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Is ADHD really a separate thing or is it really just Autism?

Xanadu

Hello

I am newly diagnosed at 43 with both ASD and ADHD.

Steep learning curve for me.  I also have 6 neurodiverse children.  Some are ASD and some are ADHD.  Some are both.  All are one or the other or both.

So I have the luxury (yes it's a luxury) of seeing how neurodiversity affects many people in many ways.  They are all different.

As a result of studying my children and also reflecting upon myself.  I have started to wonder if ASD and ADHD are actually two separate things or that actually the 'definition' of ASD is actually much wider and the docs have it wrong!  Cheeky of me I know to suggest that lots of doctors might be wrong (ducks for cover).

So my kids diagnosed with ADHD only have all the ASD markers (if you like) they just have better eye contact and appear to have better social skills.  In ADHD, Lot's of talking can appear like 'social skills' but often it is not very social at all.  Being able to make friends fairly easily but those friendships ending quickly or ending in disaster is not necessarily indicative of no impairment in social skills!  Actually though they are just much better at masking than some of my children who present more typically as Autistic.  I wonder then if there is an issue with the diagnostic threshold to be honest.

All of my ADHD kids have impairments in executive function, sensory issues (some severe), perception and mild issues with motor skills.  Language is fairly good though.  Too much language in fact which can be a difficulty in itself.

The "you can make eye contact, you cannot be Autistic" thing drives me nuts so I'm not even going to go there.  So many poor souls have been written off and are out there right now struggling with Autism because of this nonsense.  I can make eye contact myself, just that it hurts and I try not to or don't for long.  I am still Autistic.

So I'm interested in what other Autistics might think about this.  This is not just about children either.  I am speaking generally about people, adults and children.  

Is ADHD and ASD really two different things - or are they really both just Autism? What do you guys think?

Parents

  • Hi, really interested how you were newly diagnosed with both ASD & ADHD at the same time, the reason I ask is that I was diagnosed with ASD last year at age 55 & last week was told that I might also have ADHD, which I have been told to research.

    The reason my ASD was diagnosed so late is that I am quite good at masking, so most of the time people just think I am a bit eccentric. I was referred for an ASD test a two years ago (which took a year)  because I had become severely depressed but was almost completely unresponsive to normal treatment, especially talking therapies which to me just sound like meaningless word games (at least so far).

    Predictably, being diagnosed with ASD did nothing to help my depression, hence why last week I finally got to speak to a psychiatrist who seems to think that I might have ADHD as well, but which like my ASD is quite heavily masked.

    He said that a really strong indicator of Adult ADHD was when I complained of having non-existent self esteem & that most of the time my head is far too noisy, with endless critical internal voices that just won't shut up. He also explained ADHD hyper-focus which I had never heard of before, but which sounds uncannily like my mental state when I am really concentrating on something. I'm not working at the moment, but sinec my career has always been in programming & data analysis, hyper-focus was pretty much my normal working state.

    I have tried a variety of strong anti-depressants over the last four to five years, but my head just seems to completely ignore all of them & the psychiatrist agreed it was pointless to keep trying variations of SSRIs, SNRIs etc. Whilst there aren't any drugs specifically for ASD, he said that there are drugs targeted at ADHD which are actually very effective, but I would need a confirmed diagnosis before being prescribed them.

    I'm disappointed that the things he picked up on are all things I have been saying for the last five years, but better late than never. I am supposed to read up on the subject before returning in a few weeks to discuss whether I think being formally assessed would be worthwhile. The only real problem is that the prospect of being prescribed something that might actually help, just makes my sub-conscious want to jump on the bad-wagon by matching to as many symptoms as possible & it is hard to be objective about it.

    Did they diagnose you with ASD & ADHD at exactly the same time, or was one picked up on before the other?

    Incidentally, I really can't do the eye contact thing either. Eye contact is just too personal for me, unless of course it's with a sexual partner, in which case that's the whole point!

  • in reply to Pirate Santa

    Quick reply and I will reply in more detail later.

    I was diagnosed with ADHD first in 2017.  I took medication for the first time 6 months after my diagnosis.  I was scared about addiction and so I avoided it at first.  I always scored highly in ASD tests as well.  However ASD was discounted because of my high verbal ability and I'm a fantastic 'masker'.  I can just act my way through anything - just can't keep it up and it exhausts me.

    When I started taking ADHD meds my ASD got worse but my ADHD got much better!  My brain which had previously been clouded in fog started to work properly.  This allowed my intelligence to work properly if that makes any sense.  Intelligence is pretty useless without executive function to match it!

    1 month after I started taking meds.  I went through 17 years of medical records for my son and put together and evidenced a case for a diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy for him.  The Consultant in Neurodisability agreed that I was on to something and he is being diagnosed and now gets help.

    I could not have sat down going through all that stuff and putting it all together in reasoned argument without meds.  The thought of even doing that would have been unbearable.  My mind was constantly fuzzy.

    Last week I had a court decision overturned in the Upper Court because the lower court had made an error in law.  It is not easy to get a judges decisions overturned due to legal errors and I am not a lawyer and I didn't have a lawyer to help me.  I don't even have a GCSE to my name.  I could not have done that without medication.

    I will come back to you with other stuff later as I have 5 kids at home today!!

    Hyperfocus can be an ASD and ADHD thing.  Special interests are really hyper focused.

    Kind regards.

  • in reply to Xanadu

    Like Pirate Santa, I definitely hyperfocus at work. I am also a programmer, and when it is most noticeable is when I am hunting down a bug. I will still be obsessively scanning through code long after everyone else has got bored and given up. The world shrinks to me vs the bug, and I will be like a terrier after a rat until I find it. I have even been known to dream about it.

  • in reply to moggsy

    LOL, that reminds me of one time I woke up from a really confusing & very abstract dream. There was hardly any visual component & it was very repetitive. I eventually worked out that I was dreaming about running a program directly in my head Joy.

    When I am very focussed on a programming or analysis task, it's often like everything else ceases to exist, including my own sense of self. That is why I enjoy programming & problem solving in general so much, it turns the negativity in my head off by giving those faulty circuits something else to keep them occupied.

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  • in reply to moggsy

    LOL, that reminds me of one time I woke up from a really confusing & very abstract dream. There was hardly any visual component & it was very repetitive. I eventually worked out that I was dreaming about running a program directly in my head Joy.

    When I am very focussed on a programming or analysis task, it's often like everything else ceases to exist, including my own sense of self. That is why I enjoy programming & problem solving in general so much, it turns the negativity in my head off by giving those faulty circuits something else to keep them occupied.

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