Episode 78: Why Friendship Feels Hard When You Have ADHD
Host: Sharon Collon
Every week there are comments in my support group from parents talking about how they wish that they had people in their life that got them. They want friends and they feel a bit lonely. We spend a lot of time supporting our kids with friendships. And I've got a podcast episode on that with Carolyn in a previous episode, so I'll link to that in the show notes. But today I want to talk about adults. Do you struggle to make or keep friendships?
I'm joined by Carolyn McGuire, ADHD coach, educator, and author of Friendship Skills for Neurodivergent Adults. Carolyn's work focuses on helping neurodivergent adults understand how friendship actually works. From the neuroscience of connection to the unspoken social rules most people were just never taught, her approach is practical and grounded in real life experience. This conversation is about friendship belonging and what becomes possible when we stop blaming ourselves and start understanding connection differently. Welcome, Caroline. Thank you so much for having me. It's always good to see you and catch up. I am first, want to say I'm sad. I know that there are people putting those comments in your group and there are people putting those comments in my DMs, right? But I'm sad to hear it and I hope that we can offer some real strategies and solutions because
I don't want any of us to be lonely. And this is the thing that perhaps we were never taught. Like we weren't, we also don't discuss it. We weren't taught how, I don't know about you, but I wasn't taught anything about social skills. And also I wasn't, people don't verbalize that they're struggling with this. We all kind of push it down somewhere. No, I was taught manners. So like how to sit and how to, you know, keep your tea towels perfect as if the queen is coming over tomorrow but I was never taught social skills. My mom is really an introvert. Like she doesn't really socialize. So she has friends, but I feel like she just didn't know probably she's neurodivergent. My dad definitely is. And I think we also, even if we read those books that are written about friendship, they're written for typical people by typical people.
And I think we really, like my goal with friendship skills for neurodivergent adults was to just break that all apart and sort of say, do this differently. We see the world differently. We think differently. We friend differently. And that's okay. Now let's figure this out and learn these skills in a way that isn't meant for other people who you are not. Exactly. That's perfectly, I love that. I love that. Okay.
So tell me, why does friendship feel so much harder in adults? And why do so many adults assume that means they're failing somehow rather than missing skills or support? So first let me normalize something. There is a worldwide loneliness epidemic, right? Princess Catherine recently talked about this. We talk about this in the United States a lot. So a lot of adults are struggling with friendship, not just neurodivergent adults.
I think part of it is we've always struggled. So we're like, hi, you are now lonely. We've been lonely for a long time. But I want to say that adult friendship is hard partly because in childhood, there are these natural sort of funnels toward friendship, university, sports, all these things that you do in childhood. You're in a classroom with people, right? You have group projects with them then in adulthood, you might be in an industry where there's no one your age, there's no one of your same interests, right? I hear from people all the time, they're like, I love my job, but I work with only people who are 30 years older than me and I would never be friends with them. So I think a lot of that natural scaffolding is gone in adulthood. And then I think add in,
For those of us who are moms of neurodivergent kids, I think there is a layer that we have to just talk about, which is our kids aren't always the easiest kids. I love our kids, as you know. I think they are fabulous. But they sometimes leave the playground. They sometimes, you know, leave the pitch. You know, they sometimes don't play organized sports or aren't socially successful themselves. And that's how lot of moms make friends is through
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their kids. So I'm not trying to lay blame. Please do not hear that. But I do want us to understand like that makes it harder. And I think it's overcomable. But I do think it makes it harder. You know, I've met people who I like, right. But if they're not nice to my kid, I'm not going to be friends with them. Or if they don't understand or if their advice is overbearing and unhelpful, right. So I think that's a
Right? It's just, is. Mm. As you're saying that, you know, I've gone to play dates and, we've met in a park or whatever, and I've only had a chance to talk to the person, like, two words. That's the whole time. because you're chasing. Yeah, and we're chasing, and like, I'm doing things and I'm, you know, like, just, so it does, like, where other people would perhaps get to sit down and form that relationship, and...
you know, proximity matters, know, exposure matters, like how many times you see that person. And if you've only got two words in that whole playdate, like it's hard to build a relationship on those two words. And I talk about this in the book. I talk about proximity. So I did a ton of research. I started out with sort of the questions everyone asks, you know, why, why do my relationships fall apart? Why am I lonely? Why do have trouble making friends? And then I really did a lot of research. I talked to.
you know, dozens and dozens and dozens of people. I worked on this for, you know, for at least 10 years, perfecting these methods and the things I'm offering you. And one of the things I found over and over and again is proximity matters. even if you show up every Thursday at the same place, as and you interact with people, you can't just be, you know, if there's no chance to interact. But if you interact with people,
you have a better chance of making friends. And it can be online, right? It can be online. So I think that playdate thing you're describing matters. I also think if you are neurodivergent, we're always behind, right? We're behind on our work, we're behind on our housework. So often we don't go every Thursday and we opt out on that proximity. But here's my sales pitch. If we can find executive function strategies,to keep up with people better, which I offer in the book. I'm not sending you a draft, I offer them. That proximity, it can be a real key to making friends. Love that so much. It is such an important factor. So you reframe friendship in the book as a learnable skill - not a personality trait. this was, you know, so, it was a revelation, right? Because people either think that they're, I mean, it is black or white thinking that they're good at friendship or bad at friendship. So why is that idea so radical and so relieving for so many neurodivergent adults? So I think that we've been taught that you're good at it or bad at it. And that everyone's judging our social skills. And I want to tell you, that's actually not what the research is saying. There is new and burging research in the past five years. So yeah, it's very new. And one of the things that it shows is that it's not really about having perfect social skills, right? I'm not denying that there aren't skill gaps and I teach you how to make conversations stuff in the book. And I think those things are important. But one of the things it shows is that there's mismatched communication and that if we see the world differently, if we do things differently, if we don't keep up with people, but we never tell them why we don't text back, that actually that's part of the root. And that if we even just explain, hey, I'm a person who doesn't like to sit in the sun, I need to sit in the shade. I'm a person who's anxious, so I need to know details before we go somewhere, then people are very charitable about it. And by the way, if they're not, I'm gonna go right ahead and say they're not your people and like put them to the side because you can't be friends with someone who isn't kind, right? Because we're gonna mess up sometimes. So I do think it's a learnable skill and I also think we do it differently and that's revolutionary. No one ever says that they act like we should become someone else and that's just not gonna happen. And we also assume that everyone else is somehow better than us at it.
A lot of people struggle with friendship. They might do like a lot of bravado. Like even neurotypical people can really struggle with this stuff. Like not everyone is better at it than you. Like everyone perhaps maybe puts on a bit of a show at it, or perhaps they have learned strategies that support them with it. What do you think about that? I think that is also one of the big misnomers, right? It's a big, big myth. I think you're absolutely right. I think a ton of typical people talk to me about their friendship stuff. Like my husband's joke is like, can we go anywhere without talking about this stuff? And I'm like, no. So typical people talk to me about it. Typical people struggle. This is what I always point to. Millions of people are buying these friendship books. And this is the first book by a neurodivergent person for a neurodivergent population. So all those other books were written by typical people for typical people and they sell like hotcakes. And the reason they sell like hotcakes is that a lot of people struggle with this. I think the difference is that they have the bravado and the confidence, right? And maybe they're struggling at 20, 30, 40, 50, and they didn't struggle as little kids. And I think part of our struggle is we did struggle sometimes as little kids. So we have less confidence and we have less bravado.
So many adults say, I'm just bad at people. What's actually going on behind that belief? I think people attribute awkwardness in their head as always telegraphing to everyone else. And I think that they have developed this belief, and sometimes people have told them mean things, but those people are mean people, by the way. They didn't need to tell you that, that they are awkward and that they are bad with people. And there's a few things I notice. One is sometimes they're just so self-conscious and so lack confidence or lack a path forward that it's not that they're bad with people. Once I help them with a path forward, which for me is use your interests, go and engage in activities. And I have this all in the book that are high interest, high engagement,
We've had the proximity and participate and you will make friends. And when I put them on that path and I help them with a few skills, a little confidence, they do great. It's really that if every minute of every day you're thinking I'm bad with people, then your self-confidence is so low. How would you be successful? Like, I really feel like confidence is this thing we don't talk about enough in the ADHD community.
that we need to talk about more. Cause I get it. Yes. This is really, this is a really valuable conversation. Cause I think people make it like some bad experiences mean something about them. When really it is something that we can support ourselves with, know, having those key tools to give us a little bit more confidence and to know how to handle some tricky situations can be life changing for a lot of beautiful humans.
I have a troubleshooting section in the book. I can say that five times fast. it's really a great tool. it allows you, if you say all my friendships end, or I'm doing this, Caroline, and it's just, I don't feel like it's working out. And it looks at like all of the elements that I say go into making friends and are you doing it? And one of the things I found when I was testing this was,
So many of my clients, people I asked to test this, part of it was like they almost needed to catalog their wins because when we started troubleshooting and we started saying, well, like a year ago, you were here and now let's look at all the things that have happened for you. You never had anyone to go to this big festival, this big event, you just went with someone. When we did that, people also start to shift their mindset. Because I think a lot of, and listen, I used to be this way, I've struggled with friendship, I've been very open about it, it's a matter of public record, and I talk about it in the book, and I think it's very easy to get so down on yourself, and that every mistake, you're like, I'm back at square one. When in fact, you're not. If you look at the things you've done better, and you look at your growth, you're doing things you never did before.
Love that so much because you can, once you have those, that record of your wins, like it gives you so much confidence to try something new and to keep advancing and perhaps let go of that part of yourself that says I'm just bad at people or I can't do people-ing. maybe, and I also wanted to reframe, like to, to, to, re-discuss the bit that you said about finding your area of interest and putting yourself in the right position.
Like I know for me, if you put me in a networking room where I don't know anyone and I've got to go up and cold talk to people, like I'm going to be awkward, right? Like I know that that's not my area to shine. You put me in a room of parents talking about ADHD, I'm going to make lots of friends, right? Like I can shine in that environment. So it's where, what activities or what groups or what places allow you to shine too.
And I think you have to try one or two things because what I find makes people really, really sad is like you try something, you invest in it, and then seven to eight sessions go by and you realize that there's not enough interaction, there's not enough opportunity, the people that came the first week never came back. So I really encourage people to have a couple of hours in the fire, do one or two things, make sure there's interaction. So I have a quick story. I was doing this group for ADHD adults.
And we were doing all the material from the book for like a year. there was this one person and she was killing it. She went to things, she joined things. She was just like really eager. And she realized that she had joined a choir. And I really thought this would be great. And I think it can be great. But what she found was it was actually a really elite choir and it was very structured. And there was only seven minutes a night where they would get off the rafters and the little choir stacky things that you see in a church and come down and socialize. And then it was very superficial. So, one of the things I talk about in the book is like seven minutes isn't enough, right? So it has to be that you have this high interest, highly interactive formula and you try some things and kind of allow yourself to explore. And I do this in the book, I have a whole thing on finding your people.
Where would you be best? What environment would be best for you? And a lot of us do this thing where we mask and we're like, oh, I'll take anyone. I'll go anywhere. Well, you I always joke about this and it's the truth. Like, I don't really like to go outside. Like, hot take. I don't. I'm sorry. Everyone don't come for me. But like, I'm not an outdoorsy person. I'm not athletic. I'm not sporty. So if I was joining a ski club or a kayaking club,
I'm not meeting my people because they like to do those things, right? That's not my people. I should be like the choir sounds like a great idea for me. I love that. I like to craft. You know what I mean? Like you have to be with people who are like you. Otherwise you're forced to pretend or you're making friends. I mean, almost as an alternate person.
Okay, so you just touched on it there. Can you explain the hidden cost of masking in friendships? So especially the kind of masking that looks socially successful from the outside. When I talk about masking, I'm really being camouflaging yourself and pretending, right? There's a lot of people pleasing involving. So you're, you're agreeing to anything. Are you up?
for this and you're never saying, I'm not actually, that's a sensory nightmare. I don't really want to do this. This is hard for me. And you're also not really expressing your true self. You're going along with anything. Now, I think some of this is that for those of us who are mature, we have been taught to adhere to social norms. I think there's a difference between saying to someone, I'm so sorry for your loss, right? Or, you know, not shouting in a library versus pretending to be someone you're not, right? So the cost of this is very deleterious to your mental health. It causes burnout, it causes depression, it causes tremendous anxiety, because you're essentially pretending all the time. And I have a chapter about masking in my book. I'm actually starting a course that will be launching soon that will help people unmask in like small increments.
Because it is complicated and if you are high masking, I understand that this is not going to go away overnight and it's very hard to even know that you're doing it. But there is a tremendous cost and one of the costs is you might have an entire friend group who you really don't feel belonging and kinship with. This is really powerful stuff.
How do past, no, before I get to that question, I wanna ask a lot of adults feel exhausted after socializing. their social battery just completely drops. So even when it went well, what's happening neurologically in those moments? So a lot of people when I was writing the book said, make sure you have a section on friendship has to feel worth it. And so I do. And one of the things is that,
It takes a lot of energy to pay attention, right? To manage our executive function. I'm dyslexic. Getting places, like that takes energy for me. I actually had to drive somewhere today that was like far away. And sometimes I, by the time I get to the venue, I'm like, I'm exhausted, right? So there's a tax for that. And I also think there's managing your energy. And some of this comes to masking.
Some of this is because I'm managing how loud I laugh, how cheeky I am, right, what I say, the language I use, right, and I'm managing it so much, that drains your battery and takes a ton of energy. So there's sort of a catch-22 here, right? The more you unmask, the less energy it will take.
I work with a lot of clients on managing their energy and making choices. And I think this also goes back to, do you have to say yes to everything? No, you don't. Right? I would argue that you could look at your social stuff and say, what's high value? Right? What gets me toward friends or keeps me really in touch with friends or brings me joy? And what is a duty I must perform or what is a duty I just do because I feel like I have to?
And I think sometimes that drains our energy too. 100%. I often do have to catch my calendar, right? Because I say yes to things like future Sharon has all this capacity. Like I'm like, yes, future Sharon will love that even though it starts at eight o'clock at night. I say yes all the time. And then I have to catch myself because future Sharon doesn't have any more energy than today, Sharon, right? No, she does not.
So I've really had to work very hard at like triaging my calendar and making sure that I actually am saying yes to things that are realistic, like in my scope, that I'm going to have energy to be able to attend and enjoy. Because if you're going to things constantly going, my gosh, I don't know if I can, like, if I, if I've got the energy for this, you're putting yourself in a position to, you know, have a negative experience, right? Like if you don't have the energy to be there, very, very tricky. And I have.
in the book to ask yourself before you cancel, right? So, you know, I just went to someone's party and they won't hear this podcast, but I love them, I'm happy to go. But it was like in the city at eight o'clock at night starting, and I am an old lady, I go to bed like really early, even on the weekends. I get up really early, right? I get up really early because of my kid's schedule. And it was so...
When I tell you it was the kind of cold where your teeth like feel the cold as you walk through the city and it wasn't anybody I knew. But I didn't cancel because one of the questions I asked myself is what's the repercussions for the relationship? Well, you can't cancel on people's weddings their 40th, 50th birthday. Like people get really upset and it's a friendship ending thing. But you can say, I'm gonna pause before I say yes and I'm gonna text them back and say,
I think I can, but I'm gonna look at my schedule and buy yourself that pause, right? I have that built into my life. I pause before I say yes, because future Caroline is rosy and bright and she somehow is an alternate being than the person today. And then I also have rules, right? And you might wanna make some rules for yourself. Like I don't do anything on a Sunday night, because Sunday night I get my act together, I get the food together, I get everything together for our family.
I mean, maybe if we were like you get you had front row tickets to see Elton John or something, maybe I would go. But like more than likely, I would say, no, I can't do that. So I think those kind of things can be really important and putting in that pause so that and I know people are saying, and then I will never text back. You can still say you can still say I need to check and respond to the person and write it on a list.
But you're buying yourself a little time to check in with future Sharon and say, how realistic is this? Mm, we definitely need that pause, right? Like it's the power of the pause. We need that ability to just check in, not do the rapid fire response. Cause yeah, very hard to do. okay. So I wanted to, I've heard you talk before about the different levels of friendship and this is perhaps something that doesn't get enough airplay. So can you explain to our beautiful listeners about those levels? One of the things I have found as one of the biggest ADHD struggles is that we attribute the qualities of a friend to someone who is in fact an acquaintance. And then we feel very disappointed and hurt when we ask things of them. And it leads to very lopsided friendships. And part of it is we often rush into friendship.
And I think just inherently, whether it's executive function or we're just enthusiastic or future Caroline and Sharon, right, like thinks this is gonna be great. We tend not to see that there are levels of friendship and that within the levels of friendship, there is different levels of trust, there's different levels of giving, right? And that there's different expectations, right?
I also think we sometimes get subject to takers, right? Because we're so, I mean, I made a video with Jessica McCabe, the YouTuber, and when I asked her, honestly, in the video, people might think this is stage, I said, who do you wanna be friends with? And she said, anyone. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no. And people have written me, that was so cute. I'm like, no, that was the honest truth, because we are so eager that instead of saying,
is this person treating me well, right? We say, I will take anything, I'll do anything. So this is just the root of how it happens. So I have this tool called the flavors of friendship, and it's the different levels of friendship. It's people you say hello to, like I get my coffee every morning. It's something I do so that I don't just stay in this house all the time. And there's people I see, but I don't know their name. You know what I mean? Or you see them at a... you know, at a soccer match or you see them somewhere and maybe you don't know their name, but like you can pick them out of a crowd, right? Then there's people who are acquaintances. This is a huge bucket, right? And we as ADDers often say, these are my friends and they are people you know, but you, you don't have a history of trust. And by the way, trust is track records. So you don't have a history of trust with them. You don't know about them. And you don't maybe still you may not know their last name or something. You sit with them at yoga. You like them. They're buddies, right? They're buddies at different activities. And then I have a level that I've added for us adults, which is emerging friends, right? So when you join your church group or you go to the dog park or you join an online group or you do something trying to make friends when you read this book, you are gonna have emerging friends. You're becoming friends with them, but they're not like your university roommate or someone you've known your whole life or the person I went to that 50th birthday who I love and who knows everything about me, right? And then there's friends, right? And that tier are the people who give to you and give back. And by the way, they treat you well. And if they don't treat you well, then I want you to question it and I have a whole tool for that. And then there's like close friends. Okay, and I want to say this, you get two or three of these in your entire life, okay? So you might have lifelong pals, like I know people who know, I have a friend from preschool, right? We went to preschool together. I don't see her that often, but she knows everything about my life, right? She knows my parents, she knows my family.
You get a few of those people. And I know we as ADHD people, so many people, I'm going to spare Sharon's comment section, are going to be like, but I want close friends. You can have close friends, but it takes time to build. And it takes reciprocity and it takes trust. And I'm going to say one more thing. This is not on you. If they don't want to be friends or close friends, that doesn't mean you've done anything wrong.
It just means that that's not where they are in their life. So I'm going to give you a, for instance, that involves me. I met someone like a year ago who I really like, and we've been having coffee like once a month, every other month. I really like her, right? But I am in the middle of a book launch. I have a daughter who applied to college and then I have to launch, right? And so I'm... nurturing the friendship and I'm definitely trying to send signals that I like her. But I literally have been transparent and said, like, I'm enjoying getting to know you, I'm enjoying moving along. It's not that I'm not open to closer friends, but I'm not nurturing in that direction and giving it that ton of energy because I don't have the energy to give. And I know so many times when people have a sick mother, have something going on,
and we take it so personally, right? Or they have their mates, right? They have their close friends. And so I wanna say that because I think we take it so personally, and I know from personal experience, sometimes it's the situation, and maybe it will happen down the line too. You don't know what's destiny, but I want us to keep nurturing and keep looking for that close friend, but I don't want us to take it personally and add to that narrative that everybody goes away. this is such an interesting topic, right? And I've got to share a personal experience. I was talking to my husband about friendships and he is one of those very lucky people that is still and very unusual people, person, person. He's, he's not unusual. It's just the situation is unusual. Situation, yeah. That he is still friends with the people that he went to primary school with. Like he, they just stayed friends, right?
And that's quite unusual. And so, see, I don't hang out with anyone that I went to primary school or high school with. made my friends. no, I mean, well, they were my bullies, so I wouldn't be able to hang out with them. yeah. And, and it's quite, it's quite unusual, but I was watching, he made a comment the other week. He was like, I don't get invited to things anymore. Like I just, you know, I feel like I'm getting a left out. And when we were chatting about it and he's very open about these sorts of things.
We actually worked out that he said no to the last 20 things, right, because he's been busy with work. And he was wearing that hurt like I'm not getting invited. But really, their perception was like, we love this guy, he's just not available. Yep, right. And when we able to discuss it, it was so relieving. Like it was like, okay, well, the situation is what it is, right? If you can't make it, you can't make it. But to make that mean something about you that you're being left out was, you know, it was almost like watching rejection sensitivity dysphoria just in action, right? Like, yeah, it was really interesting discussion and awareness as well to actually break that down rather than walking around with that being so heavy. And I think also there's a societal element of this. My husband and I literally just had this conversation. So your ears must have been ringing. My husband moved around a lot as a kid, so he doesn't have any friends from primary school.
I had only two girls in my class. They were both my bullies. So no offense, I'm not gonna be friends with them. They weren't nice to me. I made my friends later and I think a lot of it was confidence and what have you. And my husband was saying that he met someone through work who goes and rents houses with like these primary school friends. And he was kind of like, there something wrong with us? And I said, well, you didn't live in one place. How would you have, you would have been like the most astute.
like second grader to keep up with everyone when you are moving all over the country, right? And we were just talking about it. And I think people take on meaning from things. And what I try to do with clients is do a little diagnosis. And this goes back to the troubleshooting chapter to sort of say, have you said no to the past 20 things? Are these people really your people? Like maybe you didn't really click with them.
And I had a realization the other day, have a client who's working on dating. Like she's made friends and now she's like, I really want to date. And we spend all this time putting together profiles for dating, thinking about who we're going to date, putting boundaries, putting expectations, right? But we don't really do that for friendship and we should, right? And so I think that's another factor is like, have you said no the last 20 times? You know,
Are they your people though? Right? Like if you put together a profile, do you really click with these people? And you know, there's, mean, there's lots of things involved with the troubleshooting, but I think we, we, we create meaning when sometimes when I probe with clients, I'm like, do you really enjoy this person? And they're like, no, but they're sort of like my target, right? I have elected that I'm going to make them my friend and I know I've been there. get it. But.
The other person might not feel the click and therefore might not be reciprocating because they are also looking for their people. So let's talk about, you talked about the acquaintance there. How do you move someone? So thinking about like practical, you've got an acquaintance, you've got a goodbye, things are going really well. How do you move them to a friend? Okay. People are going to hate me for one of the answers, which is conversation, right?
And I have a lot in the book about small talk and I know we hate small talk. Okay. But here's the thing. You have to have small talk to move to big talk. You have to have big talk to move acquaintances to friends. You have to build trust and the way friendship works, right? Is there's a few things. There's having these repeated reciprocal conversations where I build trust and I share in line with the person. Right? I'm getting to know them.
Right? That's what chit chat is meant for, by the way. It's not just a polite thing. It's meant to get to know someone and feel someone out. So I have a strategy called pinging, where you literally, if you think of a submarine drops the ping, you literally say stuff to see if people agree with you or feel the way you feel. So it works like this. If I met someone and I really liked them, I'm not this person, but it's just a good example. I'd be like, I'm a foodie.
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And I love to go to a restaurant on this block, see if they grab on. If they don't, it could mean nothing. But if I do that a few times with a few different things of interest, they're not really a friend potential, right? Cause we have nothing in common, right? So part of this conversation, part of it is shared experience. So part of it is going to those activities, seeing someone, sharing experiences.
interacting with them and getting to know them. And they say all kinds of different stats on how many hours it takes, but I like the one that's about 70 hours of repeated interactions where each time you grow a little more. So that's how you move them from an acquaintance to a friend. And a lot of times it takes, and I have tools for this, you sort of moving them
from the yoga friend who you see, right, to outside that activity. And this takes bravery, okay, to say to someone, hey, you love, you know, X, wanna go down the street and, you know, thrift and see if we can find that blazer you've always wanted. It is scary, but that's part of what has to happen. Otherwise, they're just a buddy and they're stuck in the acquaintance phase.
Mm, great information there. Okay. So let's talk about a few of the challenges. So we've got info dumping, oversharing, like monologuing, going quiet, getting freezing in the moment. These are framed often, often framed as social mistakes, right? How do we separate shame from actual skill building here? So I think there's a big distinction in that. Let's take info dumping. Info dumping is the way.
out-DHD and autistic folks and some ADHD folks communicate, right? I think what has to happen skill building wise is you have to frame it up. And I talk about this a lot where you're saying, Hey, I want to share something, right? And you have to give it sort of, you know, barriers, right? You can't info dump the whole conversation. Otherwise it's not reciprocal and I'm not getting to know the person. I'm not doing that. The other thing is it's not a mistake.
It's a piece, right? So there is a neurodivergent communication style and it involves that, but I think it can't be the only thing you do, it can be a piece. Same with oversharing. Oversharing is something that's probably always gonna happen to us to some extent, but I think we can curtail it a bit, curb it, learn how to stop oversharing when we want to.
And then we're gonna have bad days when we overshare or we're gonna have times when we overshare and I talk about that a lot in the book I think it is a skill building. I think though that if you endeavor to never overshare again You will be pretty disappointed and you'll be pretty sad with yourself and that pulls your confidence down. And then what was the other one? going quiet. So when you freeze Yeah, this is I think the deadliest one this
Yes, I've literally done this, like where I've just stopped talking. So I think there's two kinds of going quiet. I think there's, stopped talking and I withdraw into my shell and I shut down. And I almost feel like that can be hard, but you can also drop someone a text afterwards and be like, I just, my blood sugar fell and I just lost it and I needed to like exit, you know, exit. And then.
There's also just not texting people back, not participating, not saying yes or no. Like basically you're not ghosting them, but like you disappear and there's not that reciprocity and they ask and no, you know, you don't reply to the group text chain ever. and I, that's the why I say it's deadly because I think that's the one that I think we need to build skills for the most. Because I think if you even say I'm so busy, I'm so sorry, I can't comment on a note and you make a little joke.
people are like, okay, but if they never hear from you and they're trying to chase you, that's really hard on them because they don't know either. They're probably self-conscious too. And I talk a lot about how to put things on automatic pilot, how to set up systems for yourself. Like I am not unaware that this is hard for us. And I'm not saying this to shame anyone, but I do think it's a skill to build because otherwise people...
Literally, I mean, I've been the friend who explains this to other friends in a group and he was like, I don't think she's ghosting us. I think she's just nerd virgin and doesn't text back. And then people are like, okay. So, okay. So we make one of these things happen and perhaps we ghost someone. How do we do a repair as an adult and perhaps someone who's struggling with, you know, follow through, time blindness, social anxiety, without forcing them to necessarily apologize? What would you suggest?
So I think there is value though in apologizing. I just don't think there's value in groveling, right? So I think there's a distinction there. I think if you have been absent for two weeks, two months, two years, right? You can say, my gosh, I'm so sorry. Here's what was going on. You can assure the person that you missed them, right? If you want them back, tell them.
I really enjoyed you. And I have scripts for this in the book, by the way, because it's easier said than done. And I think that you can hear how it impacted them. Maybe they thought you did ghost them. Ghosting is very common nowadays, by the way, so people do get nervous. Like, I thought you'd been ghosted. You can also then continue the contact by dropping a little joke, saying, I thought of you today.
And again, I have a lot of systems in the book to put that on sort of autopilot. My personal one is that whenever I wait for my son's bus, I respond to people and I do things like that. So I create an anchor and then whenever I'm standing there, I'm like, I'm doing this now. And I think we can set up systems for that. But I think we do need to own our part, right? I don't want you to grovel, but I want you to own your part. Yep. Love that.
Okay, so if someone's listening and feeling quite lonely right now and believes that everyone else has this figured out but me, what do they need to hear today? I think no one has it figured out. I think there's a real myth around this. think if they had them, listen, if they had it figured out, they would not have given me a book deal at the second biggest publisher in the entire world, right? So it's for UK and US and they're both, you
It's a very big publisher. And I also think that it's never too late, right? So maybe your parents didn't teach you these skills. Maybe it didn't come to you intuitively. It certainly didn't come to me intuitively. Maybe you feel like you're not where you want to be. There is a path forward and it takes time, but it also can be very joyful. And I think that means that's the shift. Like there is a path forward.
My first chapter though is why should I do this? Because I know that there are cynical people listening, cynical people watching, cynical people picking up the book in the bookstore in April and they're saying, why should I do this? And I get it. And my sales pitch is this, when you have a medical test or a family member that's ill, you want someone to reach out to. You do, you want that.
And I think it can happen and I think we can have really good friends and I think we can learn to nurture them. But I think it is a journey and we have to sort of learn what we don't intuitively know. Wonderful. Your book is going to help so many beautiful humans with this thing. And it's the thing, like, just like you said, we weren't taught this, like we didn't get taught this in school. We were just expected to somehow pick it up along the way, which, you know.
I feel like we've just missed this massive step for all our adults. Like we weren't, we weren't supported in this way. So it's really amazing that you are shedding some light on it and giving people practical tools on the way forward. Tell me, how can people find you? So, you can Google friendship skills for neurodivergent adults. You can look up Caroline McGuire and I will give you all the links for the UK book. It is available on audiobook.
My first book, Wild Nome Played With Me, had a whole thing where it wasn't available on audiobook in Australia. And I literally was, I think vehement is not a strong enough word. I was like, I will not go with a publisher who will not make Australia happen. So that is happening. And so the audiobook is available because I know I'm a big audiobook person. I don't really need as much as I consume through audiobooks. Me too. I love an audiobook. Love going for a walk.
keeping things moving and taking it all in. Thank you so much for your time today, Carolyn. It is an absolute honor to have you here today and to share your amazing book with the world. Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun. I'm glad we got to catch up. Thanks for listening to the ADHD families podcast. My mission is to help you build a family life that isn't just managed, but truly joyful.
If you're with me on that mission, please share this episode to help us reach more parents. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. It's a small act that makes a massive impact. And it also makes me do a little happy dance. For more support and strategies, find us over at thefunctionalfamily.com. I am in your corner. See you next time.
