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Autism and ADHD

chuckalicious

Hi everyone. I received a high functioning autism diagnosis just over a year ago (at the age of 36) and have been dealing with understanding it ever since. 

I have been having regular sessions with a clinical psychologist at my local mental health hospital as as well as the diagnosis I was also told I was suffering from depression and anxiety. 

A large part of our chats revolve around my concerns about getting back into employment. She has mentioned, as have I read online so many times, that employers love people on the spectrum who have crazy attention to detail. 

This is when I feel like a fraud. I make stupid mistakes all the time, I lose focus on longer tasks and flip flop between interests. In my previous jobs I was able to do really technically complicated things like software development but made silly errors and was unable to do simple data entry into a spreadsheet. This theme has followed me since primary school. 

Today I accidentally came across an article saying that it is common for people on the spectrum to also suffer from ADHD and it then listed the common symptoms of ADHD. I tick an awful lot of them. 

What I don't understand is how can someone on the spectrum, who are supposed to have incredible attention to detail, also have something like ADHD where they continually make silly careless mistakes - I don't see how they are compatible. 

I'm going to raise this next week at my next session - it very complicated as I am, as far as the diagnostician and the clinical psychologist I've been seeing, autistic. But as I say, I often feel like a fraud and before I start looking for a job openly stating that I'm autistic, only to say "oh, but I don't have some of the really useful attributes",  I want to make sure I fully understand it. 

Does that make sense? Any thoughts?

Thanks. 

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  • Former Member
    Former Member

    Hello Chuckalicious. I have dyspraxia (dcd), adhd and Aspergers. All diagnosed in my 50's. I agree with you wholeheartedly. Some of the characteristics overlap, seem contradictory. Sometimes one applies the next the opposite. I think I should type up lists for each diagnosis so that I can compare them as it is confusing. On one of the threads I posted a ven diagram showing the overlap of Neurodiversity. At one time it was said that you couldn't have both autism/asd and adhd but this has been found not to be the case. I know what you mean about the mistakes too which in my case became worse after menopause when hormones change. My short term memory got worse so that there are jobs I have enjoyed in the past that I could no longer do. It is bewildering. I hope Ellie's advice was able to help you on the practical side but I just wanted to encourage you to look into the dual aspect of asd/adhd more because it sounds very like it

  • in reply to Former Member

    Thanks for the teply. Have you found that since your diagnosis, has any treatment improved your quality of life? Have you been given any medication?

    I have my next appointment tomorrow so I will raise this and see what the outcome is. 

  • Former Member
    Former Member in reply to chuckalicious

    I have read that for many medication really works well so it is worth exploring with them. I wasn't brave enough to try as my tolerance to meds of any kind  is low. I wasn't sure I could cope with the effort of trying to get the right one at the right dosage at the moment which could be a mistake because it is life Changing for some re add/adhd. I will be interested to find out what the outcome of your appointment is as regards the meds. Quirkyfriend has written about adhd in her family with very practical positive advice. 

  • Former Member
    Former Member in reply to chuckalicious

    When I had my assessment I filled in lots of forms but it got quite confusing and not sure what I ticked was accurate especially when I could have easily ticked contradictorily i.e. Yes and no for different reasons. Then they talked a lot about following only one route of treatment for one aspect which I found quite odd.. I can't separate out like curds and whey so it didn't make sense. That is they would go for either adhd or autism but not both ( that could have been initially but don't think so) They said yes adhd but autistic traits. Adhd had already been mentioned on my dyspraxia report but I hadn't realised how bad it was. I haven't been back since I got my Aspergers diagnosis elsewhere. I hope you have a much better response and something more concrete to work with. It's good you still have apts with the psychiatrist. I think I might have found that helpful as I haven't had any post diagnostic support at all. I hope you will eventually feel like you have finally got all the pieces of your jigsaw/ instinctively know you have got to the root of your issues. Yes I'd like to hear how you get on. 

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  • Former Member
    Former Member in reply to chuckalicious

    When I had my assessment I filled in lots of forms but it got quite confusing and not sure what I ticked was accurate especially when I could have easily ticked contradictorily i.e. Yes and no for different reasons. Then they talked a lot about following only one route of treatment for one aspect which I found quite odd.. I can't separate out like curds and whey so it didn't make sense. That is they would go for either adhd or autism but not both ( that could have been initially but don't think so) They said yes adhd but autistic traits. Adhd had already been mentioned on my dyspraxia report but I hadn't realised how bad it was. I haven't been back since I got my Aspergers diagnosis elsewhere. I hope you have a much better response and something more concrete to work with. It's good you still have apts with the psychiatrist. I think I might have found that helpful as I haven't had any post diagnostic support at all. I hope you will eventually feel like you have finally got all the pieces of your jigsaw/ instinctively know you have got to the root of your issues. Yes I'd like to hear how you get on. 

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