This is Why You Struggle to Maintain Friendships

As someone who prides myself on great communication skills, I’ve come to the sad realization that I am not the best at maintaining friendships. ‘Taking a break’ from this blog for a couple of months made me realize a startling link between how I treat this blog and how I treat the friends in my life. Let’s just say I NEED to do better.

So, what gives? Recently I was watching a TikTok video where this creator highlighted some ADHD symptoms that I felt linked to why some of us (ahem, me) struggle to maintain relationships especially when we are not in close proximity to them.

Object Permanence

This is about understanding that people exist even when they’re not right in front of you. As children, people grow to understand that objects exist even when they can’t see them. But in some cases, people don’t fully develop this, when it comes to friendships.

Think of it like this: when a friend’s around, it’s easy to feel the bond, rely on them and truly value their presence in your life. But without that constant physical presence, the value they place on the friendship slowly fades or ‘hides’. This might be why you might not miss someone for 5 years, but then see them and it feels like they never left. It’s like your brain forgets they exist until they reappear.

Object Constancy.

This builds on object permanence, adding a layer of emotional stability. Basically, you know your friend cares about you, even when they’re mad, distant, or just not around. This helps friendships weather rough patches and physical separation. However, people that lack a level of object constancy, might not feel the need to reach out because they assume their friends’ feelings haven’t changed, even if they haven’t spoken in ages. With friends, this might make you feel like you don’t need to put in effort because you assume their feelings are unchanged.

Emotional Permanence

This is basically believing your friends’ positive feelings towards you are stable. It is about trusting that others’ feelings towards you are stable and don’t depend on constant contact.  With emotional permanence, you feel secure that loved ones’ affection remains even without their physical presence or daily displays of love. Again, with friendships, this emotional permanence can lead to complacency – feeling like you don’t need to talk to friends regularly because you assume their positive feelings will always be there.

So, what can you do? Well, that’s a topic for another post! But for now, let’s just acknowledge that maintaining friendships takes work and that’s okay.