Is it unique to ADHD? The topic of wiping the slate clean with friends and other relationships
This topic comes up every now and then, and I often do it myself.
I rarely have any ill intent; I just want to organize people I no longer have opportunities to interact with.
Well, strictly speaking...
Even after leaving an organization like a group or a company, I don't like continuing to be connected to those involved and seeing unrelated topics, so on platforms like X (formerly Twitter), I regularly do things like 'remove followers'.
Also, if there's someone I've come to dislike due to misunderstandings in daily communication, I don't just unfollow them; I also remove them as a follower as mentioned before, or block them if it's on Facebook. In short, I'm driven by an urge to control my human relationships to a certain extent based on my own standards... but I think to myself, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, right?
I think it's okay to have the desire to distance myself from people whose values I can no longer align with, and to feel aversion toward being followed by people whose values don't match mine or with whom I've had some kind of disconnect, and I think it's fine to just clear those out. (Conversely, when I see non-ADHD people who seem to have loose connections and hundreds of followers, I do get a feeling like, 'Oh, maybe they live by forgiving others without having rigid values like I do—that's amazing!' but that eventually leads to the realization that 'I guess because I have ADHD, I'm just not good at that part... and that's fine.')
I wonder if thoughts differ between generations.
Even for people I associate with in real life, I find I don't feel the need to stay connected on Twitter or Facebook. Well, of course, there are friends I respect or am close enough with that I want to be connected on both, but that's rare 😅 Maybe just a few people.
Is it too decisive...
There are people who fit in groups on Facebook but aren't connected as friends, and there are even people I've cut ties with because I didn't want to be connected as friends, but I still meet some of them only on Zoom triggered by Facebook notifications, and I've encountered people I've cut ties with, but I've stopped worrying about it. (Well, the reason this happened is largely because I got fed up with overly vulgar conversations and posts, and I wanted to connect only with people I can truly respect.) Also, now that I'm in my late 30s, these kinds of things don't lead to trouble anymore. I sometimes think that even vulgar people are adults somewhere 😅
I am me, and I am not you.
It really comes down to that.
The background to why I became this way is partly because I was raised having suffered abuse in childhood, and there is a part of me that can't fully trust people or give myself over to them completely. But I can respect them to the utmost. Human relationships are complicated, aren't they? There are many things that are contradictory and can't be explained neatly... but it's not hostile either.
Maybe I'm already being forgiven (sweat)
My way of building friendships might be a bit unique, but for example, in groups for people with mental illnesses or developmental disabilities, there's an atmosphere where loose connections are accepted, which feels comfortable. I've experienced that there are relationships that don't work that way once you're out in the real world, and there was a time when I used the mute function a lot, but now I live thinking that I don't want to force myself to do that, or that I don't need to. (I feel that even a little bit of forcing oneself is hard on sensitive people, so I feel like I'm being allowed the freedom of not being connected.)
