memory issues and executive functioning issues we have with adhd. The reason why is, I'm starting to intentionally reach out and make plans with people a certain amount a week and write down things about people to remember to follow up on in our next conversations and for the first time in my life I'm not feeling as lonely-but now I'm feeling stressed out about juggling everything executive function wise. I think people with ADHD struggle to have good relationships because good relationships actually require executive function!!! Mind blown🤯
And the only friendships I can keep are the low maintenance ones.
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u/Weird_Positive_3256 20h ago
Definitely a major part of it. I moved a lot and staying in touch was too hard for me to maintain.
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u/floflower_200 22h ago
This has less to do with friends, but I was recently diagnosed and I’m in my early 20’s. As a kid I failed the reading comprehension test, which is where they would read you a short story and you would have to repeat back the details. As many of us know, short term memory recall is not our greatest strength. Anywho, I was wrongfully diagnosed with “audio processing disorder” by someone in the school district and I was put in special reading classes. I was so determined to get out of that class, so I hyper-fixated on my reading and by fifth grade I was at a 10th grade reading level. The issue was, I missed all of the math classes during that time and then struggled with math in middle school and high school. After being diagnosed, it just made me feel kind of sad for my younger self because no one would really listen to me when I said things like “I can never pay attention when the teacher is talking to me” or my mom getting mad at me because I couldn’t remember to use my planner/ constantly losing things. My confidence is still shaken as an adult and I’m constantly working on not always second guessing myself.
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u/On_my_last_spoon 23h ago
Yup
And actually, I was over 30 before I made most of my lasting friendships. I found a group of people who are a bunch of weirdos like me! Ya know, more neurodivergent people!
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u/Katlee56 22h ago
I got diagnosed at 19. I did struggle making friends at school but I did have friends outside of school as a kid/ teen. I got to run pretty freely as a kid also we had a bush area close by that I would spend my days playing with friends , climbing trees, catching bug, snakes, toads . Swinging off vines, breaking into factory yards and treating that like a jungle gym. Riding bikes around the neighborhood. Honestly probably a good environment for ADHD kids.
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u/AugenDesDrachen 22h ago
Absolutely. Always the black sheep.
I had some issues with one side of my family that got worse as the years went on. I was the misfit cousin. I haven't talked to them in 20 years.
I school I definitely had some bullies and a friend or two here and there, but never belonged to a "friend group". I just never fit in. It's jarring looking back on everything and suddenly everything makes sense.
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u/Flint934 they/he 20h ago
Not really. I'm a butch lesbian and I was homeschooled for a decent chunk of my childhood. Girls hated me for "acting like a boy", boys hated me for being a girl. I was always solidly the Other in any group, and the bullying only made my stunted socializing abilities worse, continuing the cycle. Of all the things I could blame my difficulties making friends on, I wouldn't think of ADHD.
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u/hiddenvalleyoflife 22h ago
Yes, but I'm also trans, which contributed a lot too. Nowadays the people I get along with the best are other queer ADHDers.
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u/cornflakegrl 22h ago
Yeah like I just got diagnosed and I’m now looking at my friend group thinking how do I tell these lovely freaks they all probably have ADHD too. We definitely flock together.
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u/DpersistenceMc 22h ago
So many things were explained when I was diagnosed this year. I endured social alienation my whole life because my communication "style" was a drag for people to be around.
The list of characteristics and symptoms is long for me.
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u/Hello_Hangnail 22h ago
I had a few friends but they weren't easy to come by. And now that I'm in my mid 40s, all my friends had a bunch of kids and I'm childfree by choice and by medical recommendation so they kind of drifted away. My family lives with me so I'm not lonely at all but I do miss having my girls around like I used to!
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u/AlfhildsShieldmaiden ADHD-C 21h ago
First of all, I wouldn’t worry too much about “making anything and everything about ADHD“ – that is something that my abusive and dismissive narcissistic ex would say to me when I was newly processing my diagnosis. It’s a very privileged statement, in my opinion, because when you live with neurodiversity, everything is at least a little bit about your condition because your entire lived experience is through the filter of your different brain.
And, when you get a diagnosis late in life, it means that you’ve had to develop a whole lot of techniques and adjustments to living in a neurotypical world. It takes time to process, grieve, figure out what exactly having ADHD means to you, and how to best move forward.
Everything will be all about ADHD for a while and that is very okay! This is a huge thing to discover about yourself as an adult; it’s a bit jarring when the ship’s been sailing for decades and it feels like you’ve mostly got the hang of things, to discover your ship wasn’t built to spec and that’s why you’ve experienced all those various, confusing challenges during its voyage.
After five years with the abusive ex, who wound up being stunningly unempathetic and unsupportive, it’s important to me to live my private life as unmasked as possible. I also am trying to live the more professional/public parts of my life as unmasked as possible, as well, as things are so much better when people understand that I’m trying my best and that I just genuinely have limits and challenges.
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u/bluevelvet39 19h ago edited 19h ago
I always felt like that until i started to "look out for the weirdos". Learning later in life how all of them are acting kinda neurodivergent including myself, it really clicked for me. Most of them aren't or weren't diagnosed with any of the two, but some were seeking diagnosis recently or are suspecting audhd and don't see any benefit in getting it diagnosed or are clearly in denial with autism. Of course not all of them seem adhd or autistic, but i suspect the rest to not be exactly neurotypical either if they date adhd or autistic partners. I don't know. This is all just a theory, but at least 3 got diagnosed with adhd recently by different doctors, two were already diagnosed as a child, one got diagnosed with pcos.
Edit to add: I'm 33 and even tho i have really good friends in this group since school and I'm still gaining new friends (in part thx to my husband), i still struggle with feelings of being left out or left behind. It's rsd and it's definitely a trauma. I'm not talking to my friends often enough and I'm so so so grateful this people tend to be the same, because even tho they are not as bad as me in keeping contact, they still accept how rarely I'm staying in touch. Even tho i fear to lose them one day, adhd truely kills my perception of time when it comes to meeting others... And i wasn't aware that was my problem... until my diagnosis i just thought I'm too introverted...
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u/RealMermaid04 ADHDiiiva! 19h ago
Yeeees! Like this world is not for me, and im not for this world! Depression...I was also bullied when I was in highschool. I just don't know why I felt like a failure and just lazy! When my daughter was diagnosed, that's as if someone turned on the light! I have never felt so validated. But also struggling right now because my daughter is depressed and i know it has something to do with our big feelings and kids around her not respecting her boundaries. 😭 im sooo sad for her.
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u/Nova-Snorlaxx 18h ago
I see heaps of adhd people have all the friends. But I feel very uncomfortable with others, I feel like an alien and they seem to treat me like one too. I'm wondering if it's a self worth thing from childhood that I just expect to see in others now. I feel like people are uncomfortable around me. I'm the joke. It has led me to want to isolate myself. I'm mid 30s.
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u/sun_dazzled 17h ago
I've got plenty of friends. It's just that it turns out "really enjoying having a conversation with me" is closely correlated with "later being diagnosed with ADHD".
(Edit to clarify: which also means I've got plenty of people out there who are NOT interested in being my friend. The right ones just had to find each other.)
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u/princess_ferocious 16h ago
I didn't have quite that same realisation, but I did have an interesting one.
I've had a challenging time with friendships over the years, and some went bad and some were good. And I always noticed I tended to do better with people who weren't "normal". It wasn't till I was diagnosed that it clicked - the ones I'm closest to and have stayed friends with the longest are mostly also neurodivergent 😂
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u/zitpop 15h ago
What has been helpful for me is to realize I do so much better in smaller settings. Hanging out with maybe one person at a time, max 2. I also get so much social interaction in my line of work (recruitment/hr) that I'm so fine with being alone on nights/weekends. My husband is my best friend and we have one daughter so far, so doing pretty well. BUT! It had been a source of great shame for me. Never being invited to the big parties, NYEs and even when I am, something unexpected will surely mess up my mood and experience. So, no, you're not the only one!
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u/CuriousTennis1155 15h ago
I learned not to be myself very early on, got great at mirroring and then had the very odd problem of it being too easy to “make friends” and then panicking about what on earth to do with them! I could never be myself around them, so I never got anything out of “friendship”. Then I would feel guilty that I didn’t want to spend time with this normie I accidentally lured into my web, and would end up trying to catch another normie to offload them onto so that I could slowly back away without them noticing. 🫣🤦🏻♀️😂
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u/SideEye2X 15h ago
I did fine as a kid and only started to struggle in high school and struggled even more as an adult. Idk if taut makes sense
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u/PennoyerintheFoyer 23h ago
Diagnosed after 50!! I was so overjoyed to have answers...I did go back and fully grieve my issue. But, yes, the other kids did not want to hear about "the U.S. gross domestic product levels" * one of the obsessions I had at that time! That's okay, I was a Poli Sci major at university..so there's that!
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u/badchefrazzy Pretty F-ing Sure 23h ago
I got rejected by pretty much everybody as a kid except for the outcasts who just tolerated my presence, or the other kids that were pretty much like me. Adults pitied me, or made fun of me, or outright bullied me. Highschool was a nightmare as I (pretty surely) had ADHD on top of diagnosed PCOS that gave me a full male beard despite being AFAB... So yeah. It's been a hellish ride.
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u/lemon_bat3968 22h ago
You know when a character comes to this huge realization about a plot twist in a movie and all the scenes leading up to it rapidly flash on the screen until it zooms in on the character doing a shocked pikachu face? That is exactly how it felt for me when I realized I need to seek an adhd diagnosis. Everything in my life fell into place and my struggles, especially socially, made SO much sense.
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u/Littleleicesterfoxy AuDHD 22h ago
Yup. It was a relief to me that I wasn’t just a horribly unlikable person, there was an actual reason.
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u/carlitospig 22h ago
Nope. I learned pretty early how to make friends, but I think that was like 50% being an only child.
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u/Tina45332 22h ago
I am reading all of these comments and just saying "yup that checks"
It is helping me accept that yeah; I was/did/am like all of these people, because of my ADHD. AND that although I am/was alone, all of you go through the same things. So I am not really alone. 🥰
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u/fishonthemoon 21h ago
Made friends easily as a child. Harder as a teen, and not even something I attempt as an adult. 😂
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u/Ok_Veterinarian_3082 21h ago
I was undiagnosed for ADHD until my 50s
Born into a dysfunctional, neglectful, violent home, always moving. Toss in some of pops SA.
Diagnosed at 18 with PTSD because I was part of a psycho drama (a thing in the 70s) that ended with me howling a primal scream, running out of the building and climbing a tree.
Spent the next 3 decades in & out of therapy & the occasional hospital stay. Figured I was just broken and weak because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get unbroken.
I finally found myself in my 60s. I now Understand my thoughts can lie and I am not broken. Just wired differently. I will never be social on demand and I am better off with less social stimuli.
Too many “normal” people are phonies anyway.
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u/Glittering-Spell-806 21h ago
I’ve had difficulty creating meaningful friendships and have historically been left out a lot. I also tend to be the “punching bag” in the friend group and get taken advantage of. It took me well into adulthood to finally stick up for myself and have boundaries, and admittedly it still happens with some people but it’s gotten way better. Thanks therapy! Haha!
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u/MaskedMarvel364 20h ago
I'm a loner, so I was never desirous of making friends. I could take them or leave them.
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u/becka-uk 20h ago
I haven't been diagnosed yet, but reading stuff like this is what made it click for me.
I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety about 10 years ago. I had a few therapy sessions, and I told the therapist and my doctor all this stuff and how it made me feel and no one even suggested adhd/autism. They just put me on antidepressants because my brain wasn't producing enough serotonin.
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u/bernbabybern13 18h ago
Eh. I’ve never had a relationship and I’ve definitely struggled with friends but I don’t know if it’s more than typical growing up stuff.
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u/molinitor 14h ago
My issue was never making friends but keeping them long-term. I've burned so many bridges without knowing it, and not until I got a diagnosis was it made obvious why.
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u/Dutchgirl19 13h ago
Same thing here! I was diagnosed with ADHD not long ago, and so much has started to make sense since then. Especially that feeling of always being slightly on the outside, like friendships were something I just couldn’t do. The only friends I had were Neurodivergent like me. Funny they always asked do you have something like adhd? And I was like nahhh I definitely don’t have that. Well surprise surprise.
I used to think it was just my personality, or that I was somehow ‘too much’ or hard to connect with. But now I’m starting to see that I’ve just been wired differently.
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u/NotTellingYous 12h ago
My difficulty around this is in group settings. So 1 to 1 friendships all good, but where there is a group I melt down because i have no idea where I sit in the pecking order and feel awkward.
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u/sickiesusan 11h ago
I haven’t been diagnosed, but my son (ADHD) thinks I have it. I’m 58 and it’s really become apparent this decade (I had thought it was peri/menopause.
But being in this sub is SO relatable.
I would struggle even when starting conversations with people, it wasn’t natural for me. Making friends/ making arrangements with people I still struggle with, even with friends I’ve known for decades.
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u/Hour-Dragonfruit-711 8h ago
Learning about rejection sensitivity disorder hit so hard for me. I was always the kid sitting alone on the bus reading while everyone hung out being "cool" in the back. I always had a sense of being "other" even in a group of girls who invited me to their sleepover in middle school etc. makes me wonder how I could have made more friends if I wasn't always feeling "rejected" and just approached people and situations normally. I always took the "rejection" as truth - that I was the odd one out. Now, learning about the disorder I can see that it was my mind possibly playing tricks on me and exacerbating the situation.
Mind blowing
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u/Adventurous-Yard-306 7h ago
I was trained to be a people pleaser first and foremost by my mother. All those great pattern matching skills went straight into giving people exactly what they want without them having to ask. So I failed ok in social situations, but they are exhausting. My friends know that I disappear for days to recharge. I’ve only recently started dropping the mask and it’s scary.
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u/_GoldfishMemory_ 2h ago
I thought I wasn’t well liked in school, but I later realized that a bunch of kids tried to be my friend, I just didn’t see it because I assumed they didn’t want to hang out with me. I rejected them before they rejected me. My oldest friend is the one friend from school I truely trusted back then, and she has reminded me of how everyone wanted to come to my birthday and wanted to sleep over at my house. I just didn’t allow myself to be happy about it and instead spent way too much time ruminating over a few bad experiences.
I have a smallish group of friends now who I have worked to remain friends with, and I trust that they actually like me for who I am and want to spend time with me. I’m so very grateful for that because I know it’s not a given.
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u/212kittykat 49m ago
i was in high school when roasting was like a super trendy thing to do so the people who were my friends said the meanest shit to my face and i’d just laugh along (this was happening w two friend groups simultaneously) 😭 not like primary / middle was any better everyone thought i was weird + i was nerdy so my hand would be up to answer qs a lot so i got branded ‘oversmart’
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