this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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ADHD
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There can be some comorbidity / overlap, but they're different things.
ASD - typical presentation includes difficulty interpreting facial expressions / vocal tone / figurative speech, difficulty with theory of mind or modelling the experience of others, difficulty with social protocols or cues, inflexible, literal interpretation of rules, sensory issues, overload issues, single-subject fixation, spatial perception issues.
ADHD - typical presentation includes difficulty ignoring distractions, dificulty remaining focused on non-stimulating tasks, poor executive function, poor time management, poor task management, poor emotional regulation, forgetfulness, impulsivity, rejection-sensitive dysphoria, sensory/overload issues, fidgeting.
It's possible (and quite common) to have both; it's also quite possible to have the same behaviours for different reasons. For instance, ASD people may fidget/etc as stimming to manage sensory overload, whereas ADHD people may fidget out of excess energy. ASD people may act in socially-inappropriate ways because they don't understand (or care about) the relevant social cues; ADHD people may act in socially-inappropriate ways because they've been distracted out of the context and find it difficult to moderate their interaction. An ASD person might stay up all night reading about some topic because they're kind of obsessed with it; an ADHD person might stay up all night reading about it because hyperfocus kicked in and holy crap it's 8am where did the night go?
ASD people I've known have described it as their magic telepathy helmet being broken and trying to make sense of utterly irrational-seeming other people; I'm ADHD and would describe it as my mental whiteboard being broken and living in a soft rain of post-it notes with every random observation written on them, whether relevant or not.
So, if I'm an adult who has never been diagnosed with either/anything, but I do all of the things you listed for ADHD and some of the autism ones... Should I be evaluated?
I can't speak for the ASD side, particularly, but the relevant question for ADHD is whether it's impacting your quality of life.
Are your studies suffering because you just can't make yourself hit the books? Are you constantly fucking up at work and putting your career at risk? Is sensory overload a major impediment to coping with existence? Are you concerningly unreliable with parenting stuff? Does grocery shopping take three hours because you need a handful of separate trips for all the things you forgot each time?
If it's crossing over into disability territory, if life is just not supposed to be this hard, definitely get evaluated.
If not, if it's just quirky and occasionally frustrating - ehh. It can be affirming and a definite relief to have a label to put on things, but it probably won't make a huge difference day-to-day. If you're in the US where medical bills are a major thing, take that into account.
Yeah, some/most are daily struggles. I took the two tests recommended by another user in the comments here and I scored pretty high.