Autism and ADHD

Hi everyone

I’ve been off my meds for nearly a month now, for the first time since I had my autism diagnosis, and am in the process of getting to know myself again.

Part of that has been to revisit the possibility that I have ADHD, or more specifically ADD, as well. There are many symptoms common to both ADHD and autism though so it’s difficult to tease them apart.

I know there are quite a few AuDHD people on this forum though. So can any of you describe the difference in experience, symptoms and behaviours between “vanilla” autism and AuDHD?

Parents
  • There are many symptoms common to both ADHD and autism though so it’s difficult to tease them apart

    Funnily enough I was having a heated discussion with my niece about this this afternoon (rather one sided actually, on her part).

    She was a social worker dealing with 'autistic' children and she thinks that a lot of misdiagnoses of autism are being made instead of the correct ones eg. AD(H)D or trauma.

    I don't have the two combined but I've read from some members who do that the 2 sort of work against each other which can make life particularly difficult.

    I think there was previously a thread on this actually.

    Welcome back Heart eyes cat

    ps.  The cat emojis come under the 'people' emoji banner Smirk cat

Reply
  • There are many symptoms common to both ADHD and autism though so it’s difficult to tease them apart

    Funnily enough I was having a heated discussion with my niece about this this afternoon (rather one sided actually, on her part).

    She was a social worker dealing with 'autistic' children and she thinks that a lot of misdiagnoses of autism are being made instead of the correct ones eg. AD(H)D or trauma.

    I don't have the two combined but I've read from some members who do that the 2 sort of work against each other which can make life particularly difficult.

    I think there was previously a thread on this actually.

    Welcome back Heart eyes cat

    ps.  The cat emojis come under the 'people' emoji banner Smirk cat

Children
  • ps.  The cat emojis come under the 'people' emoji banner

    This makes sense, because cats are people.

  • I have worried at times that maybe I could have been misdiagnosed but each time I’ve gone back and checked all the criteria for autism and I really am a very stereotypical fit for them.

    But I do also match most of what I’ve read of ADD and my score on the ASRS test is high.

    One of my massive challenges in life, that causes a lot of stress, is that I cannot focus on demand so most of my work week I underperform then massively overperform for a few hours. If this was something ADHD meds could mitigate I would definitely consider them.

    My alternative theory is that I am a cat trapped in a human body Cat2