Victories and challenges: An A[u]DHD community and support fortnightly thread #1
Welcome to the inaugural thread! It is important to me that this is an inclusive space; and it should evolve to serve the needs of the community.
What is this space?
It is intended as a community space, primarily for those of us with ADHD and/or autism; but it should be open to evolution on what is explicitely encouraged (because all are welcome). It intended as a space to vent about your struggles and challenges in a space where there is implicit understanding of the issues we face with these diagnoses. It is intended as a space to celebrate your achievements and victories with those who understand why those are as meaningful as they are, even the little ones. It is intended as a space to seek support with related issues — like requesting accountability partnering, chunking, rubber-ducking, et cetera. It is a place to post news and articles about ADHD and autism that are of interest to the community. A place for discussion. And a place to be serious and silly together with folks who understand.
All are welcome to participate here. While generally on Tildes I would expect most participants to accept that ADHD and autism and the like are real diagnoses, I would expect those participating here to either have those diagnoses, understand those diagnoses, or if someone wants to learn more, to ask questions here with an open mind — i.e. this is a positive and supportive space.
All are welcome to participate here. Not just those with these diagnoses. The self-diagnosed are welcome. Support is welcome to be sought by those with ADHD-adjacent issues: for example, depression can cause executive function issues such that accountability partnering could be helpful. Feel free to seek such help here.
Your feedback is requested and valued. This community will evolve to fit the needs of those who participate here. What works will be retained; what doesn't work will be dropped. I am your facilitator, not dictator; and while for this first thread I am speaking with my voice, as we evolve things and figure out what works, I will rephrase whatever text that gets posted each time into a passive voice. I just want to reassure you that while I'm taking a leadship position to get the ball rolling here, I will be removing myself from this so it truly is a community space for us all. But to start, you gotta have someone doing the thing. :)
For now, I'll create one top-level reply that requests for support should be posted under. The idea is that it makes it easier for those wishing to volunteer to help can find the requests more easily. We'll see if that works or not.
It is my humble opinion that one should be encourged to post as you wish. If you want to post multiple things in a top level reply that are going on, great. If you want to make two little top level replies about different topics, even on the same day? I think that's also fine. Don't be shy about posting.
I think a fortnightly thread feels about right to start. Too frequent and things can get lost. Too infrequent and the thread might die out before we get a new one. But as with everything else, feedback is desired. By coincidence of when the idea was had, I'm posting this one on a Friday. If you'd prefer a different day, that's feedback that is welcome.
Welcome to your space! Help make this space be what you want it to be. <3
edit: Forgot to post where this came from:
Most recently: https://tildes.net/~health.mental/1oac/proposal_adhd_support_thread_reoccurring
Less recently: https://tildes.net/~life/1o92/how_my_life_changed_with_adhd_medication#comments
That first thread had such a sense of community that I want that to keep going, basically. :)
There may not be much response to this specific first post because the prior thread that brought this about was so recent, and many people (the ones who have reason to engage with this topic) already posted / discussed what was going on recently there.
That is to say, if there isn't much engagement with this first post I wouldn't be concerned.
Edit: my musings are becoming increasingly incorrect as the comment count rises. I am happy to be wrong in this instance.
See, that's where you're wrong: my ADHD ass didn't get around to the previous thread and I can guarantee you I'll forget to interact with this thread meaningfully.
TOO LATE THAT COUNTS AS MEANINGFUL
So now you can relax and either come back and post more… or not… as you please :)
Fun fact: I was a teacher & got asked every year to write something in students' yearbooks, sure, brought my sharpie—and more than once the same kid, who prob also had crippling ADHD looking back lol, would ask me to sign their yearbook a second time, and while I did it again every time, I am proud to say that it was always consistent.
Fun fact #2: I also did this to a friend in high school, who thought it was hilarious that I wrote the same thing twice & then did it again until we graduated. So @daychilde basically don't be surprised if you get reruns lol
/laugh-cries in also prosopagnosia
I'm probably gonna be guilty of some of those reruns myself… :)
I agree, and thank you for articulating that, as I'd meant to mention something along those lines. :)
And this is also one day after the discussion on the possibility of this thread, so probably not much additional feedback even :)
Hello :)
Happy to see this. I just got diagnosed almost exactly three months ago at 27, in no small part due to the advice from Tildesians. It's been a huge awakening and a lot to process! But I'm very thankful for the chance to get that diagnosis and finally uncover a bit of why I've always felt different from others. I've been looking at finding a local ADHD support group but am WAYYYY too scared to actually go atm. I think this will fill the gap until I build some more confidence!
I don't post or comment much because I have a lot of social anxiety and fear of rejection (gasp)! As such, I'll probably lurk through most of these threads and just get support and encouragement vicariously through all of you confident people 😅
Thanks again for setting this up, @daychilde !!!
I was diagnosed at the same age as you a handful of years ago. If you dive in as deep as I did, you're in for a hell of a ride. I'm happy for you.
We'll all be here if you ever need help or want to share any updates. Don't let the Social Acceptance Mammoth keep you at bay.
Congrats on a big milestone far too few ever reach.
Welcome to the club! Also, sorry to see you in the club. But congratulations on hopefully gaining some tools for self discovery, finding comradery, and perhaps learning some skills that make life less hard going forward.
And hey good job getting diagnosed! Not to put you on the spot but do you want to give a rating 1-10 on how hard it was to get the diagnosis?
not @arctanh but I would say to anyone who is having trouble getting a dx: find a new doc, if possible. It makes such a difference when you're not fighting against someone for better care. I know that's not always something one can do, & if need be I'm sure there are other approaches to the problem, but if at all possible yeah just jump ship—I asked multiple docs about it when I was in HS/college & got brushed off since I was "doing fine," then fortunately hit a homer 15 years later, just would have been nice to not spin the ol' wheels for that long.
Thanks for the warm welcome :)
I had a blessedly easy time getting my diagnosis. My therapist happened to recommend a psychologist that accepted my insurance and was in my same part of town (completely by accident!). Once I got brave enough to email her, she basically confirmed it outright, though I still had to go through the process.
Seems like it's different for everyone, but for me I had three appointments: an intake, the diagnostic, and the results, each about an hour.
All that to say maybe 3/10 on difficulty, with most of that on me for being nervous. Sadly, I know I'm likely in the minority on that. But if there are any other Central Ohians that want to get tested, I can send a good rec your way!
My wife also had a pretty easy time getting her diagnosis (as an adult) in central Ohio.
The process was a couple of months, but that’s mainly because they wanted to treat her anxiety first and see how that affected the ADHD symptoms (spoiler alert: she still had them). But at that point she’d been seeing the same therapist and psychiatrist for the anxiety so it was simple enough to get the ADHD diagnosis and testing done.
She had me fill out a questionnaire and for about half the questions I had to answer them like, “Do they want the actual answer, or the answer where you don’t experience that anymore because you have 4 different systems in place to avoid it”. Like no, you aren’t chronically late to things…because you get anxious about it and set 3 different reminders in different ways and places.
Reminds me of:
5 points to the house of anyone who gets that reference !
Anyway, thanks for taking lead on this ! I think it will be very valuable. I’ll just drop one bit of wisdom for those newly diagnosed ADHDers here. When you get advice, it will very often not work for your particular flavor of neurodivergence. If it doesn’t work, don’t sweat it, and forget it. Seriously. It isn’t worth losing sleep over the fact that someone else’s methods don’t work for you. Take what works, adapt what almost works, and excise the rest from your memory.
I’m almost certain that’s Delores Umbridge!
@daychilde: I suggest an edit to your top level recognizing that self-diagnosed individuals are welcome.
However, I consider this distinct from anyone who assets that "everyone is a little ADHD/autistic" because that is invalidating to all of us who are disabled.
Added :)
I won't say anything about the latter, but I would react strongly to anyone saying the latter because it is just a form of ADHD/autism denial. I don't worry too strongly that anyone would try that here. Many would come down like a ton of bricks if they did, I'm sure. Because I would be one. lol
There's a surprising number of people who don't seem to understand how harmful that expression is to those of us who actually have one or both conditions.
Let them make the mistake of saying so and they'll find out. Hopefully politely, but certainly forcefully. hehe
I've known about my ADHD since the 90s, but as of Wednesday, at 38 years old, I'm also diagnosed with autism.
How about that. What a trip.🤙
Congrats? Is that the right thing to say lol
How was that process for you like to be diagnosed for autism later as an adult?
Congrats is definitely the right response. :)
I started noticing that almost everyone in my hobby group has Autism, and they talked about things like "stimming" that I had never heard of before. After some light research I learned that before the dsm V was released in 2013 therapists were encouraged to only pick ONE between ADHD and Autism. After 2013, the spectrum model was popularized and both can be diagnosed simultaneously.
The final push was when I found a link to www.ndtherapists.com on reddit. From that site I went to my state and searched the page for "audhd" because I figured if they use that term they would be up-to-date. One of the results was a PsyD that was covered by my insurance. She had me do a whole bunch of tests on my own and a 3 hour video call, and a couple weeks later I got a lovely 18 page psychological analysis.
Only problem now is it seems like the best therapists are pay out-of-pocket.
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Alright, I have a question that I've been pondering for a while and I wonder if someone reading here might have some advice.
I know I'm neuro divergent somehow, but I don't have many of the symptoms of any one thing.
Nothing really bothers me in the grand scheme of things except one problem of struggling to maintain focus on a task/project for a long time. And I'll be real with you, I don't know if it's a symptom of anything or I just have a shit attention span.
If I went to my doctor tomorrow and I said "hey doctor, I've always had trouble with completing tasks because of lack of focus" what would happen next?
When someone (I assume many people reading have) gets a diagnosis, do they go in with a problem or do they go in and ask "can I get an ADHD test?".
It's bothering me because if I have that conversation, I don't want to get dismissed. And yes maybe that's a different problem but if be keen to know what the process is normally like.
This is a US perspective, and of course, just my experience: Most medical doctors in my experience don't want to touch ADHD. They'll send you off to a psychologits or psychiatrist for that. Alas, that can mean insurance coverage is a maybe.
I know the diagnosis process continues to change, and I think it depends on the medical professional. I've been though the process twice, so a brief discussion about both:
For my first, I'd been asked to bring in anything I had from school years - like report cards, notes from teachers about my work. There were a lot of comments from teachers like "Isaac is brilliant, and if he could just get himself in gear, he would excel". heh.
So I arrive at the appointment, go in with the psychologist, sit down, and he asks me to talk about some things from my childhood. Like how school went. I don't remember what all he asked.
Something like 15-20 minutes of answering his questions, I said something like "Hey, not trying to be pushy or anything, but I am wondering: Do you have any initial thoughts already by chance?" and he replied that he had had me diagnosed within two minutes. lol. One major contributor to that? I never stopped moving and fidgeting. Legs going, scratch my face, move my arms around, shift in my seat - constant motion. And I'd imagine my patterns of speech as well. heh. Although bear in mind that he did say I was the most severe instance of ADHD he'd ever seen.
The second diagnosis was similarly quick, although his pattern was to schedule an initial consultation, a followup with testing - IQ and related tests; then a third consulation where we were over the test results.
Annoyingly memorable in the testing was one where he told me he would write down everything I said, and asked me to tell a "story" about some drawings he showed me. Refused to explain what "story" meant, just told me to do what I thought best. I had so much trouble with that. And also, I didn't want him to have to write everything I was saying, so I tried to keep on topic, but at one point in particular, I remember he mentioned after how I said to him something like "I know you're writing everything down, but I still have to say…" lol. Bastard.
Some testing included things like number work with memory - e.g. he'd say a number of digits and I had to repeat them back. Longer and longer each time. Then tasks like reverse the digits - so he's said 1 2 3 4 and I had to give him 4 3 2 1. Then things like put them in order from largest to smallest. Various other things. It was so stressful!
Amusingly, though, he said that most of the areas he tested I did so well that it masked the ADHD, although he also had me re-diagnosed within a couple of minutes and said I was the most severe instance of ADHD he had seen… lol.
There are some tests they can do, that are more or less directly or indirectly related to ADHD. I believe it's still largely subjective rather than objective, though.
If your doctor is dismissive or unwilling to diagnose, though, as long a you can get a referral or otherwise set up with a therapist who can diagnose, that's probably perfectly fine if you can prepare yourself for that liklihood.
Same here, except it was "When you walked in I noticed you have a fairly heavy gait, and then the way you held your pencil.... Well, seemed like a safe bet." Lol
Edit: also the number repeating test- after she'd gotten enough data from that one but I hadn't made a mistake yet she got this gleam in her eye and asked if I wanted to keep going. Sure, let's go! At the end she was thrilled to tell me she'd never had anyone ace that portion before..... My pride from which faded somewhat after the next test, which was dot-to-dot stuff, and I apparently scored in the bottom 5%. And that's the story of how my autism assessment also became an ADHD dx!
I actually got diagnosed at all because of a similar experience! My regular therapist, who had dismissed ADHD as a possibility in the past (because I was capable of writing an essay and apparently no one with ADHD can do that), went on maternity leave and sent me to the new therapist who would be taking her place while she was out (maternity leave is long here). The new therapist brought up the possibility of ADHD herself, without any prompting from me, in our first session. Apparently it was just that obvious!
We didn't do the more structured exercises like telling a story or repeating numbers as part of my diagnosis. We did look at my elementary school report cards, but the rest of the diagnosis was composed pretty much entirely of a more interview-style discussion of my life.
My best friend had the same experience with the spatial organization / awareness (??) part of the test, where they completely maxed it out to the end. But I also think they scored poorly on number repetition. Them skill points allocation, man.
It is a neurotype of extremes, to be sure!
Thanks for your reply, it was something I was waery of and it seems like I was right to be.
I dunno what to think because I have no firm self diagnosis, I have no firm set of symptoms for anything. I wouldn't know if I was misdiagnosed or not.
Thanks for your reply, I appreciate the walk through. That sounds a lot like what I would expect a positive diagnosis to look like. A little confusing for the patient but at the end you get the diagnosis!
The answer is unfortunately highly dependent on your specific doctor's personality and how much they know about modern ADHD diagnosis. I do think bringing it up to your GP is a wise first move to make, but I can't guarantee you won't get dismissed -- it's unfortunately a common part of this process. I was dismissed more than once before I switched to the therapist who identified my ADHD by pure happenstance.
Another option would be to do a little research into doctors in your area that specialize in ADHD. They might serve as better options if your GP ends up being dismissive (or if you don't want to risk it).
Beware of misdiagnosis. It's common for autism to be diagnosed as something else.
Thank you! Seems like the theme here.
US story here. My primary care physician is very old, nearing retirement. I asked about ADHD, and said I wanted a referral to a psychiatrist. He was very open and honest, and basically said he had very little experience with ADHD and could t help me directly, but was happy to get a referral for me. I had to deal with the hellhole of insurance, but the medical part of the diagnosis was quite straightforward. Once I found a psychiatrist, I had to fill out two questionnaires, and have someone close to me fill out one (my mother). Then I did a computer game test which was purposefully quite boring, and tracks your eye movement and accuracy. Everything (except one of the questionnaires) diagnosed me with combined type ADHD.
So I have this thing that happens to me that I've never really told anyone about, and I'm curious if anyone can relate. This doesn't really happen anymore now that I'm regularly medicated, but it will come back if I go awhile without refilling my meds.
Basically, when I'm laying in bed, I'll have the typical racing thoughts that you would expect with ADHD, but when it's really bad, something weird happens. My "thoughts" extend beyond my normal internal monologue, and I'll "hear" all kinds of weird shit, all in my head.
It's a healthy mix of both those things, rapid fire and constant. They come and go so fast that I can't even really acknowledge what they are unless I really concentrate. If I just "let it go" it becomes this loud noisy mess.
It only ever happens at night when I'm in bed. During the day, and off medication, my mind races and wanders exactly like you'd expect, but it's only things that I would consider to be my internal monologue, even when my thoughts go by so fast I can't even remember what they were.
My theory is that during the day, there's enough external stimulation around me that my brain doesn't need to do all that bullshit to entertain itself. And that's why it manifests at night, because I'm just laying there with my eyes closed.
Has anyone ever experienced anything like that? I tried explaining it to my wife and she looked at me like a crazy person.
I've never experienced this myself, but hallucinations while falling asleep, called hypnagogic hallucinations, are relatively common and considered harmless. Doctors apparently aren't sure why they happen. I'm not sure whether these would constitute hallucinations exactly, but the underlying principle seems the same.
You've given me a term to research further, thank you!
I think it's definitely something related to the almost-falling asleep period of time/brain activity, like when you're dozing off & then jump because something startled you, but it didn't really happen, but you weren't quite dreaming yet... that "voices but not like you'd expect part" could, I imagine, potentially be what neurotypical people hear all the time as an "internal monologue," but like you said you've got so much racket & noise in there all day that there's no room until the brain slips into neutral for a second. At least that's what it felt like to me : )
Yeah, I get similar sometimes, usually when going through a stressful time of life or late summer when sensory overload is my default state. Part of it might be your brain trying to entertain itself/sort things out, but for me it's mostly the ambient sounds of my room (and/or meat suit) that my brain is finding patterns in and trying to make sense of. Since you don't consciously hear those little noises during the day, they can get blown out of proportion when you do notice them, and brains (especially ND brains) looooove pattern recognition.
So yeah, strictly speaking these are hallucinations, but hallucinations are just pattern recognition run riot. Nothing to worry about, and you're by no means the only one it happens to. :)
I will get the distinct feeling that a bright light is pointed directly in my face, even though my eyes are closed in a dark room. It can be extremely annoying.
Wait, that's a thing? I get that and it is annoying as heck!
I never considered it was linked to ADHD until this thread. But who knows.
I've done a bit of googling and AI chatting and it looks like:
Still wild that there's at least two of us :)
I sometimes get that too, but not very often. Interestingly, it seems like it is less frequent now that I use a sleep mask.
I've not heard of anything like, personally, but that doesn't mean it's not a legit thing. Neverminding that "crazy" is a very loaded word, from how you've described it, I wouldn't apply that word or any other like it to this.
I admire everyone posting in this thread. Big kudos.
FYI for the ADHD folks: about 45% probability that you are also autistic. That's what the science seemed to indicate as of last year (and I skimmed several studies though this number continues to be calibrated).
Written as someone diagnosed ADHD 5 years ago and also autistic 3 months ago.
AuDHD. Not a formal term. The ND community coined it.
Looks like my wife and I can attest anecdotally to this statistic, as she appears to be AuDHD to my ADHD. :)
Only 45%? I have no way to prove this, but I'm 100% sure they're the same thing, it's just that ADHD is the one they can medicate. I've never met anyone who had one and not the other, it's usually just that one set of symptoms overshadows or compensates for the other.
I understand the sentiment. I had briefly shared it for a time. However, they are not the same. Various studies demonstrate this.
Neurologists are quite convinced they are separate. ADHD seems to be a phenomena of an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex. Autism is at least in part significantly different patterns of and inconsistent pruning of synapse or neurons (I forget which) resulting in parts of the brain that are far more connected than found in neurotypicals.
Comparing the symptoms at a superficial level, and the unfortunate nomenclature for some, can contribute to the conflation of the two. "Hyperfocus" is a term used for both but very different in each. In ADHD, it's short term. In autism, these are long-lived interests with deep personal significance and investment. For instance, the psychology and neurology of autism has become one of my autistic interests: I'm invested to a point of near-fixation. It's also how I know these things. It's also because I'm still learning about them to that I can navigate them better.
UPDATE: there is an enormous variance in the prevalence of co-occurrence of the two conditions. I literally just read that it is somewhere between 18-80%. That... is statistically batshit. It's almost the same as saying "we just don't have a clue". There's more nuance, sure, but from method to method of investigation, each turns up a wildly different percentage.
Yeah, abnormal psych is a special interest of mine, and the overwhelming impression I get from everything I've read is that they genuinely have no idea. That's why I'm sticking with "they're the same thing" until the neurologists can prove me wrong lol. (I know very little about neurology, but if you wanna infodump, feel free! It's interesting, just not like the psychology angle is to me.)
Another reason, while anecdotal, is that no one would have pegged me as ADHD, now or as a child, because I'm deep on the inattentive end and found a lot of trauma-based coping mechanisms very early on. Now that I know (and have done a lot of research) it's pretty obvious, but it absolutely was not without that context. So I'm inclined to believe that all "only autistic" folks are the same way (even though I do acknowledge the black and white, overgeneralization of that belief, and I'm willing to be proven wrong).
Short short short version: near real time precision MRIs (functional MRI/fMRI) of the brain shows regions sometimes overlap in activation of people diagnosed with ADHD versus AuDHD but that also there are distinctly different regions activated between the two. Different regions activating lends itself to the theory of them as separate conditions.
Disclaimer: this is all a bit fuzzy so there are likely gaps/inaccuracies. There was a lot of unrelated trauma around this time mucking things up.
Back in like, '97, '98 maybe? my parents took me to a study that was looking to image and map various brain patterns of ADD/ADHD kids (back when those were considered two separate things). Growing up poor in America, this was also the only way we could afford to get a diagnosis/medication as it was quite expensive for my older sister to get diagnosed and medicated.
Anyway the short of it is I had to do a full ADHD assessment that basically said "yes, Sparkle has ADHD" but then the study said my brainwave patterns (I was only ever hooked up to an EEG, never an MRI and I never saw the results so I couldn't provide any insight there) didn't match others in the study so I must not have ADHD or at the least I might just have ADD (my sister was diagnosed ADHD a year or two before this, if I recall. and again, back then they were thought of as two different things). So I went through all of my childhood misdiagnosed and untreated. It's not really clear to me why we stopped seeking treatment, even with a potentially ADD diagnosis, but I would guess it was just money and a "well it's not hyperactivity so we can manage it with love" mindset maybe. It was all really weird to me and I didn't quite understand, but eh, it was the 90s.
Ten or so years later, I was formally assessed and diagnosed ADHD by my also ADHD doctor, but even then it just didn't quite match still. Some behaviours just didn't quite line up and the medication (Adderall for me) helped immensely with focus and executive function, but it left me in a constant state of being overwhelmed which usually resulted in lots of meltdowns. Eventually I got off medication and learned a lot of coping and masking skills.
15 years later and I'm waiting on a formal autism assessment (my province has TWO psychiatrists able to provide a proper assessment and the waiting list is looooong). I'm fairly certain I do have autism based on everything I've been reading (and it runs deeply on both sides of my family, genetics being a large factor), so I think that my slightly anecdotal and somewhat empirical childhood experience lends some credence to them being two separate things.
I haven't read them yet but I came upon studies using EEG based testing. I believe those predate the fMRI studies.
You probably know this but others may not: a key difference between meltdowns and normal fight/flight/freeze/fawn is that removing the trigger does not end the meltdown. So if someone says something that pushes you into meltdown, a sincere apology and what would ordinarily be effective repairing behavior will not cease the meltdown.
Interesting. Did the study mention anything about the brain regions activated in NTs or those only diagnosed with autism? Was there any distinction made between genders (assigned at birth or otherwise)? And do you think those things would have any impact on the way the findings were interpreted?
(Just to be clear, I'm genuinely asking, not trying to pick a fight. I'm having a bad brain day and struggling with my tone more than usual.)
Recollection is poor as this was late last night. I recall the distinction was specifically cited between ADHDers and AuDHDers. However, the language used was confusing. It read as oddly imprecise to me. Sorry, I didn't keep a link to it. Wish I had now.
Just to be clear...
Did you mean to write (emphasise mine):
I understand AuDHD as Autism+ADHD, while the discussion previously seemed to me to be about ADHD and autism as being relevantly and bioligically distinct, so I would have expected you to write:
That's what the study I saw last night seemed to indicate. Yes.
While there are plenty of theories that they're connected, as the co-occurrence is definitely higher than you'd expect if they were completely separate things, I've met plenty of autistic people who very demonstrably do not have ADHD. No matter how big the overlap is, there is some distinction involved and there are absolutely people who clearly exhibit the symptoms of one without those of the other. The fact that both involve issues with executive function means there's a lot of overlap in symptoms regardless, but there's also a ton of variation within each of these categories in how ADHD and autism present themselves in a given individual.
But like, according to your other response, at least one professional would've said the same about you, no? And family, teachers, and various mental health professionals would've said the same about me, until I found one who knew what she was looking for.
I'm not saying I'm definitely correct in my theory, but everyone's been kinda winging it on autism/ADHD diagnoses for decades.... And there is a theory that ADHD is "autism lite," which sounds to me like ableism.
(Sorry if this comes off as argumentative or aggressive. I'm having a bit of a day and struggling to gauge my tone more than usual. The intent was conversation, I'm really not trying to pick a fight.)
No, professionals who failed to diagnose me with ADHD in the past have never indicated they believe an autism diagnosis, which I still do not have, is appropriate. An autism diagnosis has never come up between me and my various therapists, as neither I nor my therapists have ever considered it a particularly likely explanation for my various symptoms. I'm not particularly sure that an autism diagnosis is appropriate even from a self-diagnosis perspective, as many of the experiences AuDHDers describe don't really jive with my experiences as well as those of other people with an ADHD diagnosis and comorbid anxiety. I won't rule out autism as a possibility -- my brother is definitely on the autism spectrum, and I know there's a lot of heritability with both disorders -- but it's far from a known quantity. If I do ever get an autism diagnosis in the future, it'll come with a trophy for best masker in the world, because I don't think even the autistic people I'm very close to have generally believed me likely to be autistic.
I definitely think there's some sort of relationship between autism and ADHD. I know there's not a lot that's clear about how they're connected, but I'd be surprised if they didn't share at least some things in common underlyingly. But I don't think there's good evidence that they're the same, either from a treatment or symptoms perspective, and I'm downright offended when people try to argue ADHD is just "autism lite." I don't think it's really true that "everyone's just winging it" when it comes to ADHD diagnoses, and the books I read in the wake of being diagnosed do not indicate that this is the case for those who specialize in ADHD.
ADHD has also been linked to sleep disorders, and even though I don't think it's narcolepsy lite either, I think that's something that jives with my symptoms better than an autism diagnosis does -- some of the first suggestions of looking into an ADHD diagnosis I got were because of specific sleep issues I described, and I still struggle with hypersomnia even while taking stimulants! If I were to seek out another diagnosis, I would look into narcolepsy or a related sleep disorder well before pursuing autism.
(I am similarly not trying to pick a fight, fwiw. I getcha -- it can be hard to distinguish between arguing and conversation on forums like this. Especially in a thread full of neurodivergent folks lol!)
(Ok cool, I'm glad we're not fighting! Haha)
Gonna have to disagree about the ADHD winging it thing- maybe you have a point for AMAB folks, but AFAB? Nah. Most professionals have no idea what they're looking for in AFAB people re: autism or ADHD, because most of us would give you a run for your money in the masking division! But then, I guess I'm just assuming you're AMAB, which I could also be mistaken about. What I do know is that an overhaul on the understanding and diagnostic process is desperately needed, and until that happens we're not going to get a satisfying answer one way or another.
I am myself AFAB (trans masc nonbinary fwiw, but I was diagnosed with ADHD before my egg cracked). There's a lot of variability between medical professionals for sure -- I'm one of the people who basically warned other people here about getting dismissive responses from doctors, and I've gotten those dismissive results myself from mental health professionals in the past. But this varies based on how familiar they actually are with ADHD and whether they've ever updated their knowledge on it. I deliberately referred to those with higher levels of experience and expertise with ADHD in my previous comment because I don't believe that mental health professionals with that background are "winging it" when it comes to ADHD diagnosis, and I think the books they've written indicate a strong understanding of the symptoms of ADHD and how to identify them. The existence of doctors and mental health professionals who suck is undeniable, but if ADHD were the same disorder autism I would expect the diagnostic requirements to be vaguer and more poorly defined even among those with a high level of expertise. The issues with ADHD diagnosis are principally with medical and mental health professionals being un- or undereducated about how to actually diagnose it and modern findings regarding it, rather than because of a definitional issue with the disorder.
Would you mind recommending authors, specific books (pop or edu) or even scientific articles?
I have not dived in that much, but it is clear that there are not only charlatans in this space but also conflicting somewhat science-based views and conclusions.
I'm just reading through the titles and authors on my bookshelf, which I mostly bought based on recommendations from my therapist after I got diagnosed. They're not all identical in content or tone, but they agree on the important stuff and definitely give a good picture of ADHD in adults. I've omitted the various letters after the names, but suffice it to say all these authors have credentials. That said, these books are all written for general audiences iirc:
I'm leaving off the book I bought from my own psychiatrist bc I don't think it's readily acquirable outside Germany (even though there is an English edition) and bc I don't want to dox myself by sharing who my Vyvanse dealer is on Tildes lmao (though, at risk of doxxing myself anyway, his practice is also specialized in dealing with autism as well as ADHD; it hasn't come up between us in our appointments).
I also bought Mastering Your Adult ADHD (by Steven A. Safren, Susan E. Sprich, Carol A. Perlman, and Michael W. Otto) on the recommendation of someone on Tildes iirc, but I haven't read it yet. I also have a few books that are intended more as self-help for people with ADHD, like Jessica McCabe's How to ADHD.
Thank you <3
This will be helpful!
I'm diagnosed ADHD, but I suspect I might be autistic too. I had some of the early markers like delayed speech - my mom's exact words were "You didn't make noise except for crying, but when you finally did it was full words. Then you stopped saying words for a while and then you were speaking sentences."
I've had a lot of social difficulties and I know i see the world a bit differently. I've befriended what always seemed like an odd amount of autistic people throughout my life. I have one friend right now and he's autistic. We've had conversations and he's suggested I might be on the spectrum.
I guess all i want to ask is - I'm 40 years old, does it matter to get tested? Is it going to do anything for me? I went to therapy for a few years for the ADHD and i feel like the things I learned there are just as applicable for autism (These were basically things like accepting who I am and not fighting the adhd).
Diagnosed ADHD at 46 and autistic at 51.
Whether it's useful or not depends on how much maladaptation (a.k.a. Trauma) you have accumulated as a result of being so while undiagnosed. I went through a grieving process with ADHD. Discovering I'm autistic has been far far more difficult.
That is to say, the trauma hides how much better life can be if you realize it's there and can then treat it.
I'm not sure i have any maladaption. I'm mostly solitary. I spent a long time trying to force myself to socialize and in some cases had nervous breakdowns because of it.
I definitely do a lot of masking and i know there are different opinions about that. For me it's more like a tool. It's like code switching. It's not who i am at home, but if acting a certain way around other people makes them more comfortable than my actual way of behaving, I'm fine doing that for a limited time during the day.
Then maybe you wouldn't benefit. Also, it sounds like you may consider yourself self-diagnosed? If so, that's totally valid.
Maybe a better litmus test is whether you have felt the need for therapy or not and, if so, whether you feel resolved from the experience. For me, there have consistently been some wounds that would not heal. The diagnosis helped me understand why.
I was professionally diagnosed with ADHD in my 30's, I'm not diagnosed with autism though. That's what I was wondering if I should seek - if it would be beneficial.
For me, attending therapy helped with the secondary effects of ADHD - like feeling like shit when not being able to attain some level of self-proficiency that I feel I need or should have. I still struggle with maintaining consistency in tasks, but where I used to get very depressed that I wasn't living up to my potential, now I am more apt to let it roll off my shoulders.
If i do also have autism and the lessons i learned from therapy can apply to the secondary effects of having it, then perhaps a professional diagnosis isn't necessary, because I already have some of the tools i need to deal with it. Maybe that therapy helped me with two things at once.
The therapy I received before and after my ADHD diagnosis helped enormously. There was still suffering and trauma left, rather a lot really, due to being autistic.
I was either terribly poor at masking or too frustrated with NT behaviors and rituals to become proficient at masking or both. So, for me, that created it's on trauma due to my sense of alienation from most people.
I feel a little like this is shouting into the void but perhaps it will make me feel better. I have diagnosed ADHD and have always been a night owl. I can't turn my brain off at night and it's so...so draining. I take Vyvanse to get my work done during the day but after it wears off? It feels like my brain wants revenge for not being distracted enough during the day and it's off to climb mountains.
I've always had a natural sleep schedule that leaned towards 2-10 even prior to medication. This used to work with my job schedule and doesn't now; so I'm up at 8:30 Monday to Friday. If I'm lucky, my brain will slow down enough for me to fall asleep by 1. Unlucky? 2 or 3am rolls around really quickly...I physically feel tired and yet my brain is zooming and anxious because I can't sleep but then I can't sleep because I'm anxious and I just...I just want to sleep normally. I want 8 hours of real sleep every single night. I don't know how to ask my psychiatrist about this. I'm so tired. Fuck.
As an aside, Vyvnse is literally lifesaving. Straterra and Adderall did not work for me but Vyvanse? The emotional stability it brings to my days is unbeatable. It's like a radio tuner fading out all the noise.
That sounds like standard « delayed sleep phase disorder ». It’s a very common comorbidity with ADHD. Basically your body has a normal circadian rhythm (the hormonal fluctuations that govern arousal (being awake, not sexual arousal)), but it doesn’t line up with the actual day cycle. Might be worth asking your doctor about that. I think there is a sleeping medication that has off label use for ADHD. Also, a small dose of melatonin in the evening (a few hours before your target bedtime) can help.
Hank Green (YouTuber) just shared that he has this disorder.
I hope we will eventually get to a point where people with this disorder won't have it be a disorder anymore because it just doesn't disrupt their lives: if they can live the hours that work best for them.
When I was first diagnosed I spent a few months going to regular therapy focused specifically on understanding my new diagnosis. One of the things I was told during this process is that some people exhibit a sort of "symptom buildup", where if they're treated during the day, sometimes, it seems like all the symptoms they've been keeping at bay during treatment come out all at once once the medication wears off.
I had no idea that was a thing, and it really stuck with me.
Hi. Void here, talking back :)
That sucks. :(
I've had lots of sleep issues over the years. It's extremely easy for me to get into an "inverted" schedule where I sleep during the morning-afternoon and am awake all night. I don't know how I solve it when I do. It's mostly exhaustion when I'm forced to be awake. I've often been up >24h at a time, which really sucks badly.
I know that allergy medications are also sometimes sold as sleep aids. I wonder if it might be worth trying one although I am NOT any sort of medical person. If they make you drowsy, though, it might be worth trying for no more than a handful of days (because I have read that they can become addictive).
I'm sure you've tried a lot, but it might be worth the old warm milk trick - if you're not aware of it, think a mug of hot chocolate, only not chocolate. Sweeten with a little sugar and maybe a little vanilla, and you want it warm not hot. Supposedly - and this is like 70's science - it mimics breastfeeding and helps relax you for sleep. I've had mixed results with it, but it did seem to make a small difference sometimes.
More recently, I've been only able to go to sleep around 2am, which was not optimal but alright when I needed to get up at 7am or 8am depending on the day, but now my dialysis time changed to 6am, meaning I have to get up at 4:45am (like now) and that has been a disruption, made much worse by my recent problem with restless legs. Last night, for example, I finally drifted off somewhere around 2:15a only to be woken up by my wife coming to bed around 2:30. After that I slept no more than15 minutes at a time and gave up at 4:00, so I'm up now. I feel fine right now, but if I'm not able to nap at dialysis (which thanks to restless legs there being a huge problem, I haven't been able to recently), it will absolutely suck for the rest of the day.
I know that sleep issues are one of the hardest things to fix, and it sounds like your body has a VERY damn strong cycle in place. Hopefully some others have some better advice on things to try than I do. :(
I recall seeing the post that Randomise referenced in their post back in January. It inspired me to talk to my GP about getting a diagnosis at my next appointment in February. Sadly the soonest appointment available to get tested was/is in July but at least the wheels are slowly getting into motion.
I hate that the machinery of medicine is so slow, but I'm so glad you have the possibility of progress eventually!
I've been exploring the idea that autism seems to explain a lot of how I've experienced life for a while now. It's not something I'm really sharing with anyone except my husband and friends who also fall along that spectrum. (Which is ... all of them. I don't have any real life close friends, but my husbands friend group, and my online group of friends, all absolutely contain neurospicies.)
Part of this has been finding out all the things I never realized I was missing out on, so I'm really curious for a broader perspective on this particular thing:
I feel like I can read a ton of body language in dogs. I've had a few dogs in my life! I've got two right now. But I can read pretty darn well if they're anxious or happy, or reserved, or being polite but are actually kind of over whatever interaction they're currently in. All sorts of things! Most people seem pretty bad at reading dogs, which I guess isn't surprising.
I cannot read these things in people at all. Do people emote like this?? I never thought there was much to read in human body language. But when I realized how much I can read in dogs, I wondered if actually I was missing a huge piece of the human puzzle. 😂
I'm not good at reading human body language or emotions. I don't think I'm particularly great at dogs either. But now that I think about it, they are easier to read than humans, at least for me. They seem simpler?
I feel more confident about my dog mood assessments than my human ones for sure.
I wonder if it's because you can see their whole body most of the time. Because it's really about their whole body language, muscle tension, etc. imagine if you were interacting with naked humans, it might be easier to read them!
I've always felt way more comfortable with animals than people. (Or mammals, at least... I get out of my depth real quick once we start looking at reptiles) There's a simplicity to them. Animals don't lie to you. Or if they do, it's really easy to understand why. (Fear, pain, or performing for a reward, etc.)
Temple Grandin, is that you?
reporting optimism and small achievement: I have an upcoming appointment with my family doctor, I'm going to ask to try ADHD meds again, and the possibility of being evaluated for adult autism. Someone posted a link to a resource specifically for adults looking for super late diagnosis and I can't now find it but I'll keep looking.
I'll also be asking for prescriptions to several assistive devices, such as timer pill dispensers, stove top heat sensor alarm, and other home tech that might help. If anyone knows of devices that help folks at home/work with attention and memory deficits please let me know. (or is this worth a separate thread?)
Yes definitely find out if that stuff can be prescribed and insured. I would love to be able to afford airtag items/car, have a door/window alarm, and monitors to not burn down the house. Will report back late this month.
Other thoughts: the Aranet4
COCO2 monitor beeps when there's too muchCOCO2 (eg not enough oxygen) in the room and that would be helpful too. I cannot tolerate moving air and end up in stifled rooms without realisingI think you mean a CO2 monitor? A carbon monoxide detector is also important, but they're much more commonly built into homes and you definitely aren't accidentally stifling your rooms with that regularly unless you have a habit of leaving your car running with the garage closed or barbecuing indoors. A CO2 monitor to remind you to ventilate regularly is a good idea though, as it can have pretty serious effects on your cognition without you realizing it.
AH! yes! thank you :) (post edited)
Happy for you!
I really hope it works out in your favour.
Hello!
Do you mind if I vent a little? I don't want to be the type of poster who just whines, but man, I am so frustrated with how my doctors are treating me.
I'm in my early 50's, and was only diagnosed with ADHD-I in 2020. Wow did that explain so much of my previous life, it was exhilarating and deeply saddening all at once. My doctor at the time started me on Ritalin, which helped more in three days than my decades+ previous experience with antidepressants it was hard to explain to others. We found a dose that worked for me, and I was on that for a few years, until around August of last year, when they left the practice, and my newly-assigned doctor "doesn't believe in stimulant meds", and refused to listen. She'd be happy to prescribe drugs I've already tried and did terribly with, but in her mind, it's all in my head, and I'm just lazy.
Infuriating doesn't begin to describe it.
I then found an online clinic that isn't just a pill farm, and started with them, but halfway through that, they told me that not only do they not take my insurance, but that I am not allowed(!) to pay cash for their services because of my insurance, either. I had never come across this problem before, but apparently it's a real one.
The next place I found costs more, but will take my cash without issue. It's a real expense for me, but I have not been doing well since being forced off what works. I've done my best, and I've really tried to 'remember' how my brain works when taking the meds I need, but I can't fake it any better than a diabetic can mentally fake their way in to their insulin shots.
Except they won't prescribe Ritalin after all unless I get a note from my pervious doctor. Who is no longer available. And my current one won't give me a note, for obvious reasons. The fact that I took the med successfully for years with nary a hiccup to my blood pressure means nothing, apparently. So I'm again back to square one, and I just don't have the mental juice to keep this paperwork waterfall at bay to get what I need.
I know I'm not the only one dealing with medication access issues. I know there's nothing I can really do other than get back on the treadmill again. I'm just so tired of it all.
Wow this is insane and frustrating just to hear about, I cannot imagine how rough it is to live through. If it were feasible to do so without legal trouble, I'd send you some of my leftover Ritalin from when I switched to Vyvanse to try and tide you over and get through the bureaucratic side of things.
this reminds me of ladies in infertility treatments sending each other un-used vials of ultra expensive hormonal cycle medication ;_; I wish we had a forum and not illegal way to do this
Try to find another clinic or dr and bring in your med bottles (like the last 2-3 to show consistency) any anything diagnosis related that helps show you were diagnosed rather than browbeat one off dr to prescribe you.
That's ridiculous what an awful doctor!! There's a whole lifetime of folks like us being brushed off, and it just adds to the collective decades of hurt. I'm so sorry you're going through and I hope it gets better soon. You've been very resourceful so far, I'm sure you'll get there.
problem solving, feel free to skip
Is there a possibility of asking to be referred to a different doctor? We've thought about it for a bit until the nurse practitioner1 left (thank goodness) on her own and we lucked into a new doctor.
Alternatively: ask to be referred to a specialist , the kind who can overrule her and prescribe.
1: in our area there is such a shortage we are asking pharmacists and nurse practitioners to take on doctor duties
That is absolutely awful and frustrating. My mind is in full solution mode right now, are you sure there is nothing you can do?
I'm not from the US so I don't know how your system works, can't you perhaps just look at clinics close to you and get a prescription from a random doctor!? It might cost a lot, but I'm sure it's worth the cost.
Slowly, bit by bit, I feel like I'm living my life again after half a year of being in employment. Two years of semi-unemployment really rocked my confidence and belief that I could have a 'normal' live(as far as you can define one). Still, I do think I need to leave my parents and live in a city, somewhere. But that's difficult due to the housing market. I'm thinking of sharing an apartment with someone else even if its not ideal. But well, the Dutch government isn't nearly competent enough to fix shit soon.
I was employee for five years. Now unemployed six months. I'm so frustrated because I'm good at what I do and I don't need that many customers to make a living. But I can't seem to get them. I do have one happy client that might be turning into more but it's design when I just want to do hosting.
I'm losing my mind with frustration about that and my health isn't helping.
By which I mean I empathize completely with you. Five years was the longest I was anywhere and I loved that job even though it paid poorly. I got screwed by politics. Meh
I have a diagnosis scheduled for October. I hope I get some answers because I've been struggling and I'm 34
I was diagnosed at 30. For me, it was such a relief knowing that - while I might be lazy - laziness was not all my fault; I had valid reasons for my struggles.
I hope it goes well for you. And that you'll stick around these threads in the meanwhile :)
Aw thanks OP
After finishing: Wow, this unintentionally turned into a dump. I guess I've been chewing on this stuff over the last few weeks.
I have both an autism diagnosis and an ADHD diagnosis, but I'm not sure I believe either.
Autism is more likely. I got that diagnosis when I was ~20 years old, around a decade and a half ago now. I have at least one sibling who is definitely autistic. I experience significant social difficulties, and essentially all my "friendships" have always been neurodivergent people, many of whom were/are definitely autistic.
But, at the same time, I have certain traits that, in my experience, are uncommon among autistic people.
I've always been intensely aware of the fact that I'm somehow unusual. When I was younger, I tried my hardest to push it down and act "normal". In my experience, autistic people often (though not always) aren't so self-conscious, and aren't too bothered by being different, as long as they're able to find a niche that works for them.
As I've gotten older, I've mostly given up on actively trying to be normal. But I still feel like I can't just . . . be me. I don't even know who "me" is. In my experience, many autistic people have a "DGAF" attitude that helps them thrive among other neurodivergent people, or even among open-minded "normal" people. It's never worked that way for me. I never develop meaningful relationships; I never thrive anywhere.
In terms of actual problems in my life, I feel like the "schizoid" moniker fits better. And that's a scary thought, because that condition is pretty much untreatable, and the overall prognosis is poor.
As for ADHD: I definitely have some kind of executive dysfunction. I've always been disorganized and forgetful; my living spaces have always been messy; I've always zoned out while people were talking to me; I've never been able to keep a routine; focusing on things that don't personally interest me has always been extremely painful; even when focusing on things that do interest me, I rarely finish projects; etc.
But is that really ADHD? I've never been impulsive---if anything, I've always been highly inhibited. My attention span has been decimated by digital technology just like everyone else's, but it was fine when I was a kid, as long as I was focusing something that interested me---I was reading long books all the time, and in fact prided myself on being a literary person. Stimulants help somewhat with completing tasks, but they do very little for big-picture organization.
I feel like what I really am is avolitional. I have little-to-no willpower or endurance. Whenever something is not immediately interesting, I simply can't bring myself to expend even the tiniest amount of energy on it. I've gotten better with age about being able to take care of the bare minimum necessary to live, but it's still not easy. And this is honestly a terrible trait to have---not just for me personally, but for the people around me. It makes me seem uncaring. And, like, that's kind of not wrong, right? If I cared about people more, wouldn't I pay better attention to them, take more initiative in talking to them, more reliably fulfill my obligations, etc.?
Russell Barkeley, a well-known ADHD scholar, has proposed a condition called "cognitive disengagement syndrome" (formerly "sluggish cognitive tempo") that hits a lot of the same points. Not that that's much help, though---there isn't much literature on it; and from what literature does exist, the takeaway is basically "stimulants are still the best treatment we know of, but they don't work as well as they do for ADHD." Great.
I'm up in the middle of the night with restless legs but wanted to say;
Classic ADHD hyperfocus. Not that I'm trying to diagnose.
It's possible your symptoms could be not ADHD or caused by something else. That said, this very much sounds like what my experience of ADHD with depression symptoms has been like. Lack of willpower would be my #1 ADHD symptom in almost any context, tbqh, and while it's not exclusive to ADHD, it's definitely very typical of the disorder, especially when untreated. Even if you personally don't have ADHD, the description you give here could not be more accurate to my ADHD if you tried!
In my experience, depression symptoms can also decrease the number of things that reach the threshold of "immediately interesting," which tends to mean you rarely have the energy/willpower to do anything. Your behavior influences your mood as well, so this tends to turn into a dangerous downward spiral in my experience. This behavior-based downward spiral can then perpetuate itself -- even though my depression symptoms were principally caused by a physical illness that I've since gotten treated, my mood is very responsive to whether I'm forcing myself to do things rather than just sitting around being bored. And the #1 thing that gets me to actually do things even when they're not immediately interesting? Taking my ADHD medication.
Yep. Easy answer, that is exactly ADHD.
Impulsivity is very common with ADHD, but it isn’t a requirement. I generally consider myself to be a very <opposite of impulsive> person. A lot of that is adaptive making habits that I have subconsciously learned, which may be the case for you as well.
You also might just have inattentive type instead of hyperactive or combined type. It is what used to be called ADD. Here are the requirements for inattentive type ADHD:
You only need 5 of those for inattentive ADHD. Please note, reading directly from the DSM is a very bad way to diagnose, and the DSM is focused on child and adolescent diagnoses, not adult (at least for ADHD). Also the DSM 5, which is what that quote is from, is quite out of date with the current understanding of ADHD.
Anyway, I am not a doctor, but that sounds exactly like ADHD to me.
So this is crazy, but now that some autoimmune-related depression and fatigue are getting under control, I'm having focus problems again. I can still breeze through lower cognitive effort tasks, but find myself struggling with a big deep-work project that's not amenable to chunking. I've had to resort to ChatGPT to try and map all the components of this thing into a spreadsheet because holding it all in my head isn't going well. Spending more days in the office with all the social and noise distractions isn't helping.
I'm not really used to thinking of these struggles as potential ADHD problems, so any tips?
Can you expand a little on specific issues that are causing you problems? It might help with more specific ideas.
From what you've written: For executive function issues, I've absolutely found that even if I can'' chunk things down, if I can just get myself to start on something by whatever means, it usually means I can get into it and keep going on it. So if you can't chunk it by task, maybe you can set a ten minute timer and say "I will work on this for ten minutes, and if I need to pause after the ten minutes, I will do so" — but if you are able to get going, then of course stop the timer, or when it goes off, you can probably shut it off and keep going on the work.
For social and noise distractions: If you are able to do the headphones-music thing — for me, if I can put on music with either no lyrics or lyrics in a language I don't speak (so it doesn't distract me), it can help. I do especially like techno/trance for this - more repetitive stuff that doesn't change as often. But even if music doesn't help, maybe some gently white noise or rain sound loops might help.
If you happen to be lucky enough to be in a place where you can dim the lights a bit, that might also help somewhat.
I'm sure you probably can't share too much about the project, but from what you've said on it, I can't thnk of anything to help there. Hopefully others wil weigh in with better ideas anyway :)
I'll give generalities... It's a rewrite of an old version of proprietary sequential rules-based code with outdated logic, to a current version with many functionality changes. There are hundreds of steps, each with a set of conditions and subsequent tasks. Each step may have many state flags and registers for storing data.
Just mapping the whole mess was complicated enough that I'd keep losing track constantly. Fortunately, it was stored in a database that ChatGPT was able to parse into Excel with a dozen prompts and a couple of hours of manual review and correction. I've now got a master spreadsheet that shows all the logic and components so I can understand and rebuild the old functionality where needed.
It's the rewrite that's giving me fits and leading to procrastination. The updated processing engine has some dramatic differences from the old. We're removing functions and adding new ones. The customer is slow with approvals on the plan, so there are foggy specifications in places that cause headaches in laying out the code.
I need to have a mental map of how everything talks to everything else. It's just not gelling the way it has on previous similar projects. I'll work for an hour or two here and there on pieces whose functions I'm rock solid on, but the whole isn't cohering and it feels like a mess. I wish I could break it down to "I will write X rules today", but there are too many dependencies to think those rules and subsequent ones will work when conjoined to the rest. I can't even
test meaningfully until everything is in place.
When I used to hyperfocus, I could block out everything (including the need for food and bathroom breaks - not ideal) and see the whole picture. That state just doesn't seem accessible anymore.
As for environmental issues, I use noise-cancelling earbuds in the office, but that doesn't stop people moving or chatting nearby (open plan offices should be nuked), dropping in with questions, the occasional team lunch...
Unlike most people who stare at screens all day, I do worse working in a dark office. I feel more engaged if there's some natural light around. My home office is perfect - there's a shaded window behind me so that I have natural daylight cues without glare. I have a large single screen so that my desktop layout helps focus without bringing anything extraneous into my peripheral vision. It's quiet without being disturbingly silent.
Even so, I was coping with the work office distractions until the new meds unleashed Normal (?) Brain Energy. Now, it just feels like I have ideas that have to be pursued, a million small tasks that I can accomplish easily for tiny dopamine wins, and the Big One gets neglected.
Is it possible to draw the big picture?
Like a hand drawn mindmap, I strongly suggest drawing by hand in paper with a pencil - not different colours until later iterations if at all
You wrote something about it being sequential and rules based so maybe draw a tree instead or a flowchart?
(I'm not invested enough to say anything or ask qiestions about the rest of your situation)
I have long suspected I have some kind of AuDHD which has been a cause of my difficult to treat long-term depression.
I finally got an appointment with a psychiatrist to look into ADHD - a process that has taken years. They talked to me for an hour and said they couldn't help because I sound too depressed - I should come back in the future when I no longer have depression.
This feels like such a blow. I have no idea where to go from here.
God, that fucking sucks. Experts in ADHD explicitly recommend treating someone's ADHD before their depression if they have both, as the former can cause the symptoms of the latter. So the psychiatrist wasn't even really being sensible on that front, and clearly just wanted you out of their hair. That's not fair and it really sucks that you went through that.
I recommend looking for a psychologist rather than a psychiatrist for the diagnostic process -- even if you later need a psychiatrist to prescribe medication, I found they were far more willing to work with me when I already had a diagnosis from another licensed professional. Finding someone to diagnose you isn't a walk in the park under any circumstances, but I hope you're able to find someone else who's willing to try.
I'm not sure if I should complain or not.
They were not wrong that my depression is making it hard for anyone to accurately diagnose anything, and I don't want to keep trying until I get the result I want - it's entirely possible I don't have ADHD and I'm just looking for anything to blame.
I guess that's what a psychologist would help with. Unfortunately, I don't have the time, money or energy to do anything.
At the bare minimum it seems pretty absurd for them to insist you come back when you're less depressed without even attempting to treat your depression themselves. I'd complain if you think it'll go anywhere, but I absolutely understand how hard doing all that shit can be when you're stuck in a long-term depression like that.
To be fair, they were only there to deal with ADHD so I'm not really expecting them to help with depression unless I go down that route separately.
It would have been nice to have been asked more questions about ADHD/autism though, instead of retreading the same depression questions I talk about with every single therapist I've met.
oof yeah I've been there. Even the shitty psychiatrist who misdiagnosed me at least gave me the ASRS in addition to the Beck's depression inventory tho... it honestly sounds like the psychiatrists you went to are lazy af.
Tildes, should I pursue an adhd diagnosis?
I'm old as dirt (not that old, but still old), and from all appearances successful in life (family, job, etc). I am chaotic, disorganized, and live life one crisis to the next. I shine when im flying by the seat of my pants. I've seen some adhd awareness viral video stuff lately that really resonates with me, and while I've always suspected that I have at least a touch of the disorder, this is the first time I've considered doing something about it.
So, I guess my question is what can I expect to gain if I go through the hassle of diagnosis? Is it worth it?
Thanks y'all
I'm probably not as old as you, but I think it can be worth at least looking into diagnosis. Medication has helped me an absolute shitload even in ways that aren't intuitively obvious -- even though I'm currently unemployed and lack the typical stresses of work, the difference it makes in my day to day life is unparalleled. In particular, my mood is much more balanced.
I was diagnosed at 30. For me, it was revolutionary. It helped explain my struggles with life. I grew up "knowing" I was just lazy and stupid (while being gifted also). The diagnosis lifted a huge weight off my shoulders.
I also found that Ritaln was amazingly helpful. Even though I can't have it any more, it still helps slightly as I can sort of channel some of that feeling sometimes.
The book that opened my eyes (before my diagnosis - that convinced me to go seek one) was Driven to Distraction by Edward Hallowell. If you'd like an epub, lemme know. What struck me most about that book was the case studies. Not 100% of all of them resonated with me, but I read most of them going "WTF? Who told you about my life???"
My philosophy is: If you have it, knowing helps. You can see if you can get meds that can help. You can look for targeted coping techniques and seek support in places like this. And if you don't? Doesn't mean you don't struggle - maybe it's something else, or just how your brain is built.
But either way, to me, knowing is helpful.