Kristen Carder 0:05
Music. Welcome to the I have ADHD podcast, where it’s all about education, encouragement and coaching for adults. With ADHD, I’m your host, Kristin Carter and I have ADHD. Let’s chat about the frustrations, humor and challenges of adulting, relationships, working and achieving with this neurodevelopmental disorder, I’ll help you understand your unique brain, unlock your potential and move from point A to point B. Hey, what’s up? This is Kristen Carter, and you’re listening to the I have ADHD podcast. I am medicated, I am caffeinated, I am regulated, and I am ready to roll.

Welcome. On in. Get cozy. I wonder what you’re doing today. Are you doing the dishes? Are you folding laundry? Are you out for a run? Are you driving around? Maybe you’re on you’re on your commute to work, maybe you’re out for a hike. What are you up to? I’m so glad that you press play, that you are listening to this, that I get to be your body double for whatever it is that you are doing. What’s up? We’re going to talk about friendship today, and it’s going to be great, but first I got to tell you a story about my morning and just how hard it is to like, function as a human. With ADHD in the world, I have a neurodivergent kiddo, and he’s, like, especially neurodivergent, I would say on the scale of neurodivergency, on the spectrum of neurodivergency, I would say he’s, he’s especially neurodivergent. And this kiddo struggles so much with getting up in the morning. Do you relate to that? I just feel like it is so unfair that society is set up for for neurotypicals. Is so unfair for neurotypicals who just bounce out of bed and just like go on their way like my neurotypical husband has zero drama about waking up in the morning, the alarm goes off, he gets out of bed. It’s no big deal to him. It’s not an imposition to him. I mean, he doesn’t love it sometimes, but it doesn’t wear his capacity thin and lead him to burnout.

Meanwhile, I have this quite neurodivergent child who it’s just like, not able to function. He struggles so much to wake up. And every morning it’s a thing, and this morning, especially, he just couldn’t, wouldn’t, maybe wouldn’t, is the word do it. And as a parent, and, like, even just as a human for myself, but I just like wonder, if you relate to this as a parent, how do we help our neuro divergent child understand themselves, accept themself, be kind to themself, like, really take care of themselves and still teach them how to function in the world, I feel like that’s what we have to do with ourselves, like, be so gentle and encouraging and supportive to ourselves and still hold ourselves accountable.

Like, hey, you you gotta, like, have a job. You gotta work. You gotta do the thing. And I’m just going through that with my son right now. It is so difficult to be a supportive, empathetic, loving, kind mother who sees him and understands him, and it’s like, yeah, this is not fair. Like, I’m so sorry you have to get up this early, but also, like, you got to go to school. You can’t not go to school. And just for the record, he doesn’t want to be homeschooled. I’ve I’ve mentioned it before. It’s not something he wants. He wants to go to traditional school. He likes all of his like routines and people and extracurricular activities and having different teachers, blah, blah. But he just is not thriving with a 6:45am wake up time, and that’s pretty late for high schoolers, right? 645 is pretty late. He has the luxury of getting up between 645, and seven, and he’s still feeling so burnt out. It’s just so I don’t know. Like, is there anything that we can do ADHD, or is it, can we do this, like some sort of peaceful protest, or something about society starting at such an early time like I also struggle with this.

I do not function well when I am forced to get out of bed earlier than what my body is wanting to do. And this is a big reason why I’m an entrepreneur. This is why, a huge reason why I know I can’t hack it in like a traditional work environment, because I could never be up and out the door by 8am I don’t I don’t know how people do it. If you are an ADHD er and you are up and out the door or. I just give you so much credit, the amount of self regulation. Yeah, involved in doing that, I like bow down to you. I am so impressed. So anyway, I don’t know if this is just like, this is just a random ADHD rabbit trail, but I do want to say, like, we got to do something about this. We got to we got to have at least a segment of society who functions later. We got to, like, create systems that are able to function later. Because this is not working.

There’s so much research around teens and sleep to begin with, not even, I’m not even including neurodivergency, but like, teens and sleep, the fact that school starts so early, like, Who do I talk to about that we’ve got to change the system. Okay, okay, listen, I know there’s bigger fish to fry right now, especially whatever with what’s going on in the world, but this is what’s going on in my world. And it was really activating today to just we let him go back to sleep. And, like, part of that was we couldn’t control him. Like he was not having it. He was not going to school. So like, Okay, go back to sleep, set your alarm. You can have a two hour nap and then go to school. I don’t know what else to do. It is an interesting job being a parent. It isn’t it’s an interesting job, and even if you’re not a parent, but like parenting yourself, how do you give yourself grace and space and still show up and do the things that you need to do? I don’t know. What’s the answer to that. Somebody tell me, I do not. No, okay, let’s switch gears here. Like I said, I know there’s bigger fish to fry. This is just something that’s on my mind today. And if anybody wants to do some sort of peaceful protest with me, where we can just make society start later so that we can function, I’m with you. I will, I will make the signs, and we will just show up, and I don’t know, hopefully change something. All right, moving on, moving on, moving on. We’re not really following the rules today.

I know that in the last six months to a year, I’ve kind of set this precedent for the solo episodes where I follow this, like, fun format. I don’t feel like following the rules today. Maybe you can tell by the tone of my voice the story that I told about my son in my morning. Maybe you can tell that, like, today’s just not the day to follow the rules. And we got to know what days are the days to follow the rules and what days are the days to throw the rules in the trash can? And today is one of those days, so the rules are going in the trash can. We’re not going to follow them today, and we’re just going to talk about one topic and one topic only. Are you ready for it. We’re talking about how to make friends as an adult. How to make friends as an adult. Raise your hand if you feel like you are not really sure how to create friendships at your age. Whatever your age is, maybe you’re in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s or 80s. You’re just really sure how to make friends. And today we’re going to talk about it.

Why is it so hard for ADHD ers to make friends and keep friends? Why is it like and what can we do about it? So that’s what we’re talking about. Why is it so hard for us to make friends, and what can we do about it? This is one of the main aspects of the book that I am writing, so maybe that’s one of the reasons why it is fresh on my mind. But also in my focus to ADHD coaching program, I had a request from one of our longtime members who was just like, I need to make friends like somebody teach me how to do this. Kristen, can you record a podcast about it? And I was like, I don’t know how to do it.

I was like, I need this podcast. Yeah, somebody create this podcast. And they responded rudely by saying, isn’t that why you created that? I have ADHD podcast in the first place, Kristen to fill a hole, fill a gap that you needed, that no one else was filling. And I was like, okay, rude, but also yes. And so I felt convicted, and I was like, All right, we need to work on this, because this is something that I need in my own life. You’ve heard me talk about it here and there. How can we make friends as an adult, and how can we make sure that those friends that we are investing in are healthy relationships that are worthwhile, worth our time, effort and energy.

So if you’ve ever found yourself realizing that your friendships aren’t actually that fulfilling, maybe even draining, you’re definitely not alone. A lot of us with ADHD go through this huge friendship crisis or like. Reckoning after we’re diagnosed, whether you’re like, just recently diagnosed, or like you’re waking up to your diagnosis, like, oh yeah, I was diagnosed in high school, and I haven’t done anything about it. And we start, like, doing self development work and working on ourselves. Maybe we start setting boundaries, recognizing unhealthy dynamics, and suddenly we look around and we realize there aren’t many friends left. So today we’re going to break it down. Here’s what we’re going to talk about, why friendships can be hard for ADHD ers, how to recognize red flags and friendships so we don’t waste time on the wrong people. What green flags to look for in a good friend? How to actually make new friends. Like, what to do, like, the practical, okay, but like, what do I actually do? And then last but not least, how to go slow. Like, once we find someone that we think might be a good friend, how to go slow and not over invest too quickly.

That might be the main key takeaway from this pod. I’m really interested to hear how this resonates with you. So first, let’s start with, why are friendships hard for ADHD ers? There’s a bunch of reasons. Obviously, the biggest reason in my from my perspective, or in my estimation is we have ADHD. We have a set of symptoms, a set of behaviors that we are constantly contending with, things like inattention, impulsivity, poor working memory, distractibility, rejection, sensitivity and etc, etc, etc, etc. So let’s just talk about a couple of them. But like the what you need to know is that your ADHD will absolutely impact your friendship. So that’s like, I want you to keep that front and center. If you have ADHD, your ADHD will absolutely impact your friendship. So let’s break down just a couple of these. We’re not going to go through every symptom, because that would take because that would take the entire episode, and that would be kind of boring, so we’re not going to do that, but let’s just start with a couple. Let’s talk about inattention. We’re distractible. We’re inattentive. So we might miss social cues, we might forget important details. We might be distracted during a conversation and drift off. That is difficult to be on the receiving end of we’re impulsive, so we can over share, we can interrupt. Sometimes we dive in too fast, too soon. Maybe we make a lot of plans and we over commit, but then we just kind of crash and burn and we under deliver. That can be pretty hard to be on the receiving end of understandably, we struggle with rejection sensitivity. I have many episodes on rejection sensitivity.

It’s a big part of most ADHD ers experience. But because of this extreme sensitivity to rejection, we often assume that people don’t like us, which is not really great in a friendship, or we can replay social interactions over and over. We can be sometimes this can lead us to be, like, a little bit needy in a friendship, a little bit like showing our anxious attachment, where it’s just like, Are we okay? Are we good? I need reassurance. And sometimes you can find a friend who is okay, giving that reassurance constantly, but other times it can really cause a rift in relationship, when the person with ADHD is insecure and rejection sensitive and always needing reassurance about the relationship that can be hard, that can be really hard for the other person. Again, understandably, the last thing we’re going to talk about here is we ADHD or struggle with boundaries. We really do so we often over give, and we say yes to so much, and we can often avoid setting limits because of that rejection sensitivity. So again, with like, the over promising and under delivering and over committing and over giving, it can just be like, hard, and it can be really hard to know, like, what’s mine to take care of, what’s my friends to take care of that’s difficult.

It’s really difficult to navigate. So if you’ve ever thought like, why is this so hard for me? Why does everyone else seem to have these, like, great friendships, just know that it’s not just you. You’re not broken, you’re not the problem. There are ways that we can make this better, but it does start with recognizing why it’s difficult. And so I’m curious if you can take just a moment of reflection here. ADHD ers are not great at self reflection, so if you could just really use this time where I’m guiding you, that would be 100% to your benefit. Where do you see your ADHD symptoms showing up in friendships. Where do you see like? What ADHD symptom Do you feel like interrupts your friendships the most? For a lot of people, it’s like, out of sight, out of mind. I kind of forget my friends exist. I love them, I like them, but I just go about my day, and I just forget to reach out to them. I forget to interact with them. I forget to correspond with them. I forget to reply to their messages. I forget to call them back. So even though I love them and I like them, I’m not really acting like it, because I often forget about them. I wonder if that is something that you notice with yourself. Just take a second Have a think about it. Where do I see my ADHD impacting my friendships?

Okay, like I said, so many of us, as we wake up to our ADHD, and we start doing self development work. Often, our eyes are opened to the dysfunction in our relationships, and sometimes those relationships can be restored and repaired, and it’s a beautiful thing, but other times, we just have to let them go, because there’s no hope for making the dysfunctional relationship functional. And that is just like a personal you’re just gonna have to see with every single relationship, whether it is a friendship partnership, like family of origin relationship, you’re just gonna have to see like, Okay, is there hope for this relationship to get better, or is this a lost cause? And I will never, ever answer that question for you. That is just a you question, but I do want to talk about like, what are some red flags in friendships? What are some red flags in friendships? Here we go first, if they constantly criticize or belittle you, that’s a red flag. If you’re always the problem, if, if things are always your fault, if you’re always feeling like you have to take responsibility for all of the things going wrong, that’s a red flag. Additionally, I want to add here, like, if they’re constantly criticizing and belittling others, this is the way they talk about others will be the way they talk about you. The way that they think about others will be the way that they think about you. So if you’re noticing that they’re really, like, highly judgmental, even if it’s not directed at you, yet, it probably will be eventually.

So just really notice if your friends are super judgmental. Next red flag is if the friendship feels one sided, like if you’re always the one reaching out. Now this is rare for a need each year, but it is possible if you’re the one making the plans, if you’re the one reaching out, if you’re the one saying like, Hey, we should get together. And if there’s just not much reciprocity, reciprocity is like another word for being reciprocal. Things being pretty equal, a back and forth, a give and take. That’s an important aspect of a friendship. Now, of course, we all go through seasons of life where we’re just not able to do that. We’re not able to be reciprocal, and hopefully our lasting friendships will hang in there. But when we are, you know, able to function, we do need to then be givers, right? We can’t just be takers. So notice, if the friends in your life are just takers, there should be a fairly equal or an equal enough mutuality, reciprocity, give and take a back and forth. And maybe as you’re listening to this, you’re like, oh shoot, I don’t think I’m doing that, so write that down. Ask Siri to help you. Put a pin in it. Like, that’s something that we’ll talk about at the end. Is like, how can you do a better job of being a mutual, reciprocal friend? All right, next. Red Flag, what to look out for in a friend? Red flags, they don’t respect your boundaries. They get upset when you say no. Now listen, nobody likes to hear the word no, so the initial sting or disappointment of hearing no totally understandable. But if they hold it against you, if they give you this silent treatment, if they bring it back up, and they’re like, Well, you blah, blah, blah, blah, like that’s, that’s a Nope.

That is a hard Nope. If they think that, like the limits that you’re setting are stupid, they’re probably not the friend for you, am I right? Okay, another red flag is they drain you emotionally rather than energy. You, it is so important to pay attention to the way that your body feels around your friends. Are you relaxed? Do you feel regulated? Are you at ease, or are you on guard? Are you feeling like you’re having to protect yourself? Are you constantly drained? Do you feel like you’re giving and giving and giving, and there’s just not like I said before, that mutuality, that reciprocity, that back and forth. So pay attention to the way that your body feels. And the last red flag here, and this is very similar, you feel anxious around them, or you dread hanging out, even though you, quote, unquote, should enjoy their company. And we rationalize this so much like, Oh, they’re so nice, or I’ve known them for so long I should want to or they were there for me during my divorce, so I should really trust them.

Or we often do this thing where somebody was there for us during a period of time, and then we feel an obligation to keep them around for the rest of our lives, and we don’t need to do that. We don’t need to do that. The question is, is the friendship serving me now? And friendship is not just about serving you. It’s about being there for the other person again, I’m going to say those words, mutuality, reciprocity, back and forth, but it does have to be an equal enough give and take. And if you’re looking at the relationship and you’re like, oh my gosh, like, I there’s really not this equal enough give and take, but I’m shoulding on myself saying, like, they’re going through a hard time, or they’re struggling with their family, or they were there for me during this season, so I should X, Y, like, that’s, I don’t know. I would just take a hard look at whether or not that’s actually serving long term. And now a word from our sponsor. Hey Kristen here, I’m the host of this podcast, an ADHD expert and a certified life coach who’s helped hundreds of adults with ADHD understand their unique brains and make real changes in their lives. If you’re not sure what a life coach is, let me tell you. A life coach is someone who helps you achieve your goals, like a personal trainer for your life. A life coach is a guide who holds your hand along the way as you take baby step after baby step to accomplish the things that you want to accomplish. A good life coach is a trained expert who knows how to look at situations, all situations, with non judgmental neutrality, and offer you solutions that you’ve probably never even considered before if you’re being treated for your ADHD, and maybe even you’ve done some work in therapy, and you want to add to your scaffolding of support, you’ve got to join my group coaching program, focused. Focused is where functional adults with ADHD surround each other with encouragement and support, and I lead the way with innovative and creative solutions to help you fully accept yourself, understand your ADHD and create the life that you’ve always wanted to create.

Even with ADHD, go to I have adhd.com/focused to join and I hope to see you in our community today. So think through your friendships. Right now, I’m curious, are there people in your life where you can actually see pretty much all of these red flags in your relationship? They constantly criticize you or others. The friendship feels one sided. They don’t respect your boundaries. They drain you emotionally. You feel anxious, or you dread hanging out with them, even though you tell yourself you should enjoy their company. Do any of the relationships that you have with friends fit into those red flags and how do you want to proceed? What do you want to do about that? That’s not for me to decide. I just want to call that to your attention. If you’re starting to recognize these patterns, don’t panic. Don’t panic.

The good news is that there are green flags to look for as well. Okay, the signs of a great friend, and as we talk about making new friends, I want you to be looking for these green flags. Okay, so here we go. Here are the green flags in healthy enough friendships. I’m not talking perfect friendships. Ain’t no friendship gonna be perfect, but healthy enough. We’re looking for just a healthy enough, mutual, reciprocal friendship. Number one, they respect your time, energy and boundaries. They just respect you. If you say you can’t do it, they’re just like, dang, I’m disappointed, but it’s fine. They don’t hold it against you. They’re not giving you the silent treatment. They. Respect you. They listen as much as they talk. There is this mutuality, this back and forth.

Now, again, this might be something that you need to work on for yourself, and that’s okay, but we’re really looking for friends that listen as much as they talk. Obviously, there will be times of life where, like, they need all of the attention because they’re going through it, and that’s fine. That’s normal, because you’re also going to have those times as well, as long as it’s balanced enough, it’s not going to be perfect, it’s not going to be a true 5050, that’s totally fine. Is it balanced enough? All right? Next up, they encourage you and support you rather than compete with you. We have all had relationships, friendships in our life where your win feels like a threat to them.

I know you can. I know that you can think of people right now where you hesitate to share the good stuff in your life because it feels like a threat to that person. They take it as competition, or they take it as like, Well, that’s nice for you. It must be nice. And you’re just like, Okay, I guess I’m not safe or allowed to share the good things. I guess I’m not gonna say that I’m going on vacation, or I guess I’m not gonna say that I got a raise, or I guess I’m not. And you, you start to hide your wins. You start to hide your successes. You start to kind of keep the good things in your life close to your chest and not share the happy parts. And that’s how that’s a problem. So we want to look for friends that are going to encourage and support you, rather than be threatened by you or compete with you.

Okay. Another thing is they don’t guilt trip you for needing space or declining plans. We’re going to talk about committing and sticking to our word when it comes to making and following through on plans, but there are going to be times when you just don’t have it in you, when you’re just not able to do it, when you’re sick, or when you’re burnt out, or when you just don’t have the capacity and you need to be able to say no and have people respect that. Again, the disappointment in a no is fully understandable. I’m so disappointed. I really wanted to see you. I totally get it that is 100% fair, but they’re not going to guilt trip you. They’re not going to make you feel like a bad person for needing space or declining plans. Another green flag, and this is the last one that we’ll talk about today. They’re consistent enough, you know what to expect from them. You know, like, you just know what to expect. It’s not like a different version of them shows up at every time that you see them. Like, they’re consistently kind, they’re consistently gentle, or whatever the word is that you like, they’re just safe, they’re just like predictable. There’s just something so wonderful about a boring, predictable friend. And I know we’ve talked about boring recently as being like something that ADHD ers reject, and we’re like, don’t give me Boring. Boring is the worst. Get me away from boring, but actually boring, if we can tolerate boring in a friend, a predictable, consistent, methodical, easy friend, like what is better than that, someone that we know is just going to be like kind we’ve all had the friends where you’re just not sure when you see them If they’re going to meet you with a warm smile or a scowl, we’ve all had those friends that is not okay.

I’ve tolerated that in my life more than I want to admit where the friend had a lot of good qualities, but one of the one of the things was they weren’t consistent in their energy with me, and I never really knew what version of them was going to show up. And my body reacted to it in like by feeling nervous and anxious and unsafe. And once I really came to grips with that. I was really sad. I had to feel a lot of pain and grief because that sucks. It sucks to have kind of woken up inside of a friendship, to realize that like, oh, I don’t actually get consistency from this person. I don’t get consistent energy. It’s very volatile. Not that anything horrible was ever said, but I didn’t know if I would be met with like, Hey, how are you great to see you? Or just like a me, I’m making a face like a me. Look, I just don’t know that’s not so a huge green flag is when somebody’s energy is consistent and you don’t feel like you’re walking on eggshells. I wonder what other green flags you would add, because there’s probably 100 right?

I just talked about a couple here. But like for you specifically, what are some green flags that you want to look for in friendships? What are some green flags that you’re like? This matters, like to me, personally, I need to have this green flag. So for me, talking about the last one, consistent energy is so important the people that I am closest to are the ones that I can predict are going to meet me with kindness even when they’re having a bad day. They don’t project that onto me even when they’re struggling. I don’t feel like they’re making it my fault. Okay? So for me, consistent energy is a huge, huge green flag and something that I really need. I’m wondering what you need. I’ll just go over a couple that I said earlier, but I’m wondering if you would add any to it. So green flags, they respect your time, energy and boundaries. They listen as much as they talk. They encourage and support you rather than compete with you. They don’t guilt trip you for needing space or declining plans. They’re consistent, and you don’t feel like you’re walking on eggshells.

What are the green flags that you need? One of the things that I know that my husband needs in relationships, in friendships, is like for people to reach out to him, for him to feel like it’s pretty balanced. I don’t have that same need. I know that, like with my two friends, I have two with my two friends, I don’t care if I’m the one initiating plans all the time, I don’t feel like imbalanced there. That’s just not a need that I have, but I know that my husband, he wants there to be reciprocity with like he’s already asked three times. He doesn’t feel like he wants to ask again. And so for him, I think I know I’m speaking for him, but I think he would add for him a green flag would be like they are reaching out to him in an equal enough way. There’s reciprocity in that. And so I wonder, like, for you, what are the green flags that you’re looking for? And that begs the question, okay, where do we even find these green flag people? And that’s what this whole episode is about. It took us 30 minutes to get there. But like, how do we find these green flag people, how do we make new friends? How do we do it? Somebody teach me how to do it. Okay, this is the part of the episode that is for me. This is the part of the episode that I need.

I am preaching to myself. I hope that it’s helpful for you as well. So I did some research. Okay, number one, we gotta go where the people are. We gotta find community. We need to, like, go out. We can’t make new friends sitting on our butts in front of Netflix. We just can’t do it. So how do we make new friends? We have to join a community based on shared interests. So that would be like a local meetup, a hobby group, an ADHD support group, some sort of class, like I’ve been taking yoga classes or co working spaces. I have a friend Brit. Shout out Brit. I know she listens to the pod sometimes she is an artist, and she goes to a studio in reading and she rents space with other artists there, and they work on pottery and painting and do all of these amazing things. And she has found friendship by joining a shared space, a community of artists. Okay, that’s a great way to do it. If you don’t want to go alone, you could find like, a friendship accountability buddy. Like, is there one person that you actually do know that you are friends with that’s like, yeah, we need to expand our circle. Let’s go find new friends.

Take someone with you that would be amazing. Try apps like Bumble BFF or meetup, or even just like, if you’re old like me, and you’re on Facebook, there are so many local Facebook groups like, Could you put like a personal ad? I know that sounds stupid, but could you put like a hey, I’m looking for friends, or I’m I’m gonna go on a hike. Does anyone want to join? I mean, be safe again. This is like, bring your account, your little friendship accountability buddy with you. But can you create friendship within like a community, Facebook group? Another thing is sports. I am so jealous of y’all who play sports. Find an adult Sports Group if you play any kind of sport, maybe you played in high school, maybe you played in college, maybe you’ve just always played recreationally. And you’re like, super athletic and super cute. I’m so happy for you.

By the way, find some sort of sports, adult sports leagues. My husband has always played men’s community ice hockey, always at our local whatever. It’s called, body zone. He plays a body zone and he goes, he goes and he plays hockey, and he loves it. He has made so many friends. He’s traveled to Europe with a bunch of these guys, and he’s done it for literally, since we moved to the area 20 years ago. He has always played ice hockey, and that has given him an outlet to find friends, and they’re just casual friends, but that’s fine, an outlet to find friends, an outlet to like, do something in community. So go to where the people are. Number two, we can often want to go real deep, real fast. And what I want you to really think about is like, start small, start low pressure. Start with just like, have a chat with the barista at Starbucks, compliment someone’s book or shoes at the library. Like, send a quick DM to someone online, reconnect with an old friend that maybe you’re feeling like, oh, it’s been so long since I’ve reached out, I shouldn’t bother like, No, you should say hi. Say what’s up? Step three is really, really, really important. So important. I want you to hear me on this. We’ve got to be willing to invest. We’ve got to I’m going to play for you a reel that I saw. I immediately sent it to my husband. I thought it was so good. It’s from Kels. What else? If you want to give her a follow. I really resonated with this. I do want to give a warning. It’s a little neurotypical, it’s a tiny bit judgy, but I really think the message, the overall message, is so good. So if you could just hang in there for the overall message. I think that it would be really impactful. So here I’m gonna play it for you.

Video Clip 37:07
Can’t expect a village to show up for you if you are unwilling to be a villager, villages don’t just spontaneously appear in your living room. Step one is you gotta go where the townspeople are. You gotta go where the people are. And then you need to start building your village brick by brick with intention.

Kristen Carder 37:22
Okay, again, it’s a little neurotypical, it’s a little judgy, but the message is so important, you can’t expect to have a village if you’re not willing to be a villager. So many of us want to bypass the work of being a villager. How do we build a community. How do we build a village? Brick by Brick, little by little, serving people, supporting people, encouraging people, and seeing if it is reciprocated. I am not saying just like, lay down your life for all of these people and like, never expect anything in return. That is not what I’m saying. I don’t think that’s what that Creator is saying, either, but what I am saying is one of the best ways to make connections is to lay the foundation, build little by little, brick by brick, serving people, offering to help, supporting, encouraging, and then asking for the same in return, and seeing if the person On the other end is willing and able to reciprocate. Remember, we’re looking for mutuality. We’re looking for reciprocity. We’re looking for a healthy enough and equal enough, not perfect, but give and take back and forth. Okay? So we need to be willing to lay that foundation. We need to be willing to lay the bricks. We need to be willing to show up when we say we’re going to show up, we need to be willing to follow through on friend stuff and listen. I can already feel your shame. I can feel it. I know there are times when you’ve like ghosted friends accidentally. I know there are times when you haven’t followed through and you feel so badly about it. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about moving forward. Like, if you need to take some time and grieve that and really think it through, and like, give yourself some time to heal and forgive yourself for that, please do.

But like, moving forward, I’m talking about just noticing, wow, this might be someone that I want to invest in. So I mentioned, I, I know that I’ve mentioned that I have made two mom friends at water polo. One of my sons plays water polo, and I have made two mom friends. Actually, it’s, it’s, we’ve tried to be like couples friends, and it is slow going, but it is fun. They’re so nice, they meet all of the requirements. And it’s taken time. It’s been about a year that we’ve been slowly building brick by brick, offering to go out, having people over, saying yes, when. And the offer is there. We never say no when they offer, which is not often. So like, if they were asking every day or every week, we would say no. But like, every once in a while we’ll get a text that’s like, Hey, do you want to go to trivia on a Wednesday night, a random Wednesday? The answer is yes, even if I don’t feel like it. Why? Because I want to have a village. These people seem nice. I want to invest and have friends. I want to have a deeper bench.

You know, I’m saying your girl needs a deeper bench. And I wonder if you do too, like investing in the little things, in the easy, fun, slow building of relationships will allow us to have a deeper bench. Okay? I am just realizing that I am only about halfway through my notes, and there is no way that any eighth deer is going to be able to hang in with me for another half an hour. So how about we create a part two? I think I’m going to do that. I’m going to end here. We’re going to do a little recap, and then I’m going to create a part two, because I think that’s going to be really important. So let’s recap what we talked about today. We talked about why it is so hard for ADHD ers to have friendships. We talked about like, what are the aspects of our symptoms that can often interrupt our friendships? We talked about spotting red flags in the friendships that you currently have, and also for the future, so that you’re not investing in red flagry. You know, I’m saying, I just made that up, but I like it. We talked about green flags and what to look for in new friends. And then we talked about, like, the practicalities of how to actually find the people. And this, I do think, is the hardest part. This is hard to get your butt out the door to go to those meetups, to join a sports team, to go to yoga weekly and like, actually try to start conversations with people to join a co working space, or don’t forget about the apps, bumble, BFF, meet up a local community Facebook group, like things like that, where you can find people online who live in Your area.

Online friends are not enough. We need in person connection as well. We need to be in the presence of other people who can, who we can co regulate with, and who are just great. And we can see and feel and touch and smell. It’s in it’s important. It’s important to smell. Okay, this is getting weird. Don’t forget to start small and build brick by brick. We’re going to build the new community. We’re going to build the new friendships brick by brick. We’re going to go slowly. We’re going to let it take time. We’re going to work on our patience. Okay, now in the next episode, in part two, we’re going to talk about how to not over share, and we’re going to talk about how to be a good listener, because it’s really important for us to make sure that we are good friends, that we are healthy enough, that we are safe enough so that when we meet these green flag friends, we can show up and be a mutual friend to them.

So we’ll talk about that in the next episode. I can’t wait. I’m gonna see you. Then I’ll see you next week. Bye. Bye. If you’re being treated for your ADHD, but you still don’t feel like you’re reaching your potential, you’ve got to join focused. It’s my monthly coaching membership where I teach you how to tame your wild thoughts and create the life that you’ve always wanted, no matter what season of life you’re in or where you are in the world. Focus is for you. All materials and call recordings are stored in the site for you to access at your convenience. Go to Ihaveadhd.com/focused for all the info you.