Help! Building and maintaining friendships
I had my first baby 4 months ago and I’m struggling with making and keeping new friendships. I think I probably have pretty bad rejection sensitivity and it’s holding me back in making new mum friends and building up a good community around me.
Before baby was born I attended some classes in the hope of meeting some new mums due around the same time as myself. I became really close to another mum over the last few months because we were both in the newborn trenches together and we messaged daily. She was always really quick to reply and really engaged and I think I got very used to that level of contact.
Over the last few weeks she still messages me, but less. Slower replies, less back and forth etc. And my brain has gone completely insane over it internally. Logically I KNOW people get busy and friendship intensity changes and newborn life is chaotic etc. I should know - I’m in it too! But still my brain instantly goes into overdrive thinking it’s a problem with me or that I’ve done something wrong.
What’s worse is I’ve realised she’s usually the one reaching out first and I think because of ADHD/rejection sensitivity/fear of bothering people and a deep rooted feeling of not being worthy, I kind of freeze and fo other to message first. Then if communication changes even slightly I overanalyse everything and withdraw even more.
So now I’m stuck in this horrible cycle of over thinking and trying to analyse what I’ve done wrong, when really I should just reach out more and accept that life is busier now!
How do you stop constantly analysing whether you’ve done something wrong in friendships? And how do you just messages people normally without feeling weird/frozen/rejected first?
I should mentioned that i have been in therapy for over a decade because a lot of these issues run deep from my childhood. I also haveADHD . And a lot of awareness of my maladaptive patterns. But despite this, I’ve still not managed to shake the feelings or deal with them more healthily.