[likeabbas]

I believe we find it hard to keep relationships because we take criticism/rejection harder than others. My (former) friends would say that I have no trouble burning bridges with anyone. Any time I’ve found myself embarrassed or hurt by someone else, I’ve pushed them out of my life. This definitely comes from how I handled people in my formative years

[UncleOxidant]

Yep, because we have very negative associations with criticism. In addition to being bullied, we tended to move a lot when I was a kid. So it became easy to just leave and start over somewhere else - I think I even started to look forward to being able to start over. I remember as a kid playing with other kids and after a bit just disappearing and hearing them in the distance say "hey, where did he go?" - I'd often do this. Much later I came to realize that this was some kind of avoidance and that it wasn't the norm. I think that I expected even amicable play situations to eventually lead to being bullied and I think that's why I'd just ghost people.

[waboremo]

For me this was Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, linked to ADHD but of course that itself has a lot of overlap with the anxiety/depression realm.

It's a pretty messed up condition to deal with, especially because even the mere perception of potentially being rejected can cause disproportionate reactions.

[msrenee]

I need to do some reading on that, but it seems superficially similar to the behavior of someone with borderline personality disorder. However, I think of borderline including becoming attached or infatuated with a new person abnormally quickly and then rejecting them just as fast. I'd be curious if there's some neurological overlap or if it's a different distortion of "normal" human behavior with a different cause. Or if those are one in the same.

[waboremo]

Late reply but ADHD and Borderline get mixed up a lot, especially in women. For a very long time the only people who would get the ADHD labels were extremely hyperactive boys.

More recently people after seeking specialists (not just general doctors) are getting diagnosed as ADHD (inattentive usually) and these meds are having positive impact whereas their previous diagnosis of borderline or bipolar weren't. Buzzfeed News did an article about it but I can't find the link.

This isn't to say ADHD and BPD can't co-exist! Their co-existence however would probably project itself in more extreme ways due to BPD being more consistent and overt in the display of instabilities and self-harm. BPD would sort of override a lot of ADHD symptoms due to not being extreme enough. Someone with ADHD might feel like their friends don't like them due to not replying to text messages, but will be fine if told otherwise. If the same happened to a BPD they would convince themselves that their friends are lying and deep down want to abandon them, and would likely take action in the form of either self-harm or being mean to those friends.

But you can see how there is a bit of overlap when it comes to self-image and how untreated ADHD that permeates can start looking a lot like BPD.