Friendship Skills for Neurodivergent Adults: A Story of Recognition, Persistence, and Community

The Loneliness Nobody Talks About

Every hand goes up

As ADDA President, it’s my privilege to welcome new ADDA members our community. I love seeing their future unlock when they discover they are not alone. Adult ADHD affects every area of your life. But most of us join ADDA because the people around us have noticed we’re not pulling our weight. We’re not keeping up with expectations.

I ask new members what brings them to ADDA. Was it their struggle with productivity? Procrastination? Disorganization? Hands go up each time. Then I ask if it was loneliness. Every hand goes up.

Being an adult with ADHD is lonely. You don’t know anyone else with this diagnosis. Isn’t it kids who get this!? Your friends, coworkers, even family members, don’t understand your ADHD. You exhaust yourself explaining something they can’t understand. You drain every bit of energy masking your symptoms, so they won’t think you’re weird. ADHD is isolating in ways that go beyond productivity and organization.

But need has never been enough. Not for us.

We Were Never Supposed to Grow Up

Just a kids’ thing, right?

In the 1980s and before, ADHD as a childhood condition affecting boys. Founded in 1989, ADDA was a response to the pervasive view that you “grew out of” ADHD. People living with ADHD into adulthood could not get the support they needed. We were without research, without resources, and without validation.

Today, we describe ADDA as the organization formed by ADHDer for ADHDers. The early ADDA organizers were pioneers. They fought for the recognition of ADHD… in adults, in girls and women, in people of color, and more.

ADDA has always supported adults with ADHD. As part of that effort, we have championed these pioneers for more than three decades. To this day, we continue to fight to have adult ADHD recognized as real, worth treating, and worth studying. And support the champions who keep pushing for recognition. Inclusion.

And if adults don’t grow out of it… what about their social skills?

Adult ADHD gained recognition. New strategies improved performance and productivity. We got accommodations. Corporations recognized adults with ADHD brought unique strengths. They contributed to the bottom line. In a society obsessed, not with who you are, but with what you do, adult ADHD was real. But that meant we sought solutions, rather than acceptance.

More resources become available daily. And that’s wonderful! But they help you “pull your weight”, at work and at home. The friendship dimension is still an afterthought.

Friends accept you, as you are… and as you are not. One ADDA member shared how she had worked hard to get to her gym class on time. She enjoyed the class and liked the people but struggled with punctuality. Then, the first time she arrived in class on time everyone turned and applauded her arrival! Mortified. Instead of feeling accepted, she felt only shame. She felt the spotlight on her for doing what she “should” have been doing all along.

When I joined ADDA, I had no friends. My ADHD made sure I interrupted, missed social cues, or over-reacted. Of course, rather than admit my struggle, I insisted I didn’t need friends. It’s often easier to deny the need when there’s no other option. And when you approach life like that, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. On a visit to Canal Street in New York City, my daughter exclaimed, “Dad! I found the perfect t-shirt for you!” She held up a shirt that read, “Do I LOOK Like a People Person?”

One Person Who Believed It Mattered

She knew this ache

Caroline Maguire is an ADHD coach, an award-winning author, and my friend. She’s also an adult with ADHD, and has served as a volunteer with ADDA, serving on the Board of Directors from 2014 to 2017. She’s a member of our community.

Caroline knows what she’s talking about. As a child, she was left out and bullied. She knows the ache of wanting to fit in. To be accepted as you are. And she knows the lift you feel when someone sees the real you and includes you.

Caroline earned her ADHD coaching certification in 2005. In 2006, she returned to graduate school to study social-emotional learning. Her passion was teaching social-emotional skills to people with ADHD and other neurotypes. She continued to refine her techniques as she worked with ADHD and AUDHD clients of all ages.

ADDA opened the first door

ADDA has always been innovative in meeting the needs of adults with ADHD. In 2014, ADDA invited Caroline to talk about friendship and social skills. We were the first organization to do so. Because we knew our members struggled to build and maintain friendships. We invited Caroline to speak at ADDA Conferences and give webinars. We were eager to work with her to explore our need for a different approach to social skills. At every opportunity, ADDA helped Caroline spread her message; feeling accepted for who you are is as essential for people with ADHD as it is for neurotypicals.

It was thrilling when Caroline received news that a publisher would work with her on her first book. We were attending the International Conference on ADHD in Atlanta when she got the news.

Caroline was speaking at the Conference, teaching social skills for adults with ADHD. ADDA has always focused on mastering practical skills, not theory alone. After the workshop, we invited attendees to practice social skills at the hotel bar. The light bulb came on, adults with ADHD needed safe spaces to practice these skills.

The children’s book that answered an adult question

Caroline turned her lived experience as a left-out, bullied child, into her first book. Why Will No One Play with Me? came out in 2019. It gave families practical steps to help their children develop social skills.

It was thrilling to see Why Will No One Play with Me? I congratulated her (because we must celebrate the progress we make)! Of course, I also suggested she should write a version for adults with ADHD (because we’re always looking at the next thing!) Caroline explained that she’d love to write that book. Then she shared the reality of how the publishing industry works. We needed to prove there was a real demand before any publisher would consider what they saw as a risk.

Building the Case — Year by Year

Proving there was a need

When Caroline explained what we had to do, I promised ADDA would help in any way we could. We’re used to children with ADHD getting the well-deserved help we all wished we had first. But we adults with ADHD struggle with social skills too. We need help learning to build and maintain friendships. Because friendship is critical for our wellbeing.

Caroline set to work adapting and testing her tools for adults. She didn’t assume they’d transfer but did the work to find out. Caroline continued to present each year at the Conference. She spoke about social skills for children and their parents, but also adults. And she continued to deliver webinars at ADDA aimed at adults with ADHD.

Caroline’s work at Conferences gave attendees a chance to practice the skills she taught in a safe space. We wondered if it would be possible to recreate this possibility in a virtual space.

Caroline worked with ADDA to create the “Becoming a People Person” support group. ADDA’s support groups operate over Zoom. They give adults with ADHD worldwide access to a community of other adults with ADHD. Our virtual groups have been life-changing for thousands of adults with ADHD.  The “Becoming a People Person” still operates today. Adults with ADHD continue to struggle to make and keep friends. The need never went away.

And then came the wall

Despite the evidence. Despite years of community support. Despite the documented need. It wasn’t easy to find a publisher to bet on a book about friendship skills for neurodivergent adults.

Like so many who have gone before, publishers doubted adults with ADHD. Is this a big enough audience? Do adults with ADHD struggle with social skills? And if they do, is it important enough for them to work on? Of course, it was disappointing. I was sad. But not surprised. People have always asked adults with ADHD to prove they exist at every turn.

The community kept pushing

The ADHD community, led by ADDA, kept demanding more, building her profile. Caroline delivered a keynote address at the International Conference on ADHD in 2021. She also continued to fill friendship skills workshops for adults with ADDA members. This led to a collaboration with Jessica McCabe of the How to ADHD YouTube channel fame.

At every step, ADDA, and ADDA members were there. Pushing Caroline forward, creating space for the conversation.

A Home, At Last

Someone finally saw it

In 2024, it finally happened. Balance, Hachette Book Group’s inclusive imprint, committed to work with Caroline. They would publish the book we’d all been pushing for.

We must congratulate Caroline Maguire for being our pioneering champion. She kept going when no one was ready to listen.  And all the hard work has paid off. Friendship Skills for Neurodivergent Adults becomes available on April 14, 2026.

It’s a victory… our victory. Because every adult with ADHD benefits. Every one of us who’s felt weird, left out, or picked on wins.

This didn’t happen by accident

But more than that. Let’s all give ourselves a collective pat on the back. Our need became visible because ADDA members who showed up to webinars. Because ADDA members said, ‘Yes, loneliness’ at New Member Meetings.

There’s a book for adults because of the people who bought Why Will No One Play with Me? and wrote in to say, ‘I need this too’.

It was community demand, our community, that made the business case. Community got this book published.

Why This Moment Matters Beyond One Book

Every door we open stays open

Once again, adults with ADHD have proven we’re here. We exist. We’ve been fighting this fight for many years. We know it can be frustrating.

This book is a resource. But it’s more than that. It’s proof of market. It’s evidence. Publishers, clinicians, researchers… pay attention to the social lives of neurodivergent adults. History has taught us every gain we make in adult ADHD recognition builds on the one before it. This is another brick in the wall.

What you can do

The door is open. You can help push it wider:

• Read it. Reading (or listening to) it will do you good. But it also makes a statement that this matters to you.
• Share it. Share it with newly diagnosed adults. Share it with ADDA members who are struggling. Share it with that friend who says, “I think I might have ADHD.”
• Talk about it. Talking sends a louder signal to publishers, researchers, and policymakers. We are here. We have needs worth addressing.