I saw this twitter thread and now I think I might need to look into talking with someone.
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I have gobs of kids with both, and ADHD is a well-recognized comorbidity of autism. I will agree with all those points generally, but it can’t be overemphasized that neither population is monolithic, and individual experiences can and do vary dramatically. Also, it is pretty universally true that folks in highly targetted communities experience insane stress levels. If it is an option for you, i would certainly urge you find someone to talk to.
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Talking with someone isn’t an option right away, but something I’ll get to when I can. I’ve questioned if I was either individually over the years, but always just told myself it was just my dysphoria. However now that I’m getting better on that front I’m able to pay far more attention to my other behavior patterns and wow I share many of the patterns mentioned.
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Considering how many autistic kids are obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine, this is kind of a big deal in representation.
“Bruno is a Brake Car, and he is a new friend for Thomas and his friends, and he’s also autistic, like me,” Garcia said in a news release sent to NPR. “He is funny, smart, and he’s a very relaxed character. He can get really overwhelmed, he can get worried, and he uses comedy to get past situations.”
“He can flap his ladders to tell you if he’s upset or if he’s really excited, so he can use his items to show you how he’s feeling,” Garcia said. “His ear defenders, I do relate to, because if there’s a really loud noise, I can’t cope. I can get quite worried about things, I have to think of new strategies, same as Bruno.”
Good stuff!
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In less pleasant news…
So many places this could go. None of them good.
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I did find a well-regarded testing psychologist who did the evaluation much sooner than expected, thanks to a little luck. So there is a diagnosis now: very clearly ASD Level 1 with ADHD-Inattentive.
Thank you, @catsidhe, for explaining the process and for starting and keeping this thread open.
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Partially to keep the thread alive, and partially because it’s easy to post all positive sunshine and rainbows stories, and forget that some people don’t get to post their own stories, and some never will.
If you need me, I’ll be screaming.
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(details in thread if curious)
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Just FTR: if you want to observe all that in one person, try visiting parents of a kid between, say, two and six.
Doing all that as an adult usually gets you uncomfortable views by the NT people.
ETA: I think that the there was othering too much.
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I am the parents (well, parent) of a kid between 2 and 6, so I know what you mean. Of course, my kid’s got extra that for relevant-to-this-thread reasons, but then again so do mom and dad.
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You are not alone.
Relevant:
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One parenting challenge I’ve definitely faced is falling back to the exact same communication patterns that my parents tried on me, which utterly failed with me. And lo and behold, they utterly fail with my child.
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The things we do to ourselves our offspring…
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Seems relevant-
This Be The Verse
They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
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I spend a awful lot of time trying to not be like my parents. I can only hope those endeavors and my spouse’s genes and parenting mean she doesn’t develop clinical depression. It must be even tougher adding neurodiversity.
Although now that I think about it, does clinical depression mean I’m neurodivergent?
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That is, as is a lot in this topic, subject to debate.
There is one line of thought that chronic depression is a difference in thought patterns, that people with depression think and react to the world in a characteristically different way than people without it, and under that thinking, it would qualify.
There is another argument that while depression comes with a difference in ways of thinking, it’s of a different nature to that of autism, AD(H)D, or schizophrenia: that it’s something that anyone can fall into, NT or ND, and that while it qualifies as a mental health condition, it isn’t an inherent neurological difference.
I would make you welcome either way. If nothing else, most neurodivergent people know that cold wet grey wool blanket of depression far too well, so if nothing else, we have that in common.
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I think there is a distinction to be made for the kind of chronic and constant depression that never goes away and the kind where people eventually recover. I’ve got the first and I think that kind is closer to being neurodivergent than the second kind.
I’ve never identified myself as neurodivergent. Never really considered it in depth. I can function pretty well, with meds and stuff, and people who don’t know me well would think I am neurotypical. It feels like claiming an identity that I’m not entitled to. The way I have Native American ancestry, but grew up as white. Native American is not something I get to claim. I may technically qualify, but my life experience has not been filled with the issues a Native American has been through.
That said, I’ve been told by multiple people, including trained psychologists and psychotherapists, that my thought processes are not typical. Have you ever read the Tiffany Aching books by Pratchett? I definitely have second and third and sometimes fourth thoughts. I’m simultaneously thinking, thinking about what I’m thinking, and thinking about what I’m thinking about what I’m thinking. This tendency, as well as a few others, has meant a life of not quite fitting in. But not in the way I hear from people with ADHD or autism
I’ll have to think about it 
. Meanwhile, I won’t use that as a self descriptor and just keep listening to the people who are neurodivergent.
Thank you for that. The black dragon is a beast and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone
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Just want to add: co-morbidities are a major thing with quite a number of spectrum conditions. And there is an underlying condition, the therapeutical intervention should be adapted to that.
In other words: getting treated for depression is important when you do have that primary diagnosis. If depression is caused (or exacerbated) by ADHD or autism or both or something else which might or might not have a corresponding neurological expression, this definitely should be taken into account by your healthcare professionals. It might just change everything for you.
ETA:
Being on the spectrum doesn’t mean that you’ll have to have the same experience as others on the same spectrum. Experiences are highly individual.
That said, the similarities do exist.
Oh, and BTW: both self-observation and having multiple parallel thoughts? Yeah, I met people with diagnosed ADHD who experience similar conditions. And people who were diagnosed with depression and didn’t even think of themselves as being on the spectrum of ADHD until they became part of a group of people with diagnosed ADHD. One of them talked to her psychiatrist and, besides taking a SSRI, now takes Methylphenidate. And, much more important, tries different avenues of psychotherapy and occupational therapy.
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