Hey there. I am incredibly sad, downright depressed and mentally exhausted.
I wanted to celebrate my birthday yesterday for the first time (maybe ever?) with lots of nice people. I invited about 30-50 people. Some, I invited personally, some just casually through groups. Lots of those people I thought of as somehow close and friendly.
I exhausted myself in the effort of preparing the party, I rented a room, I prepared photos, activities, food, music, and just put a lot of mental energy into the planning. I have been planning it for about 2 months, invited those who were most important to me back then even.
5 people showed up.
I am devastated. I was always so anxious about my birthday and never celebrated it. I think I removed myself from groups a lot in my life. And only the last two years, I’ve started to understand my diagnosis and how to communicate with people. This throws all my anxiety and pain back into my body and brain.
I don’t know how to deal with it. Especially I don’t know how to interact with the people that were important to me and who didn’t show (or those who didn’t even cancel). My past behaviour was burning down all the bridges. I don’t think I should do that. But I also don’t know how to pretend like it doesn’t hurt…
Any advice about rejection anxiety and … well, real rejection?
Thank you.
Anecdotally:
There’s an epidemic of post-pandemic burn out and depression. It’s not just the pandemic, it’s the endless layoffs, the world is in a state of political unrest, the list goes on.
It’s hard to decline and invite with that “excuse”, so many people accept.
Attending a happy, social event where they will have to mask their emotions feels like an impossible mountain to climb.
It’s a painful experience to be on the receiving end of this equation and I’m sorry it’s happening to you. I’m hoping this is just a reminder that it’s likely not personal, even though it very much feels that way.
Thanks for that anecdote. I think I get it. I get a lot of the reasons not to come. Now I’m more open with my neurodivergence, I am more surrounded by people who deal with similar stuff. But that also means that they don’t come. I had two or three people cancel yesterday saying they don’t have energy to be amongst many people. This felt so awkward, seeing as there weren’t any…
I think I can see how it’s “not personal” on one hand, but still I can see that I’m not a priority for anyone
Think about it like this: 5 people you know cared enough to come. That’s pretty good if you ask me. Try to focus on the positives because it’s all too easy to get mired in shitty stuff and it’s not worth it.
I don’t have an actual answer to the question but this made me think of a recent realization and attitude that sounds emo and nihilistic but is kind of the opposite and pretty helpful: I try never to do anything unless I can do it not caring in the slightest whether it completely falls apart.
Sorry you went through that. Hope you can find a mental gyroscope for the aftermath.
I know what you mean and it’s the reason why at one point in the past, I started going to clubs or events by myself. I would invite people not expecting anyone to show up, thinking that I’d only invite people if I’d go by myself anyway.
Those things do work. But they sure don’t make me less alone.
It happens, even with popular kids. A friend from daycare invited many people for her 5th, but due to bad timing with vacation, nobody showed up. Nobody. Her 6th was fine, as about 8 out of 14 came.
My son invited 5 for his 5th, but due to some misfortune with sickness etc., only two siblings came. It turned out to be one of his best birthdays ever.
Best to ask for a commitment, a clear yes or no. But in your case, 5 is a good number for a party! 1 or 0 would have been kind of awkward.
Thanks for the insights. But that’s done. I think I did my invitations okay. Even if I didn’t that’s a different question. I just don’t know how to interact with the people now
Interact with them just the same as before. they’re still friendly people, they’re just friendly people who didn’t come to an optional social event.
How many optional social events do you say no to? Personally I will decline dozens of invites to do things every year for various reasons including: nah I don’t feel like it.
It’s not that I don’t like the people doing the inviting: it’s that I have a limited social battery, limited free time and a lot of things I want to do.
And in the meantime: become even closer with the 5 who showed.
Thanks. That’s a real answer to my question. I’m just so tired of trying…
I think they don’t know how important it was for me. And I don’t think that I can tell them.
I was definitely in a similar position but at a younger age. So I’m not sure how applicable my experience is to you at 40+
For me what helped most was 3fold:
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Bupropion. I can’t state how much this antidepressant/ADHD combo medicine helped me chill out, function, and relax about social situations.
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A major cognitive shift from “I must make friends” to “I’m totally happy alone, friends just make things better”
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Learning to always assume the best. People aren’t out to get me, nor do they hate me. They’re generally busy, almost certainly have a small clique of friends they like to spend time with, and I’m not in that group. And that’s totally fine.
It took from age 23 until 26 for me to get that all straight in my head. I spent almost a year of that pulling back from all social responsibilities and taking time to be alone and heal.
Reading through your comments here reminds me of myself before that process and I’ll give you the same advice that a dear friend gave me - you need to go talk to a psychiatrist. Your mental state is unhealthy.
You don’t heal a broken leg by walking on it. You shouldn’t try to heal a broken mind by force of will. Medication is a modern wonder, and I’d seek it out every time in your position.
Thanks. Those are good points. I’m 40. I’ve been to therapy. And it’s not like I can just go, there’s no spots, no therapists, no waiting lists. I have a social therapist who’s okay, I guess. I’m on bupropion, but after about 2,5-3 years, I finally want to get off it. I hate being on antidepressants so long, I’ve had bad experiences with taking them too long.
The hard thing about learning these mental patterns and tools as a person with ADD seems to me, like I have to learn them again and again and again…
I’ve been diagnosed about 2-3 years ago only…
I’m glad it worked out for you so far. Good luck out there
Misread another comment on the 40 part - my bad.
Good luck yourself - Everyone’s journey is different. My ADHD was crippling for decades and it worked out. I hope yours does too - but if it doesn’t ever quite work out I hope you give yourself the grace and the space to be imperfect.
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I think I read somewhere that the average adult has less than 5 good friends. Beyond that is rare to non-existent in terms of actual an “friend”.
That you had 5 show up is pretty good in one regard. I understand the disappointment though, wife and I planned a big 40th bday bash, invited anyone and everyone we knew, well north of 50 friends and acquaintances. End of day we assumed we’d get to 20.
We barely scratched 10, ended up canceling everything just due to effort and cost.
Anyway, if you’re in the Oregon area and do something like this again, I know I’m not a friend, but I’ll show up.
Hey that means a lot. Oceans and landmasses are in the way, but I appreciate you.
It’s hard to understand the full context of your situation because there’s a lot of details missing, so I’m going to make some assumptions based on what you’ve said.
I think your mistake was to go straight to running when you haven’t even started crawling.
You’ve described yourself as not having been a very sociable person over the years, so planning a massive party of 30-50 people for people that you haven’t had regular contact with was likely to never have worked out the way you expected, regardless of how much effort you put into planning and setup.
My advice to you is to start small and take it in steps.
Firstly, don’t bog yourself down with thinking about how a) badly the party seemed to have gone, and b) how many relationships you’ve let erode.
Second, instead of focusing on those that didn’t show up, celebrate that you had 5 people who cared enough to come to it. Spend time cultivating relationships with them, because those were the ones who bothered to be there.
Lastly, for those you felt were important and let you down, you have to understand that people tend to treat big parties as optional. If someone is important to you, inviting them to a large party where they’re just one-of-many doesn’t really tell them how important they are to you does it? I know I’d feel a lot more important if someone invited me to their small and intimate party!
Additionally, you should reach out to them and let them know how you felt - no one can read your mind. You have to communicate how you feel and give people a chance to respond. If they respond positively, great - you’ve kept an important friend! If they don’t, then you’ve learned that your relationship with them wasn’t a healthy one.
You don’t have to pretend like it didn’t hurt you, but the onus is on you to communicate that to those you felt slighted by.
Also, don’t plan massive parties for yourself with over-the-moon expectations, especially not for your first birthday party!
Thank you. Those are some actionable tips for me.
This really stuck in my head today and I’m still processing your message. Thank you so much for taking the time to write it, it means a lot.
You’re welcome and I hope things work out well for you!
Relationships are hard, both platonic and romantic. Maintaining them in a healthy way is really difficult and no one can give you a map for how to navigate the issues.
Sometimes, you’ll find that despite your best efforts, relationships can wane or end over time. Your best friend might suddenly have to move halfway across the world for a job - while they’d still be your best friend, you won’t be able to get coffee/beer like you used to. Or a close friend could unfortunately lose their life at the drop of a hat, and you’d never see them again.
I’ve learned to focus more on and appreciate the time that you do have with a person, however long or brief it may be, because you never know when it’s the last time that you spend the most time with them.
If you’re planning on sinking much money, time, and effort into an event it’s best to do formal invitations with RRSPs.
It’s really hard to organize something for a lot of people to participate in and requires a lot of communication and reminders.
I think you discovered who your true close friends are and now you can scale back and not let the rest of them (the bailers) in on your cool life. Something I’ve had to deal with but is better in the long run.
I didn’t ever have close friends. There’s never been anyone. I go to parties by myself. I turned 40. There’s not much cool to my life. This was my first attempt in long time to not be by myself. I cannot scale back. The 5 people who showed up where my partner with her partner, my former partner, one guy from my dance group (where I invited a lot of people), and a friend who I don’t see as much who’s 20 years older than me. I cannot scale back.
It sounds like you might not know the people who bailed enough to invest that much emotionally into them.
If you thought you did and now you’re not sure then it sounds like you can now have some clarity that they might not be as close to you as you feel to them. Time to pause and question why you’re putting emotional energy into people who aren’t invested.
I’ve been working on this a lot myself. I kind of realized that I was investing a lot of time and energy into friends who live a 5 hour drive away and it’s really convenient for them to have me always drive there. On the flip side none of them have ever made the drive to come visit me. So instead of rearranging my whole life to make a weekend work with them and expending great energy and effort to do so, I started bowing out more often. It’s been better for my peace. Love my friends but I don’t have to run myself ragged visiting all the time because they certainly aren’t doing that.
I put together a huge birthday party for my sister including this whole group. My birthday came around? No one did anything for me and they were all busy, even my sister. That’s fine, it’s telling me I don’t need to make the effort in the future.
So what happens then? You don’t put in the effort and then what?
I can just accept this. None of these people live far out, I even have to work with some and see some of them weekly in a common space. So I can accept that I’m not the priority and then what…? Then I accept my loneliness and try to convince myself that it’s better that way? Feels like that’s what I’ve been doing the past 25 years and it’s gotten me nowhere.
I need to somehow make connections to people and they don’t all have to be super invested. I don’t think I invested emotional energy into the people specifically, but more into the planning and the group…
I don’t put in effort to the extent that it bothers me about it. If it’s convenient sure. If not oh well next time.
One of our friends used to get all bent out of shape because she would prepare all of this food for a party and no one would eat it. I was like girl, stop preparing food then if it’s making you upset. If people get hungry we’ll order pizza.
Sometimes the things you think people will be into are not the things people want to do.
Scale back. Neuroboring people don’t put as much effort into coworkers and social connections as much as I think ADHD brains do because I don’t think they think about it that hard. I learned this when I invited coworkers to my wedding and 2 showed up for like an hour - and I’m pretty sure one of them dragged the other.
People with kids are super flaky too.
I’m just saying yeah you aren’t the priority to these people. Find people who will make you the priority. Keep looking. These connections happen slowly and change over time.
Thanks. I’m not sure what to say. It’s the last sentence that gets me. I cannot hold these connections seemingly. I don’t have the social stamina to keep in touch with people. And if I scale back my efforts, I don’t think I will form any connections at all.
But I appreciate you taking the time to write to me.
It is kind of tough to make friends as an adult. My kids tease me that I have a husband and relatives and coworkers but not friends. That’s not quite true, I keep up with one former coworker by text and occasional visit, and a couple of coworkers are friends, like we go to concerts together, they come for Thanksgiving. But really, two “sticky” people in so many years and one of them is just really good at making friends, that’s not me, he collects people. I do have an enormous family though, and only so much bandwidth.
Are you lonely in fact, or just feel some sort of pressure to have a large group of friends? To me it sounds exhausting, I am happy with having a very small set. Friends who come from former lovers are real friends, I don’t think you need to qualify that. If you feel understimulated but not lonely, just saying yes to things and extending some offers works pretty well. 5 people is a good gathering as long as it’s what you were expecting, though I do think 30 would have been fun in a different way (we have a massive chaotic Thanksgiving here and I love it) and understand that’s disappointing.
I think we each have some limited capacity for close relationships, I really had only one close friend from middle school and one more from high school, and now a husband, my attention seems to be good for one close relationship only and I’m ok with it.
ETA: the one event I can reliably get coworkers to is a happy hour after work on a Friday. My house is near the office so we have had them here, I can even get them to invite their spouses and girlfriend/boyfriend/close friend to those. Partly because I make absolutely delicious drinks and they know that, but also the convenience.
There can be a lot of ways this has nothing at all to do with you.
Begin anecdote: I just got back from two years out of the country and am back to visit family and earn more money for my next trip. I’m hugely depressed. I drained about $80k in savings that took me 15 years to build, have no job, no car, and am sleeping on a concrete floor in a family member’s basement. I’m grown with three adult children.
My older cousin has three kids in their late twenties and early thirties. Two daughters live together and have game night every Tuesday. They adore me and invite me weekly. I’ve not had the stamina to endure a long activity like that, and I also am waiting for both sisters to be available, as one had been working nights, but has next Tuesday off.
When I canceled this past Tuesday, the working sister told me the following day that her father and sister are angry with both of us – convinced I favor working sister more than the two of them. They assume (as is their dramatic nature) that anything that affects them was intentionally done with malice.
I had a doctor’s appointment the day of game night that ran until 3pm, and game night was 70 miles away at 5pm.
These two are sure that I’m slighting them, when in reality, I was home rocking on a cold floor trying to find the motivation to face the public so I could eat dinner. I never did eat. I woke to the revelation from working sister, and now, visiting game night seems 50 times more awkward and uncomfortable to me.
If they hadn’t taken it personally that I’m a mess, I’d be scheduled for game night in two days. As it is, I’m almost 98% guaranteed to skip it to avoid that drama. My canceling had nothing to do with them. My depression and self-loathing are of my own making, and when people feel the need to pressure me or shame me, it never helps in any way.
End anecdote.
If you took it personally that people didn’t show to your party, I get it. I’m sorry. But it likely was not you, and isn’t indicative of the care these people have for you. Its their own thing. My advice is to laugh it off as a plan gone wrong and put it behind you. There are real things that affect us. We don’t need to invent them.
“Remember that time I decided to celebrate my birthday for the first time in decades? I thought 50 would show, but it was 5? Guess that didn’t go as planned!” Its funny, if you let it be.
Take the win: you stayed on-task and for a big shin-dig planned. You have 50 friends.
Maybe you can keep gatherings small and simple for a while, and let the large gatherings happen more organically?
I hope your week is a good one and you can smile about this soon. Happy birthday.
Thank you. That means a lot and I hope your situation improves, too.
I wrote it in another comment: I can see how it’s partly not about me. Everyone had a specific and relatable and legit reason not to come. Just in the collection it also is indicative of my standing. So apparently I don’t have 50 friends, I don’t appeal to people in general and I don’t pull people who have ever the slightest reason not to go.
If I got an invite like this and I knew that many people were invited, I may have assumed that most of the others would show up, and therefore you may not even notice whether I showed up or not. Like, inviting 50 people is already kind of impersonal, isn’t it? Would you really have the time to interact with all 50 if they had all showed?
And really, who cares if you don’t have 50 friends? I don’t. Most people I know don’t. They might have 50 acquaintances, but keeping up that many friendships would be exhausting.
So the number. Out of 50, 30 are just my colleagues. I didn’t all invite them individually, a few I did, but mostly I gave a group invite. It’s quite usual for the colleagues to hang out together, go to stuff together. So that leaves 20 people I invited by hand.
Tbf, 30-50 is a lot of people. I’m a pretty social person, but I’m not even sure I know that many people that I’d want at my party
I feel your pain, man. I once spent months planning a costume Halloween party. Spent over a grand in decorations alone, just spooky-ing up the house like crazy. Got special desserts made, sent out invitations through email and instagram, a freaking flyer with the info, did an online poll to make sure I was doing it on the right weekend so the most people could attend, texted my best friend at the time like, everyday for weeks making sure he at least came.
Come the night of, almost every single person had cancelled, and my (former) best friend just didn’t want to make the 35 minute commute, so he didn’t even come.
Sent out another instagram message to everyone with my original party flyer but with a big “Cancelled” written across it. Ended up slowly eating all the snacks party treats over the course of a week or so. Cleaned up the decorations, and realized that now that I’m divorced, people see me different, with less respect. It’s been a difficult transition, and I’m thinking about just packing up and moving to a whole new area, to make new friends, because that shit SUCKED.
I know that the majority of them had good excuses, but the few that didn’t… man. Yeah it really hurt, and now 2 years later I rarely if ever make time for those “friends.” I’ve just spent more time on myself, growing and becoming more comfortable in my solitude. I’m at a place where, despite a lot of present difficulties, I like myself. I’m proud of who I am, and am slowly putting myself out there more (while also planning on getting the hell out of dodge lol)
I feel your pain. I’ve been there for sure, and I simetimes I get pretty sad/sensitive around my birthday because I’ve had many plans fall through. Reading this thread, I never realized before that this was such a common ADHD experience.
What’s helped me a little bit is to plan smaller, but more frequent, things with just a few friends. It still doesn’t really fill the longing for a great big party for me, but I’ve had better luck with people committing to show up when they know they’ll only be one of 2-5. For example, how would you feel about having a few separate simple dinners with friends in the week of your birthday? As well, I’ve started insisting on potluck style if I ever do plan a larger thing. So much less headache around planning and quantities.
As for what to say to your friends… I get the awkwardness. I’d probably say something like “a bit smaller than expected, sadly”, try to keep the tone neutral and quickly change the subject. I wouldn’t want to lie, but there’s also no use getting into all of it with someone who didn’t show up. That would just bring up a lot of resentment and end up ugly for me.
All the best for your belated birthday, and I hope the next one is better for you.
Yeah thanks for the advice and the wishes. I think you’re exactly right about how those conversations could turn out. So I guess something uncommitting like you suggested is a good start …
I like the idea with the smaller dinners. Sadly, people don’t come around my place. It’s a bit out of the way. And I thought the “bigger” plans are exactly good for the kind of conversations where you aren’t too close with the people and you can get closer with them. In a café/restaurant/bar/living room setting, you have to do small talk…
Happy belated birthday! That sucks - I know. I’ve been struggling this weekend with that perpetual loneliness. I have friends in this city, live with several in fact, but all too often when the weekend comes around everyone has made plans without me and I’m sitting at home on a Saturday night watching shows. It’s easy to interpret it as a judgement on myself, that I’m somehow not sufficient ( which I did for years before my diagnosis). It’s still not easy, and if I had an answer for you on how to deal with it I’d be a much happier person.
I try to let it just wash past me, accept that we have different patterns which often leaves these large gaps. With a couple of major exceptions, I’ve learned the only people I can rely on socially are other ND folk - and we’re infamously flaky to start with!
I can’t really offer advice, but know that you’re not alone, it’s not just you.
I think I can try throwing advice back to you: why not try and be part of the plans of the other people? I only too late realised that I didn’t spend time with people because I thought they didn’t want me to. And now I’m sitting here with nobody.
I appreciate that - exactly this is something I’ve been working on, and a lot of the time it’s fairly successful. But this is the ADHD curse - it’s all too easy to feel rejected and lonely because on this occasion I have no plans with anyone. The negative thoughts manage to persist much longer than the positive.
The Now always takes precedence, always dominates.
Because after the xteenth time inviting myself to their plans its hard to convince myself im wanted around those people
I can’t even tell you how many times I tried to put together a big event and had two or three people there.
For my 21st birthday, I didn’t even do the planning, my best friend had invited all our favorite people that we worked with and went to school with. He made plans for someone to drive us around and a list of the local bars that he wanted me to visit. In the end, it was me, that friend, and my girlfriend. We sat in a dive bar for about two hours until my girlfriend took us home because she wasn’t feeling great and didn’t drink.
That’s probably not even the worst one. I’ve had so many nights just sitting and waiting for everyone to arrive only to entertain the same two people that I hang out with every day.
I don’t have any great tips for you, because I don’t try to do things like that anymore, but I understand how you feel, and it just really sucks. Sorry it fell apart like that. Take a day to focus on you and I hope you feel better.
I am sorry for you, too.
I try to take solace from many people feeling the same. But it all collects. There’s lots of people who feel a similar way and they can’t ever get together, because that’s exactly what we’re not capable of…
I was invited to attend the introverted procrastinators meeting… Maybe someday.
I never organized any parties in my entire life because I know for a fact this would happen to me.
As for advice? Well, don’t organize any more parties. People like us are just the npc’s in “real”(neurotypical) people’s lives. I tried to fight this notion for years but it’s honestly much less painful to just accept it and move on.
Do we “deserve” this? Fuck no, but infants dying from hunger don’t deserve that either and they still end up stone cold dead. Radical acceptance > futilely fighting against an enemy we can never defeat.
I’m sorry you feel that way. I feel that way now, too.
But I fear that living like you suggested would just lead to me being all by myself for the rest of my life, which I shouldn’t do, because that wouldn’t be long. I know I get so much sense out of my life by being in communities and being in exchange with other people. It’s the one thing that always seems to make me grow and feel things.
I don’t want to think that friendship or communion is an “enemy” that I need to defeat. I just need to learn how to deal with people
A lot of commenters here are saying a lot of similar things. I’ll offer my own insights.
As people get older, you have less time. Between maintaining a relationship, doing chores, work, etc, there are so many hours to do things.
As a result, a lot of FOMO happens. It’s not about you. It’s them. They may plan to come to your birthday. They may even want to. But suddenly, something else comes along that they want to do instead.
I don’t plan big events anymore. I’m in my 40s and just dgaf whether people make time for me or not. I’ll ask one or two friends if they’d like to go out to dinner for my birthday or some event.
Thanks.
It’s a bit disheartening that so many people relate but nobody can really help me with my question as to what to do now…
What you do now is let it go. Don’t hold onto the resentment because at the end of the day, they didn’t care enough to spend time with you. Some may have had good reasons. Others may not have.
It’s their issue. The best you can do is to spend more time with the folks that did come. Ask the 5 friends (or one or two) if they want to do something with you next week. Pick an activity. Doesn’t matter what.
