I find that Autism and ADHD are like oil and water. They do not mix and the result can massive fluctuations in behavior and personality. It is better described as both the left and right sides but usually not at the same time. I will say it can be a major benefit sometimes as it means I am typically more willing to “jump without looking” than purely Autistic people.
Funny enough I see a lot of people talk about one when the patterns they describe sound like the other. I’ve also met people who seem to idolize either Autism or ADHD to the point where even suggesting that they might have something more or something different is interpreted as an attack.
For many years in Australia it was impossible to get diagnosed with Autism and ADHD because they were considered mutually exclusive. Recently they’ve been discovered to be frequently comorbid.
It’s a little frustrating how slow medical knowledge progresses.
I’m not certain if it used to be the same in my country (CH), but I was diagnosed with ADHD at 30 years old and ASD at 44.
I can relate to your frustration.
Diagnosis isn’t everything, but if it’s incomplete, it simply doesn’t help me understand myself as it should.
It’s a little frustrating how slow medical knowledge progresses.
I don’t want to minimize the struggle to understand these diagnoses but you should try having a random immune disorder. The number of shrugs, and “get used to it” store responses is maddening.
Neurology and immunology are the “there be dragons” of medicine. So many things are really immune disorders when you look below the surface. Our immune systme is both the thing that keeps us alive, and the thing that will likely kill us eventually at the same time. Certainly it is what causes us the most discomfort throughout our lives.
It’s a little frustrating how slow medical knowledge progresses.
I don’t know about Australia specifically but another example historically has been Autism and Schizoid Personality Disorder being misdiagnosed as each other. Which is especially frustrating as they’re quite different under the hood and medical professionals should know better.
I have a kid with adhd and autism. The other just adhd, though they did a full eval. They explained to me that severally of the autistic like symptoms she has are also caused by adhd. So there is a fair bit of overlap. Some say adhd is just a different part of the spectrum, though explaining how would involve 3 dimensions instead of 2, so they probably will never officially go that route.
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Does multiple assessments by different doctors all disagreeing with each other count?
It’s a spectrum, and in the end just a label. Good doctors will treat the symptoms regardless.
One day I walked in and asked for meds. I got meds. They work, to a degree.
Good doctor.
I am dual.
That paradox of requiring predictability/routine and novelty equally has brought up some funny traits in me during the approximately statistical half-life I’ve spent.
I have revolving daily things, like toothpaste for example:
There are no duplicates within the two dozen toothpastes. When I brush teeth, I take the first one on the right side, and place it on the left side afterwards. When the tubes have no more room on the left side, I shift all of them to the right side, maintaining the order. The order is maintained, but it’s not the point. As long as it doesn’t change all the time, reorders are fine. It’s all about the impossible thing: predictable novelty.
It’s ridiculous, I know.
But somehow it makes me calm to maintain my little toothpaste revolver, and knowing that I’ll only use the same make again after 12 days.I’m glad to be able to let go of this quirk when I’m not at home, because I’m travelling. Carrying 24 tubes, 10 pairs of shoes plus 72 t-shirts along would be a bit of a burden, wouldn’t it? 😆
I love this. It’s exactly the kind of thing I would do. I have so many detailed routines that give me the right mix of planned variety, freedom for true novelty, and security from familiarity.
Also diagnosed dual, but still doing a lot of thinking about it.
Wow, that’s something I have never heard of but it does make a lot of sense in my mind! Do you maintain similar strategies with anything else besides toothpaste/shoes/shirts?
Just syrups come to mind.
If this expands too much it might presumably turn into OCP. It’s fine as it is now, but a life built entirely on revolving staples would lack novelty 😜.
I get vague routines which last about 2 weeks at a time, or until said routine gets interrupted by something outside of my control
This dichotomy has rattled my life for a long time. As a teen, everyone pushed me to pick a career to have for the rest of my life. Wanting novelty, the idea of sticking to one thing (that I’m expected to decide as a teenager) forever and ever was so stress-inducing that I dissociated for weeks. I barely ate, I barely talked.
People would suggest all sorts of ideas, including jobs where you experience different events. Like being a medical professional, or doing a job that requires traveling. Even those ideas didn’t sit well with me for various reasons (like not wanting to be the sole person in charge of another person’s life or death, and not wanting to have to live somewhere new every few days/weeks/months.)
A bumpy ride through adulthood has brought me far. I have a job now that works with my natural skills and interests (teaching autistic children) and I found it’s extremely fulfilling. I have the routine I need, but I also get to use my imagination every day to help kids in my neurotribe learn skills that I had to learn the hard way. Each day is both the same and different, and since I know where these kids are coming from, it’s easier for me to connect with them (versus my neurotypical coworkers.) I’m glad to say I was able to grow into the kind of adult that I desperately needed as a child, and now it’s my turn to pay it forward.
Haven’t sought an autism diagnosis and I’m not going to because I live in the us, but it would make a lot of things make sense
It’s just a label. You would still be you. And you don’t need a label to explain anything. You are proof that you are what you are. Thr only value in a diagnosis is possible improved treatment and accommodation options. For adults that usually isn’t an issue. Good doctors will treat the symptoms either way. And there aren’t much in the way of accommodations for lvl 1 autism.
When the wacko who thinks Autism makes you less than human is in control of the department of health and is openly making lists of people with diagnoses, maybe it’s more than “just a label”.
It’s also a target.
To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first, and label whatever you hit as target. RFK, doesn’t teally know much about autism. He seems to think lvl 3 is the only autism. So yeah, it’s just a label. And different people define it differently.
Yeah I wouldn’t want that label either with RFK Jr. wanting to make an autism registry
Perfectly reasonable. Thankfully, so far he has just been talk. With any luck we can get through his time there without him managing to do the things we fear most.
Well one thing to consider is that for people on the spectrum, CBT and other such therapies are not nearly as effective.
That info would be valuable if you knew that the method used to identify autism of the patient in question was exactly the same as the one used in studies that show CBT is less effective. But since there is a lot of variance in how autism is diagnosed, it isn’t something you want to use to exclude CBT as an option. A good doctor knows this, and doesn’t let the label make decisions.
Well, N=2 but my son and I both experienced this first hand.
That said, having (admittedly long ago) worked in pharma/biotech I agree that without proper controls/constraints, it is a rather broad statement to make, regardless of how intuitive it is.
And even when studies determine a therapy doesn’t work, there is often a percentage it did work for. When they don’t really understand the cause, nor why a treatment helps in some cases, the treatment shouldn’t be ruled out, just lower on the priority list. A lot of current medicine is just trial and error without detailed understanding.
“Trial and error” is the main name of the game in mental health treatments. Human variability in our reactions to drugs/biologics is never uniform and sometimes quite divergent. Then, we try to do brains.
I’m still considering getting diagnosed (or not) despite having a now early 20s son on the spectrum and seeing all the flashing red light parallels. If I did this, the trick would be to find a therapist who knows what to do with people on the spectrum. And if i research that too much, it won’t work. PubMed is a blessing for research …just not for research on oneself!
I guessed most fedi people
That about sums it up. Need a plan. Never follow it.
Plans are meant to be broken. It’s fine…
Yep., this is accurate. I also need to not move and not have change but also move and have change. I want to socialize but I’m exhausted by socializing and often want to exist in a quiet dark hole in the basement or out in the forest away from people.
I confuse myself.
Field works suite you just fine
If you mean like, field technician which is call-based yes. That and engineering.
If you mean putting us in labor camps then emphatically no.
I may or may not be in the middle bucket, but I spent a couple of years doing tree work and that was fairly satisfying…
What kind of tree work?
Mostly residential and light commercial (e.g. schools) climbing, limbing, felling, trimming, some hedge work etc.
That does sound fairly satisfying. Probably not too much stress or social interactions?
Mostly take each day as it comes. Scheduling is the boss’s problem.
Occasional interactions with tenants/customers/groundskeepers (“We’re here to do X, the property manager should have informed you”), and suppliers (chainsaw shop, fuel) but for the most part it was “here’s a pile of job sheets; one for each job; reasonably detailed explanation on each”. Some customers do want to walk you through what they want, and some neighbours are insane, but generally the interaction is quite purposeful rather than endless smalltalk. I’m more on the ADHD side of things than Au, though.
I found it was generally a good mix of novel and routine, and you could both be a perfectionist (it usually has to look good) and say “it’s nature; it’ll never be perfect”.
It’s hard work but if you’ve got a chainsaw, everything looks like it can be cut smaller if necessary. We have a very mild climate (other than wind, which there’s a lot of). Being paid to build muscle is nice and you definitely feel the difference after a few weeks/months. You’re outside in the sun/overcast/mild rain amongst greenery (even if you’re chopping it up), which is supposed to be good for mental health.
Random unexpected paid days off due to poor weather but not tree-uprooting weather is nice.
That said, there’s downsides:
You are going to be working in a team of minimum two, probably 3 ish. If you don’t agree on processes, safety etc., things don’t last.
Bigger contractors with multiple trucks will have more, but we only had one and that meant sick leave and annual leave was a bit of a mess because you really can’t do much alone, but you can’t usually fit more than 3 in a truck.
Health and safety at small companies is a mess. I never got more than a few small cuts but especially as you get older, screwing up ankles and shoulders starts becoming an issue. Tree work is bad for high-impact low-probability risks and small businesses are terrible at managing those.
Thank you so much for a super detailed reply! I imagine a huge part of how the work feels is down to your partner(s) and how well you get along. As someone who struggles greatly in social gatherings where I have to interface with more than 1 person at a time I can see the appeal of working in a 2 man team.
I am diagnosed Autie, and am looking at a ADHD assessment. My psych strongly believes me to be AuDHD. Anyway, this is me. I NEED routine, but do you think i can have even a hope of attaining it? So I live in perpetual stress.
As a non native english speaker, i have to ask. Is “routies” a real word?
It is now
nope. they meant routines.
Hear hear
