Losing a friend, ADHD and Grief

I think something we don't talk about, almost ever, is the life fact of losing a friend. Not to a dramatic event, necessarily, but sometimes even the slow loss of fading connections. In my life, I've lost a LOT of friends when I was young because we moved so often. I've lost a few to distance, and a few to dramatic events that had an impact both in the short and long term, as well. 

Sometimes when I get those security question that ask you things like "the street your first home was on" or "your first grade teacher's name" or especially "your childhood best friend" I think-- who knows those things? I know people do, but it's definitely not me. I moved regularly as a child, sometimes with some notice, often without any notice at all. My family's single mother, excessive poverty lifestyle was anything but stable in those ways. I always have to choose one or two of the "security questions" that have to do with things that are less about your early childhood..... It makes me a little sad to realize how many of those usually ten questions I can't even come close to answering. (Also this is part of a discussion I think I'll eventually write about CPTSD, as well, but not today). 

But back to the point-- losing a long term friendship. Sometimes it CAN be a dramatic thing-- a big fight, especially. In our culture, we talk about losing love a lot. You turn on Netflix alone and there are going to be entire categories of movies and TV shows that deal with this. (And this doesn't count the ones based on death, which isn't at all what I'm talking about). So culturally, I don't think we practice the thought of what happens when a friendship ends.  And part of you tells yourself that you're making too much of it. That you shouldn't be this upset. That you're over-reacting. But then part of you KNOWS you're over reacting and can't help it and knows that the over reaction might even make what you dread worse. 

It's hard. It's as brutal as the love relationships. Sometimes I think it's even more brutal because a part of you, at least at some level, expects those love relationships, romance, to not last forever. (And I don't mean marriage-- because that's a different topic entirely). 

So the point is-- being ghosted by someone who you care about, who you think of as a friend, and who you try to reach out to and connect with to let them know -- "hey, this feels really bad; what's going on?" is really, really rough. 

Image from article at this link.

I have a kind of emotional issue with my ADHD called RSD: Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria that makes this kind of thing even worse. Because look, I ALWAYS worry if you don't text me back right away. I can handle it if it's a few hours. But if you leave me on read for weeks at a time, and there's no real reason I can trace it to, I'm definitely certain you hate me and never want to talk to me again, and if I tentatively say "hi" trying to rekindle that chatting and you don't reply, or you reply that you're busy and will get back to me but then NEVER DO, be pretty sure that I am devastated and spending hours thinking about it in a way that would seem stupid to most people. There's a reason why ADHD is an actual disability. It makes life a lot harder in everything, but people will say "don't let it bother you so much; it's not as big of a deal as you think" but hey, look. I want you to know that it IS actually as big of a deal to some people as we think it is. Your neurodivergent friends are definitely upset. And we can't just stop being that way any more than a blind person can just think about it harder and see things better. 

A neurotypical response to something might say "ah well; I'll deal with that when I need to; they're busy; whatever" but trust me, even if it doesn't seem like that big of a deal to you, and even if maybe you think you not talking to them when they've reached out to you is just YOU being busy and not having time to respond-- a certain percentage of us are mourning, deeply, the loss of a friend we trusted. And we don't do trust deep friendships easily, by the way.  

So if you manage to work your way into a trust circle of a person who is very introverted and also has a neurodivergent mind-- please don't ghost them. And know that the amount of times they've reached out to you to try to connect and find out what's up are actually HUGE steps, and even a short "hi, I'll get back to you soon; I'm busy" would go a million miles to let us know it's not the worst case scenario we already have built up. 

Summer Thinking: Meet Your ADHD

I tend to neglect my writing in the summer, which is absurd, because during the school year, I always feel pressured and/or conflicted in my own personal writing. I am helping students write, usually, and the critiques of other writing tend to mean that it's hard to find space for me. And in the summer, I don't teach-- so I don't have those other critiques. So summer should be ultra writing productive. Right? Haha lolz. 

This summer, I am in the first summer where I have been full diagnosed with ADHD and have medication that helps me really, truly, productively FOCUS. It's amazing and infuriating at the same time. Amazing because I can accomplish so very much. Infuriating because I'm almost 55 years old and I've had this disability my entire life and was never diagnosed with it. All those years I struggled to focus on writing my dissertation, on finishing grad school before I had my kids, on my career productivity, on grading and creating things for teaching without doing it all in a rush at the last possible minute. I honestly always just thought I was inherently lazy and the way I am is just the way everyone else is but they just aren't lazy. 

This kind of thinking is incredibly common, turns out. It also turns out that thanks to us GenX moms getting help for our teens and going "hey, I do that too? Maybe I could use some help?" a LOT of moms (and probably dads too) are learning at midlife that they have this issue. That they've been walking in knee deep water their whole life, and that now, with a little help, they can actually walk ON DRY LAND LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. 

Menopause has been my trigger, I think. I think mostly I was able through most of my life to "mask" and be mostly on target. But the hormones and a fuzzy brain from that just made some things SO HARD that I finally admitted that perhaps I could take a look at talking to a psychiatrist, and he was pretty flabbergasted by how intense my issue was and how much I'd accomplished anyway and how much help I deserved to get. 

SO what does that all mean for me as a writer? This summer for me has been incredibly productive, just not for writing. I have done a LOT of spring cleaning (okay, summer cleaning) in my home. I've gotten a bunch of piles of stuff tossed away, cleared out, donated, organized. I "Marie Kondo'd" my house, like yes, yes, yes I did. I do still have ONE area that might not happen because right now my thoughts are turning away from the urgency of "sparking joy" with home decor. But it's still possible I'll get inspired and get the little closet under the stairs done. That might wait 'til Winter Break, though. 

Anyway. I kind of came here thinking I'd write something creative and it took me like 20 minutes to re-secure my account because it had somehow gotten rerouted to some other domain (which like-- how does that even happen? Hackers? And if so, to where? Cause it just seemed glitched, not rerouted and hacked). And then I lost steam and decided to just journal about this huge life issue. 

And now I'm probably done for the day on writing. The rest of summer is already filling up with a bunch of "human maintenance" appointments for me, my kids, and a family member I'm helping out so..... this might be all we get for Summer 24. And you know what? I feel fine with that.