Women with ADHD and Friendships

As women, we do enjoy being accepted by others. It is a good feeling to being able to make connections and create friendships. For many making and keeping those friendships may come somewhat naturally.

However, social interactions are a struggle for women with ADHD. It’s not as easy as it may seem.

Studies show that social behaviours for women with ADHD are more impaired than for women who don’t have ADHD. Social connections and behaviours require a lot of executive function, which is something that those with ADHD struggle with.

Women with ADHD struggle with social cues, checking in with others, being able to follow conversations with others, good listening, emotional availability, just to name a few struggles. All of these things are important to maintain friendships and relationships with others. These challenges can be it difficult to make new friends and relationships.

These can all lead to women with ADHD feeling as though they aren’t good enough. It can be easy to feel as though we’re imposters. We also fear rejection and also do what we can to try and be included/liked by others.

There are quite a few things that affect us making new friends and holding on to relationships with those friends. More than what we may think of at first. So this will be the first of a series of post I will be doing on women with ADHD and friendships, maintaining them, and such.

As challenging as it is, there are certainly things that women with ADHD can do in order to have friendships with other women.