Today we will return to our student Sára Jaštíková, whose bachelor thesis focused on adults with ADHD and their experiences. For our portal, she prepared several interviews with one of the respondents, Alena Spálenská. How does ADHD affect making friends? Has it happened to her that any of her friendships ended because of ADHD?
ADHD disorder affects all areas of life. Alena and I tried to explain how ADHD can affect friendships in both negative and positive ways.
Was it difficult for you to make friends?
Yes, I had quite a problem with making friends. Because of my ADHD, I was very excitable, and I couldn’t really pay attention to any social cues, so I was also quite socially awkward. I think I also had quite a different definition of what friendship was like than others. It was actually mostly a source of entertainment for me because I was kind of chronically bored because of my ADHD. At the same time, I had a bit of a higher limit on what I found funny, so I often overdid it and got myself and others in trouble. That’s a pretty common experience of people with ADHD, that we are “too much” for others.
Can you think of something you enjoyed that others didn’t? Any particular activity?
I had a problem with communication. I was the kind of person who threw jokes into every sentence and made fun of almost everything. I think sometimes quite insensitively. But it tended to show more during some group activities where I couldn’t quite stop myself and did something impulsive or just overdid the fun. I was just so quick, rash and intense to others. I also felt like I just thought about things a little differently and communicated them a little differently and I rarely experienced that feeling of being “on the same wavelength” with someone.
And did you manage to come up with a technique over time? Or did you think that’s the way you had it, so you just weren’t going to get along with everybody?
I think I’ve changed with age, my priorities have changed a bit and I’ve been able to understand better how other people are. A lot of those things in how they approach the world and how they approach relationships actually make a lot of sense. On the other hand, it’s true that when I look at my social circle, most of the loved ones that I’ve had throughout my life are people who are neurodivergent in some way, whether they have ADHD or maybe autism. What I’m trying to say is that we’re probably a little bit different, and it’s often the case that we understand each other more.
That’s what I was going to ask, do you have friends who also have ADHD or some other diagnosis? But you partially answered that, so I’m wondering what makes your relationship different.
I think that people with ADHD or some other kinds of neurodiversity are in some ways more forgiving about some of the personal “flaws” that go along with that neurodiversity. We also communicate a little differently, we don’t hold a consistent line, and conversation doesn’t flow by asking questions, but rather by making different associations with what the other person said. And the conversational line goes a bit uncontrollably in different directions. It also seems to me that we’re kind of more playful and spontaneous and dopamine-seeking. We enjoy new things and ideas and like to try silly stuff.
Do you still have friends from elementary or high school, or are you more friends with people you’ve known from university, for example, or who you started hanging out with recently?
It’s interesting that when I found out I had ADHD, it was part of a bigger wave of people around me becoming aware of their ADHD as people started talking about it more. So, we made a bit of an ADHD cluster without even knowing it ourselves. I guess you could say we kind of naturally gravitated towards each other.
I’ve picked up these friends gradually throughout my life, and my group of friends is a mix from all my life stages. I guess I’ve always unknowingly found that neurodivergent person in some group with whom I got along. But I’m sure it was somehow easier in university.
Why do you think so?
I think it has to do with finding out a little bit about who you are and what you want and also finding out what kind of people you are comfortable with. It’s partly because when you study something, you get more access to people who are interested in something similar or have a similarly structured brain. In general, I feel that by liking specific people in my life, it takes a little longer to find them in different areas of life. And then they stay in that life. But I guess you could say that college shapes you a little bit, like the way you see the world.
And your friends all know you have ADHD?
Yes, I make no secret of it. Some people actually make fun of it or have made fun of me in the past when I was very sort of vocal about it. I think in some group chat I have the nickname “little miss ADHD”, so that’s kind of a bit of a meme. We often joke about it, like with one another. One year at camp, we ended up with an all-ADHD room, and by the end of our stay, we had a room full of accumulated unclaimed glasses and plastic bottles. We all contributed our fair share to the pile, and it was like “haha, we’re just the same”. And it was also really nice to see that I wasn’t the only one with jars piling up on the table.
That’s great! Have you told any of your friends who were unaware of ADHD what the disorder entails and what steps they could take to get along with each other better in certain situations?
Yes, I generally try to have open communication in my relationships, and I think it’s good for a person to talk about their needs and for others to listen to them. It’s great when we can come to some compromise together about what we need from each other. For instance... I was at a festival this weekend and I felt like I was getting so overwhelmed with all the organizational stuff and how you’re always packing from one bag to another. I realized I didn’t know where all my stuff was. Then when we went dancing, I left my money with one of my friends so I wouldn’t pull it out, because I knew I’d lose it by this point. So sometimes it’s little things like that. Another common thing that comes to mind now is late arrivals. I guess people have gotten used to me always being like 10 minutes late and they’ve kind of come to expect it. The funny thing is, when a lot of ADHD people arrange to meet up, then it’s more of a sort of hourly interval during which people show up, rather than at a fixed time. And it works somehow.
Could you be more specific about how you communicate the symptoms of the disorder to your friends?
I think it’s important to communicate our boundaries and limits while being clear. For example, when we do something that others might interpret as rude. Our boundaries may be that we are very sensory sensitive due to ADHD and may have trouble staying in a noisy pub all evening. Our limit might be when someone is telling us something and we stop listening at some part - we might ask the other person to repeat it back to us at that point. Or, conversely, if we lose the thread ourselves during the story, we can ask for some time to find it again. Someone might interpret it as rude that we suddenly interrupt their speech. It’s good to try to limit it, but at the same time explain that we do it sometimes. When someone is talking and I think of something interesting to add, I either forget it before they finish, or I concentrate so hard on not forgetting it that I stop listening. At that point, it’s nice to explain that jumping in is probably the best option available. Generally, it’s good to communicate our “flaws” – “Hi, I’m doing this slightly odd thing, and I have this slightly odd reason for doing it. Thanks for understanding.” Then we can make it up to the other person in other things.
Considering this, did you ever have a friendship end because of that?
I can’t think of any specific case, but maybe it’s more likely that the friendship wasn’t forged. It’s probably due to the slightly different interests and the way we communicate. We can be too fast, unconventional and intense for others. And they’re too slow, structured and down-to-earth for us. But speaking for myself, I believe that people with ADHD have also experienced the end of friendships because of their symptoms. For instance, ADHD being a complication in a marriage is a big topic in itself.
As for family relationships and the heredity of the disorder, do any of your family members have ADHD too?
The only one in my immediate family with an official diagnosis is my cousin, but I believe there are more of us. For example, my grandfather drinks coffee every day before bed and it doesn’t interfere with his sleep at all. Peculiar reactions to stimulants like that are a sign of ADHD. It shows up a little bit when you go on a vacation together and come back twice because you forgot something. And if you grow up with that and consider it normal, then you may not notice that you yourself are more chaotic than would be normal. It’s also kind of a joke that if you tell your mom, you have ADHD, you’re kind of telling her she has it too.
You can read the first part of Sara Jaštíková’s interview with Alena Spálenská here.