Autism and ADHD

Eeee-yoooore. You've to love donkey noises in the mix. x

And to you  

Ok . enough reflection for me today. Take care both of you and goodnight 

Yes to all of that Spotty. It is disheartening isn't it. I Only managed a couple of years teaching.. I keep thinking of all the different professional salaries that have gone by the wayside during my lurch from job to job. The lady that helped me recently was helping me with my paperwork which is why it had piled up again. There is inspiration to be had from the women who have found ways forward and offering their experience and advice. Don't think of it as a bandwagon. Just think of it as further research and self exploration. If it's there you can't wish it away ... plus if you ignore it you can't do anything about it at least you can listen/read pick up ideas. Mostly tho try to be kind to yourself which I know is a lot easier said than done it's like finding out about Aspergers, there is a reason for the chaos and messiness and that in itself helps a bit. 

Take care of yourself Spotty x

Monkeys, tortoises, elephants etc...what a crazy farm we live in xx

Giving a monkeys is giving more than enough, thank you Ellie, look after yourself. x

Yes......you seem quite lost my lovely, can we help? X missed you today btw 

I like pruning too but detest the clearing up! And yes wisteria is much more civilized than ivy.

I'm really wary of climbing on a band wagon, but the educational decline, unemployability, monetery incompetence  (despite NVQ level 3 in accounting) chaotic nature, messiness that has existed all my life...

Expect wisteria slightly less sticky and full of itchy things than ivy but .. I quite like pruning. I'm not quite so keen chopping it all up and tidying up afterwards!plus pruning is quite good when mulling over things.. lots of chopping! It has been a dull overcast day here today. I'm looking forward to some more sunshine. 

It is all rather overwhelming, yes and I'm sorry you're going through the mill just now. The different aspects of the whole ND thing seem never ending and in the end you feel like you've got everything there is.. the more you read the more you fit different conditions.. I stopped looking in the end as it all got too much. I thought I'd ticked more than enough boxes! At least I know why I find it hard to focus to follow the strategies I'm supposed to be implementing! So in some respects it's helpful to know. I have been trying to clear my dining table which was overflowing with "stuff" and got out of hand so I have made some improvement today. 

Not too much at all Misfit, I had to go gardening, pruning wisteria today.  It's very helpful what you've said but I did spend the whole time at my gardening job wanting to cry and say 'I can't do this anymore'.  Guess I'm just overwhelmed at the prospect of ADHD being in the mix, it seems even more of a can of worms than ASD, I can understand why you don't know where to start...

I think it first occurred to me when we did the great desk reveal too.

The emoticons are quite funny trying to work out what it says, I did assume you didn't put them there on purpose ;)

Spotty was all that too much? Sorry . Also I don't know why it's full of emoticons .. unintentional. 

The podcasts I listen to are adhd support talk radio by Tara Mcgillicuddy

adhd experts ( from Additude)

adhd rewired by Eric Tivers

Thrive with Aspergers podcast 

The Autism show

but there are others and most of the above have websites too so you can have a look for yourself but it is easy to be overwhelmed by so much information 

No no more is how I feel I think that's why I haven't chased anything up.. but yes I do need to find a way forward to feel more settled and fulfilled.( I used "symptoms " because I couldn't think an appropriate word.)However on one level I do now feel as though I have got the whole story it's just learning to work with it rather than against it. You know how it's not really been a female ing to have autism/asd ? Well it's the same with dyspraxia and adhd but as knowledge and research develops the professionals have realised we present differently. I started off reading about dyspria/dcd and as I read I followed this link and that. I felt like the tangled ball of wool would never unravel because once you start following the links there is a lot of information. For 2 years Iigned up to the women's palooza which offers a whole week of mini webcasts. The lightbulb moments just kept coming ( as I do with the podcasts terry Matlen and Linda Roggli and as with women's Aspergers one person leads to other so there are a few really good writers and speakers on the subject. Also there is the attentive and the inattentive types and a mixture of the two. It's also going back to the ND vendiagram ea. The professor/Dr I saw first "got me" immediately. It was the first time anyone had. But she said anyone with anything (in my case dcd developmental coordination disorder/dyspraxia which was wt she was assessing) is most likely to have elements of the others to a greater or lesser degree and it would be rare for that not to be the case. It's not whether you have or have not. It is the gree to which it affects your life. Communication, coordination and executive function difficulties overlap in all 3 conditions and probably other things too. Some people have x y z but have full ves or muddled through others are more affected by it and with me it has had a cumulative effect until I have sort of ground to a halt. Plus as said before memory and executive function in particur is much worse since menopause to the point that do not trust myself. This makes putting myself out there in the real world harder both socially and work wise. For example I cannot tell when I'm ing to be exhausted and let people down, I cannot tell when I am going to forget something important or what I am going to break next. It's really embarrassing and frustrating to the point that I most keep it a secret because to NT who don't have these problems wouldn't believe it. Mm not sure I've helped.. sorry foggy brain doesn't help! How much we want to find out or get to the root of things and how to deal with it is such a very personal decision. However I did wonder about you as soon as you mentioned your work space...  

This is all interesting reading, Misfit, can you go back to the place where they diagnosed the ADHD with your ASD diagnosis and ask for some help, or go to your GP and ask to be referred back there?  You really sound like you need help making sense of your alphabet soup to enable real changes to make your life more settled and fulfilling.

I've been looking into ADHD, or trying to, it seems a lot like trying to nail jelly to a wall.  Depending on how it is written about it describes me but then I read something else and it doesn't.  I also think my head is very resistant to the idea of there being something else on top of ASD, it's hard enough to come to terms with that, like you said some of the 'symptoms' of the two conditions are so contradictory that how the hell do you pick the bones out of it all?

Part of me wants to raise the question and like you and chuckalicious, get to the bottom of it all but the other part wants to stick my head firmly in the sand and shout 'NO, NO MORE!' 

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. 

Quick update. Saw my psychiatrist yesterday. She was surprised I hadn't had the AdHD test as part of my ADS screening. I filled out the screening test and she will discuss it with the person who did my original diagnosis and then get back to me. 

Will keep this up to date. 

I'm not sure I'm a typical case.. as I think many people diagnosed with ADHD do take meds but some use more natural methods like diet, supplements, exercise and strategies.  I listen to various podcasts on adhd and Aspergers. I thought that's what you wanted to know. If you read around on here most find it a mixed but positive thing to do. Martian Tom writes very eloquently about it. I'm 55 I just wanted to get to the root cause of Why? And I have which gives me a reason and can tell myself it's not all my fault.  I hoped having a diagnosis would make a difference and I think in the long run it will. But I haven't utilised the recommendations effectively which is my user error and not had the support to help me do that. I have made some progress but it's very very slow due to my other health issues. I have struggled to find enough information for adults where it isn't about a single condition. There is very little out there for people with both asd and adhd and in my case dyspraxia too. There is a lot to learn. I hyper focused on the different conditions as I was discovering them but since I sort of lost interest and haven't put the pieces together. So I am frustrated with myself and a feeling bit abandoned. I wouldn't want to go back to not knowing. I have lost so much throughout life because of the ND that the continual wonder of why? plagued  me for years and diagnosis has answered so much. So for me the diagnosis was very much worth it. I'm just very slow to adjust to and make use of that in the best way possible. Whilst trying to continue the balancing act of life. No it isn't easy or easier yet but am hoping it will become so but I know it's me that has to do that and I've run out of oomph. As you will see there are people on the forum who do have a balance of home and work and find ways to make it work for them. It's finding ways to adjust and adapt as best we can and put it into practice.. and staying interested enough to do that is a challenge. I'm really tired today so am sorry I have rambled on yet again.

So if you haven't tried any medication, what has the diagnosis done in terms of helping you? I'm curious as to whether or not those who have been diagnosed think it is a positive or a negative. 

Certainly I had hoped that my ASD diagnosis would be a huge help, and in a way it has, but it has also been a huge and pretty difficult journey so far and sometimes I wonder what it'd be like to not know. 

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.