AD|HD and relationship building

I've been reading this awesome self-help book "You Mean I'm not Lazy, Stupid, or Crazy?" Written by Kate Kelly and Peggy Ramundo. Both authors have ADD and are a founding member of ADD coaching groups, plus I am happy to have read both live in Cincinnati, Ohio. Sorry, I'm from Ohio and take pride in it.

Anyways, after reading the first two chapters I feel as if I can give things I see in myself that I'm working on and give a name to them. Now that I have done that I feel that I can fight them easier. It's silly really that this book has made me but excited and very happy as it has come from a perspective of a person who is living through my life it feels like. All the other books that I've read or thought of reading helped me see things as they are but this book makes it so I can relate to what they are describing.

I just want to say that the part about relationships has me thinking about how I am in friendships. I have made many friends in my adult life, I had very little if any in childhood, yet I still don't have that one girl friend or maybe even a gay guy who could would just go have coffee once a week or month to hang out. Yet, I've never put myself out there to find what I crave. I actually have 50-100 people I can list as friends but none of which could be seen as close friends. I would like to figure out what makes someone a close friend?

Yet, there is the very real problem of me!

I have messed friendships up by being too close too fast. It's like I make friends and I think we'll be BBF's from day one. I still hang back, never calling them unless they call me, don't speak to them through text or IM unless they speak to me and so on. It's like the crazy ex girlfriend who can't take no for an answer. I'm a people person but I am also shy because I know me. I know the me who is crazy for friendship of any kind. The person who would let anyone in only to miss it up or to be back stabbed. The person who jumps in head first then figures out only later that she had done something stupid.

That's how I was married for 8 years to a guy who never wanted to be round me. As only after reading ADD book have I realized that maybe he too was ADD. We both feed off of the worst sides of each other. I don't really believe that it took me long to move on but I feel bad that he isn't in my life anymore for some reason.

Wow, I sharing this with you all and have never shared this with anyone before. Hopefully, I won't with anyone else!

Glad you've found this book helpful.
I've heard of it be haven't read it yet.
I think many of us struggle with relationships. Don't know if it's the difficulty with social cues or what. Getting too intense with potential friends causing them to back off is a sticky wicket for me. The end result is that I'm now gun-shy and have difficulty understanding how non-ADD people form and maintain friendships. I try to moderate myself when I sense a possibility for friendship but I still haven't found that magic combination between sharing about one's self and scaring people off.
Are there any tips on this in the book you are reading?

I haven't gotten that far yet but they keep promising tips are to come. My psychiatrist even said it was a good book to read as I was reading it in their waiting room

sounds like an interesting book. i'll have to check it out.

I agree. Relationships are a huge part of life that is affected by ADHD. One of the biggest eye openers for me after I began ADHD medication was how messed up my friendships were. Seriously. I feel like before I was treated, I was sort of going through life and making a mess of all the relationships I did have. I was impulsive, I interrupted people's conversations, I always had to be the one talking, I was a notorious gossip, I would say things that I didn't mean, etc. For that reason, I have very few close friends. I realized after I was treated and was able to look back, that I had missed a lot of potential friendships and that i had messed up a lot of the ones that I did have. It was so wierd to look at my relationships from that outside perspective and it really helped me learn how to manage my friendships in the future.