S1 E34 ADHD Ghosting: When You Meant to Reply but Didn’t

Have you ever opened a text, thought “I’ll reply later,” and then realized days or weeks later that you never actually responded?

In this episode of Angry on the Inside, Jess and Jeannine talk about ADHD ghosting the accidental kind where you never meant to disappear, but somehow the reply never happened.

For many women with ADHD, messages don’t get ignored because we don’t care. They get lost somewhere between time blindness, working memory, hyperfocus, and the pressure to say the “right” thing. What starts as “I’ll respond when I have a minute” can quietly turn into days of thinking about the message without ever actually sending it.

Jess and Jeannine explore why ADHD texting struggles happen, how emotionally charged messages can trigger overthinking, and why delayed replies often create a spiral of guilt, rumination, and shame even when the friendship itself is still completely intact.

They also talk about the difference between how neurotypical friendships interpret silence and how ADHD friendships might be approached differently.

If you’ve ever thought about a message for days, rewritten it in your head a hundred times, and still never hit send.

This episode is for you.

And if this conversation makes you think of someone you’ve been meaning to reply to.

Maybe this is your sign to send the message.

Not the perfect one.

But the real one.

Chapters:

00:00 When You Meant to Reply But Didn’t ADHD Ghosting

00:42 ADHD Time Blindness: Why “Later” Disappears

04:28 ADHD Working Memory & The Post-It Note Problem

06:13 Why ADHD Friends Often Understand Ghosting

09:10 Emotionally Charged Texts & ADHD Overthinking

12:24 The ADHD Texting Spiral

17:07 Hyperfocus, Apps & Why Messages Get Lost

19:26 The Shame Loop Sending the Message Anyway