I identify as AuDHD. That is a combination of ADHD and Autism. I am diagnosed with ADHD and have been taking medication for years. I am not diagnosed with autism because there isn't really a reason to do so except to remove imposter syndrome. The combo is not uncommon around 20-50% of people with ADHD also have autism and 40-80% of autistics can qualify as ADHD. One of the traits of ADHD is that we usually have a hyperfocus, something that is almost the only thing we care about for months to years. ADHD and autism was mine from 2020 to sometime in 2024. That hyperfocus over, which means it is hard to care about anymore. It might come back at some point or I might never care about it again. Before I left all that time I spent go to waste I wanted to write down what I learned so here this is. I am so happy for the labels that I have! It helped me to understand myself, overcome shame from things I felt were personal failures, and gave me a community.
Remember this is just what I have heard and how I feel I not medical advice. If you relate you can research more and if I say something wrong please call me out. I am an "armchair expert" not someone trained in the feild.
ADHD
ADHD is a bad description of a brain difference that affects everything in a person's life. The best description of why it exists that I have heard is "Low Arousal Theory" It says that most brains have a minimum amount of a chemical called dopamine; people with ADHD do not have that minimum. This difference causes us to need more stimulation in our lives to try and reach that minimum. Most people with ADHD feel like their brain is moving fast and they speak fast. Often speaking before your brain has the chance to filter what is being said.
ADHD is not the lack of attention it is just different motivation. Neurotypicals are able to be motivated by requirements set by others. ADHD people on the other hand are only motivated but things that are novel, urgent, or important to us. This makes it hard to work in a corporate job. The jobs
Medication for ADHD is called stimulants. There are two main types, ones like Adderall that increase dopamine production, and those like Riddlin that tell the brain to reabsorb less dopamine. Adderall is usually prescribed first. There is a newer medication called Vyvanse that finally got a generic in 2024 and made the price less than $300/mo, it is like Adderal XR, which releases over the day instead of all at once like normal Adderal. Medication is stigmatized by those without ADHD because they worry it will be addictive and because it is similar to meth but much lower a dose. Those who do not take medication often self-medicate without realizing it. Caffeine has a similar effect so coffee, soda, and energy drinks are common. Interestingly, stimulates relax ADHD brains. Often we need naps instead of being up all night when we do lots of caffeine. ADHD medication is best taken with protein. If you drink orange juice within an hour of taking Adderall it cancels out the effect. I have never met another ADHD person who is addicted to their medication, more often they forget to take it. Often those who are not treated end up with adictions instead.
Common ADHD Traits
- Executive Dysfunction (see glossary) - Often shamed into thinking you are lazy
- Easily distracted / Squirrel
- Addictions / Alcoholism
- Hyperfocus (see glossary)
- Collecting interests - ADHD people often start something like knitting, 3D printing, or something else. They enjoy it during a hyperfocus time then abandon it.
- Researching and buying everything, including specialized tools, for an activity before starting.
- Object Permanence / Out of sight, out of mind - if we don't see it, it doesn't exist. This includes everything including people. We forget people exist until we are reminded. Things in drawers disappear. This is interesting in relationships you can either
- DOOM(Didn't Organize, Only Moved) boxes/piles -
- Pinpoint accuracy of specific items - We will lose our keys but can tell you about a paperclip in a specific box in the back of a closet.
- Forgetfulness
- Losing things
- Listening at 2x
- Waiting mode (see glossary)
- Jack of all trades
- Starting and abandoning projects
- When distracted it takes a long time to get back into whatever you were on before. This causes anger at being distracted
- RSD (see glossary)
- Aphantasia (see glossary)
- Trouble brushing teeth
- Laundry trouble - moving from washer to dryer, folding, and/or putting away
- Inability to make habits - nuerotypical people after about a month of doing something never have to think about it again, their brain does it automatically without thinking. It never becomes automatic for some neurotypicals.
- Floordobe - Like a wardrobe but on the floor, where you put your clothes when they are used but not dirty
- Needing to know answers to questions. When we think of things we need to ask or look them up we are not satisfied not knowing
- Predicting the end of movies, books, or shows.
- Pattern recognition
- Captions while watching TV
- Delayed auditory processing - Someone will say something, you say what, then your brain understands what they said originally when before they finish repeating.
- Echolalia (see glossary)
- Interupting or finishing people's sentences for them because they are slow at finding the words. It is sometimes painful waiting for someone to find the worth that it feels like you have had ready for a long time.
- Sharing stories to try and show empathy - ADHD people are often called out for "making it about themselves" because the way ADHD people try to show empathy is to tell a story that that similar to the the situation that someone is telling them about. Neurotypicals usually don't want a similar story they just want to be listen to.
- Light or sound sensitivity
- Dragging fingers on walls while walking
- Having a song always in the back of your head
- Forgetting to drink water
Autism
Autism has a lot of symptoms that affect everyone differently. Some people think it comes from extra neurons. Supposedly when we are children we have lots of neurons that help us understand the world. As you grow most brains prune some of the nuerons that it deams unimportant and stops listening to those stimuli. Autistic brains don't prune as much so there is much more stimulation all of the time. This effects everything all the time. An autistic person is constantly feeling their clothing, constantly hearing the buzz of lights, cars going by, and many other stimuli. Autistic people often get overstimulated by what from the outside might seem like small things because on the inside they rarely get peace.
People with autism are usually recognized within 10 seconds of meeting someone new. Allisitcs get a weird vibe. Even though they don't understand that it is autism they know something is different. This is probably because of a difference in communication styles. Allistics do a vibe check with small chat, not wanting answers to questions like "How are you?". Once they have felt safe with the vibe they can then continue the relationship getting deeper over time. Autistics are information first. When meeting autistics will info dump on each other and talk about their interests. After sharing things they love they might feel safe enough to get into feelings. The difference is called the "double empathy problem".
It is usually not worth getting a diagnosis of Autism, especially if you already have one for ADHD. Autism cannot be treated by any medication the only thing it could get you is accommodations. It is even harder to immigrate to Australia if you have a diagnosis. The tricky thing about autism diagnosis is that it doesn't care if you have an autistic brain. The diagnosis is just if your autism makes it difficult to provide for yourself or keep a job. In your life at different points depending on needs and how much you mask you could be eligible or not for a diagnosis and it can be removed.
Common Autism Trails
- Hearing electricity
- Black-and-white thinking
- Strong sense of justice - Morality not based on who is looking or who is being hurt.
- Considering everyone an equal - allistcs look at where they are on a social ladder above or below someone when they meet and treat them accordingly. They give deference to people above and are allowed to treat people below poorly. Autistics only care about a person's character. Even if their boss's boss does something they don't like they might mention it when an allistic would worry about their position. This often causes conflicts in the workplace and relates to why most autistics cannot keep a corporate job.
- Bring up issues you see at work, then being told that it isn't your job so you should keep it to yourself.
- Annoyed by clothing tags
- Annoyed by clothing seams
- Overstimulation and blow-ups
- Going nonverbal
- Alexithymia (see glossary)
- Not feeling like their gender matters. Separation of who they are from their body.
- Not following social normals
- Being called weird by people
- Hating or not understanding small talk
- Masking - hiding your autism traits to try to appear "normal"
- Needing to watch interactions before interacting because you don't understand the unspoken rules
- Info dumping
- Lifelong love of a subject: dinosaurs, bugs, cars, trains, etc.
- Love of learning details
- Belief that rules are rules and aren't exceptions. This can be something like feeling like all lying is bad including "white lies".
- Pattern recognition
- Needing to know why things are done.
- Feeling more safe saying something if it is a quote; either from someone else or a show/movie.
Remember there is a lot of overlap between ADHD and autism. So check both trait lists.
Autism and ADHD are both classified disabilities. That means you are legally allowed to get accommodations under the ADA. You deserve help!
Glossary
- Neurodivergence (neurodivergent) - Having a brain that works differently than most people (neurotypicals/allistics). This includes everyone with ADHD, autism, depression, OCD, anxiety, dyslexia, dyscalculia, and other brain differences.
- Neurotypical - Someone who has a typical brain according to societal norms.
- ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) -
- Autistics - People who have autism. Opposite of allistics
- Allistic - People who don't have autism
- Ableism(ableist) - Discrimination in favor of able-bodied people
- ABA Therapy - A "treatment" for autism that teaches people how to 'mask' better. There is controversy in the community because many parents of people with autism think it helps, but adults with autism say that
- Masking - When any neurodivergent person attempts to be present as a neurotypical to fit in.
- Autistic Burnout - When someone with autism masks for too long it eventually leads to an overwhelm where it is hard to do anytime for up to years.
- Autistic Regression - When late-diagnosed autistics learn about their autism it often makes it much harder to mask. Brains are interesting and because people knew how to do things when masked, removing the mask causes them to not know how to do other things. This can be anything even daily tasks or your job.
- RDS (Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria) - A common ADHD trait where we majorly react to any kind of rejection. It is thought by some to be caused by how often ADHD kids are told no or corrected much more often than neurotypical children. Some research says 20,000 times more by age 10. This is similar to people who have CPTSD .
- Dopamine - A chemical produced in the brain. Most treatment for ADHD is to raise the amount of dopamine in the brain at any given time.
- Hyperfocus - Most often it refers to when someone with ADHD is so interested in something that the rest of the world disappears. This will usually be a multi-hour event where you forget to eat or even use the bathroom until something breaks your concentration. The term is overloaded and could refer to the thing that you are currently interested in. The interest can start and end at any
- Dyscalculia - like dyslexia but with numbers
- Waiting Mode - not being able to do anything because there is an appointment later in the day. Even if you have a meeting at 5pm being trapped and not doing anything from 10am until the appointment can happen.
- PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) - A specific type of autism where when a person is asked to do something they will never be able to. The term is also named poorly and should talk about how the person requires autonomy and does not do well when someone attempts to remove it.
- DSM5 (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition) - The book used in the US by medical professionals to diagnose. If something is not in the book you cannot have an official diagnosis and receive disability accommodations.
- CPTSD (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) - Similar to PTSD but from repeated bad experiences like growing up with abusive parents. It is not in the DSM5 and therefore you cannot get an official diagnosis for accommodations
- Accommodations - Usually referring to permission given at school or work to help you be successful in a neurotypical environment. See askjan.org for help knowing some reasonable accommodations in your situation
- Aphantasia - Not having mental images. It is in about 2% of the population. The name was created in 2015 after someone lost their images after heart surgery. There is no official diagnosis. Most people who have it think everyone else is talking metaphorically so they don't know they have it or if they do, don't know it has a name. The opposite is Hyperphantasia.
- Executive Dysfunction - The inability to motivate yourself to do something even though you want to do it. Outside it may look like laziness but there is a difference: laziness is a choice to not do something, and executive dysfunction is not a choice.
- Object Permanence - Term used to describe when babies don't understand that someone/something exists when they cannot see it. It has been adopted by the ADHD community to refer to a similar situation where we forget something exists when we don't see it.
- Echolalia - Playing with sounds in your mouth. Repeating the same sound over and over, maybe changing the tone or trying to match something you have heard.
- Alexithymia - the inability to recognize or describe one's own emotions.
- Double Empathy Problem - Different communication patterns between allistic and autistic people make it hard for either group to communicate with the other even though they are really good at communicating with others in their own group. This is thought to be because allistics do vibe/feeling first then information when safe, and autistics to information first then feelings once they feel safe.
- ADA - The Americans with Disabilities Act. The law in the USA that requires companies to give accommodations for disabilities.
