I have ADHD. That’s a certain. Officially diagnosed, on the process of finding medication and titration.

Although the doc I was meeting who was conducting the ADHD tests and a few followups, took account my traits and the answers to the ADHD questionnaire, which suggests AuDHD in their experience.

I read many AuDHD accounts and blogs online. Their story always lines up really well with mine.

I am of the opinion that the label does not matter in terms of practicality. A “what helps, helps” kind of motto. But I do feel a bit disingenuous when I say I am autistic to people since I didn’t get a second opinion or anything.

Any experiences and thoughts on this? Is there is any concrete benefits if I were to seek out an official Autism diagnosis aswell?

  • arcane potato (she/they)@vegantheoryclub.orgEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    I’m kind of in the same place. I’m on a waiting list for an assessment. I have two therapists (one individual, one couples) and they both operate under the assumption I am AuDHD. One is autistic herself so I take that as peer review lol.

    Here are my pros and cons:

    Pro:

    • Possible workplace accommodations. Work is very chill about needs but I would feel less guilt about asking for something someone else told me would help.
    • Help identifying what accommodations I could use
    • Giving me a “reason” for why I am the way I am - justification to make life changes to be more healthy and happy (vs being an absolute failure who deserves to work myself into an early grave).
    • I am in a leadership position in my industry - I feel like it’s my duty to let my freak flag fly, so to speak, to allow others to know they are not alone. Diagnosis would be validating and make me feel comfortable saying to a wider audience “I’m autistic”. Lets be real, the ND% in my industry is well above average (extremely niche engineering discipline) but it would be nice to see people be more open about it.

    Cons:

    • My boss’s boss is ableist as fuck although I suspect she’s ND as well. I don’t want to leave my job but I will not put up with any of her shit if she decides to comment on this. She’s already made ableist comments to me about people being ND without knowing I am ND.
    • I worry about the ability to immigrate in the future. I have no plans to, but I know that I wouldn’t be able to move to my current country if I had a diagnosis. (I don’t think it needs to go on my medical file as it’s done outside of the health care system but IDK).
    • I worry about the ability to travel to the states. I have no desire to do so currently (even though there are so many trains I want to ride and so many nature I want to see) but I do have aging family there. I was already nervous going last year with my ADHD meds but we drove and it didn’t come up, but I feel like border crossing is only going to get worse.
    • Simon 𐕣he 🪨 Johnson@lemmy.mlEnglish
      1·
      1 month ago

      One issue about these charts is often that they are not properly contextual and it gives people the wrong idea.

      I would not describe myself as “easily bored”, but I am “easily bored” as the pathological diagnostic criteria. The difference is that at this point in my life I have a high degree of independence, and I’m never bored. However as a child I was “easily bored” because my independence was curtailed by mandatory structure and activities. As a young adult I was easily bored for much the same reasons, etc.

      Likewise the “self-diagnostic” is easy to just rack up points on. A common one on many of these kinds of charts is “losing belongings”. Many people reflexively tell me that they can never find stuff so maybe they’re ADHD, and I correct them every time. No you just misplace things sometimes. Things disappear to me like I don’t have object permanence if I don’t commit to where I’m putting them down and simply reflexively leave them somewhere.

      A lot of this chart and many like it is clearly about children because most of the “problems” of being ADHD or Autistic are about having an annoying child regardless if the parent is ND or NT.

      Also “giftedness” is not an ND condition and in practice you won’t find people who are purely “gifted”. The only definitions of giftedness as an ND condition that aren’t fuzzy pablum are IQ race science things. It’s practical application is only for children.

      Gifted is something that was essentially defined by the US govt as someone who is so good at school they should get funding for harder classes for the good of the nation. There’s a carve out for students who are “good artists” which obviously is derived from an extremely subjective and institutional understanding of art. There’s also a carve out for students that are very charismatic but use their powers for “good” like student government, community service model UN or debate club, and not for “evil” like social engineering scams.