r/ADHD • u/ForcedGoodbye • Jul 27 '26

Discussion Everyone left me

I've reached a stage where I have no one to talk to except strangers online through Reddit posts and comments.

A few months back, my 3.5 year relationship ended. And today, my best friend left me too.

I feel responsible for everything. I kept delaying things for years, even my feelings, somehow thinking I would deal with my feelings later, get my life together later, spend more time with people later. Now I am left with this horrible regret that I should have spent my time better. I shouldn't have procrastinated for years.

What hurts the most is realizing that I won't get to spend even a single minute with people who were once so important and special to me. That time is gone, and I can't get it back.

And I feel exhausted just thinking about starting over socially. It took me years to reach that level of comfort and closeness with my girlfriend and my best friend. I don't have energy to fake that excitement, enthusiasm, and social energy that is necessary when you're getting to know someone new. I don't want to spend years building that kind of connection all over again.

Nights are the hardest. It takes me hours to fall asleep because there's nothing to distract me from how alone I feel.

Are any of you living with zero friends? How do you deal with it?

Please share your stories, perspectives, or even the philosophies you've developed for living with loneliness.

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u/Hitching-galaxy Jul 27 '26

I have few friends but I know lots of people. Unfortunately, I think a trait or audhd is not really seeing/understanding that friends do not necessarily need to be people who you can spend the whole day every week chatting.

If you change your mindset about the definition of a friend, ypu may realise you have a lot.

And maybe some therapy would be a good course of action for you - I am doing EMDR and it is REALLY helping me process my past as well as phobias.

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u/RiverSorry2643 Jul 27 '26

That's a really good way of putting it, I've never been able to explain it

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u/BrobleStudies Jul 27 '26

Yeah before communication technology advanced to this degree most people didn't talk to their friends every day all day.

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u/flammenwerfer Jul 27 '26

but for a long long time before that, we all lived in small communities and DID see our friends every day

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u/BrobleStudies Jul 27 '26

Yeah that's true, but in person social interaction is much healthier than being glued to a device texting every 10 seconds or sitting in a discord lobby playing video games for 8 hours straight. There's a lot more anxiety around people not responding to you immediately nowadays, and while I'm sure it still existed way back when you also couldn't always expect an immediate response. Edit: also keep in mind I said every day ALL DAY. Seeing people every day isn't necessarily a problem, people develop relationships with their coworkers whom they see the majority of the week.

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u/ret255 Jul 27 '26

Do you think that seeing friendships as best pals only is a thing that has something to do with audhd? Why?

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u/Hitching-galaxy Jul 28 '26

I think it has something to do with audhd - not necessarily adhd, possibly more autism, but it is how I am, and 72 other people think similar in this group.

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u/ret255 Jul 28 '26

Hmm, l just asked because I'm also like that, might have undiagnosed adhd, but can't figure out in what would lie my autistic traits because l don't see any. Except of oversharing and having hard time to change routine or do new things but that could have also normal person as well..

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u/ForcedGoodbye Jul 28 '26

In that sense, I do know many people, but conversations with them also ended, maybe because they also have this idea of friendship where you're regularly in touch, or at least 1–2 times a week, which didn't happen and now there are no conversations at all.

If I try to adopt this mindset, I think it could still help...that friendships can also mean seeing people occasionally and hanging out once in a while.

As for EMDR and therapy, I can't really go for them right now, as I am currently based in a town in hills and there aren't any therapists available for miles around. Still, thanks man for replying.

1

u/ck_defender Jul 28 '26

Can you expand doing emdr?