Making and keeping friends can be a struggle for an adult with ADHD. It may be difficult for you to make friends and even harder to keep them. This can be a very discouraging; however there are many ways for you to become close to people and to establish solid friendships.
Figure Out What Went Wrong
The first step to maintaining a friendship is to figure out where things went wrong. Take the time to figure out where things may have gone wrong with you and your friend. Explore what happened. You may have had an argument that caused you and your friend to go your separate ways or it may have been you who stopped communicating with them. Even if you are not quite sure on the reason, you should think about how you felt, what could have been improved and even done differently. On the flipside, if the friendship ended badly, it is very important to not to hold onto the anger, sadness or any other negative feelings you had towards this friend. These particular emotions can blur your outlook and may have an unfortunate impact on other friendships you are trying to form or maintain.
Keep Things Low Key
Spending time with your friends doesn’t have to be some large social event. In a matter of fact, the best ways to get to know a person better and to strengthen an already formed friendship is to do things low key and stress free. These can be things like having a movie night, playing card games, or try to do something that bring out your strengths. By eliminating the stress related to social events, you can be more comfortable which can get rid of some of the strain of making a social blunder.
Stay In Touch
Keeping in touch with friends can be easier said than done especially if personal or career issues get in the way. However, the key to keeping healthy friendships with others is to ensure they know you are willing to keep things going.
Staying in touch can be difficult for adults with ADHD because of distractions and lack of organization. You can do this by scheduling certain parts of your day or week for talking or meeting up with friends. You can choose 10, 20 or 30 minutes a day to send an email/phone/text to your friends. Over the weekend, set up time to meet up with your friends. Incorporating a schedule into your routine will make it easier for you to keep in touch and something to look forward to each day
ADHD can make it difficult to form and keep friends; however there are easy ways to get around that fact. Making schedules can prioritize your friendships, analyzing where other friendships went wrong can help you proceed on the right path.