this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2024
112 points (98.3% liked)
ADHD
9655 readers
28 users here now
A casual community for people with ADHD
Values:
Acceptance, Openness, Understanding, Equality, Reciprocity.
Rules:
- No abusive, derogatory, or offensive post/comments.
- No porn, gore, spam, or advertisements allowed.
- Do not request for donations.
- Do not link to other social media or paywalled content.
- Do not gatekeep or diagnose.
- Mark NSFW content accordingly.
- No racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism, or ageism.
- Respectful venting, including dealing with oppressive neurotypical culture, is okay.
- Discussing other neurological problems like autism, anxiety, ptsd, and brain injury are allowed.
- Discussions regarding medication are allowed as long as you are describing your own situation and not telling others what to do (only qualified medical practitioners can prescribe medication).
Encouraged:
- Funny memes.
- Welcoming and accepting attitudes.
- Questions on confusing situations.
- Seeking and sharing support.
- Engagement in our values.
Relevant Lemmy communities:
lemmy.world/c/adhd will happily promote other ND communities as long as said communities demonstrate that they share our values.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
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.