this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
34 points (90.5% liked)

AuDHD

1532 readers
2 users here now

A place for those that got both Autism and ADHD, those confirmed as one and are suspecting they got the other as well, and also everyone who is neither and just genuinely curious.

Since the combo comes with its own set of challenges, this shall be a place to ask for advice, vent, infodump about special interests and/or just vibe and meme.

Please be respectful. General niceness guidelines apply - formal rules will be added later if necessary.

In regards to medication and medical advice: Please take under consideration that this is only an online support community. Offered advice is always an expression of individual opinions or experiences and shall never be taken as substitute for a professional in-person assessment!

This is a SFW community. Sensitive topics are allowed, but must be properly labeled.

More support communities:

On lemmy.world

c/Autism


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I have a dual diagnosis and I know a lot about my weaknesses. I read a lot about autistic strengths but I feel most of those either don't apply to me or they are negated by my ADHD.

For example I love making todo lists but following them needs extreme amounts of willpower. I'm good at analytical thinking but my lack of working memory and my distractability make it hard to do anything with that...

Are there any non obvious strengths I could look for?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] AFLYINTOASTER 11 points 1 year ago (5 children)

Let autism be your executive function. Let ADHD, your executive dysfunction, go hog wild and move a million miles an hour creating plans and ideas and doing it's thing. But let autism, who loves executive function, drive the bus.

So yeah ADHD goes fast, but autism reigns it in by telling you "okay, great set of ideas you just came up with bud. Now let's immediately birth them into the world, or make peace with possibly never birthing them into the world" this allows you to go at ADHD speed, but it is reigned in by the structure and rigidity of autism. Autism helps gives you tangible results.

For example, I have 3 ideas pop into my head. I deem them all good and correct things that would be worth my time to do. So thing 1 gets written down on a sticky note and put on my keys for tomorrow so I remember my lunch and some papers I need. Thing 2 gets written in a list on my phone for further research later, maybe I'm writing a list of good decoration ideas for an upcoming party. Thing 3 gets done immediately. I immediately go take my laundry out of the dryer, for example.

I know this is a lot of words, but letting autism drive the bus/train of thought has changed my life. Letting him create systems to overcome executive dysfunction that work for us has been massively impactful and I now get so much done.

[–] fuck_u_spez_in_particular 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

autism, who loves executive function

I guess we have a different understanding of executive function, I guess what you mean is Monotropism/intense focus on getting things done perfectly. Executive function TMU should be full control of getting all kinds of things done (basically at the same time) and regulating priorities/emotions/what you say socially, planning things etc.

But I generally agree on what you mean, let the creative/idea process be driven by the chaotic nature of ADHD and the intense focus of getting things done driven by Autism/Monotropism (which btw. is strongest on people with AuDHD after studies).

[–] AFLYINTOASTER 1 points 1 year ago

You are correct. In hindsight, monotropism would have been a better lense to paint this picture through than executive function, but I think we still ended up in the same place. Never hurts to clarify for future readers, though.

Your second paragraph sums up nicely what I was trying to convey.

load more comments (3 replies)