Officially Diganosed Today (And How I Got There)

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Today I got my formal diagnosis of very-high-functioning ASD and probable secondary inattentive ADHD. I'm in my 40s.

When I was growing up, I didn't know anybody with autism. I knew a few people with ADHD in high school, but they were all classic hyperactive ADHD - outwardly chaotic, energetic, and impulsive.

By the time I was in high school I was consciously something was odd, and that my social skills lagged behind my peers. My peers certainly recognized I was odd as I was bullied through much of grade school for the usual reasons: glasses, shy, quiet, bookish, studious, well-behaved. Even the other Gifted kids didn't really know what to make of me. By high school I was underachieving and checked-out, but no teachers or anybody else did anything about it because I was well-behaved.

I was briefly sent to speech therapy in middle school. "I don't have a speech impediment. I stumble over my words because my mouth can't keep up with the speed of my brain." I read avidly, but struggled with distractions and would find myself having to reread pages because I'd zoned out.

I went to a college counselor once, at the insistence of a friend. Not for ASD or ADHD; general anxiety/depression/frustration issues. I went once, got tired of being asked "And how does that make you feel?" for an hour, and never went back. The counselor told me there was nothing wrong with me, except that I was majoring in the wrong subject (which was correct).

Nobody ever suggested ASD or ADHD to me at any point in my life. One person I knew in high school majored in psychology in college and suggested I might be schizotypal (which I've since learned shares some symptoms with ASD, but for very different causes). I don't know how much is being only "a little autism" and how much is my high IQ allows me to compensate.

I could keep a job and pay my bills. I never self-medicated. Being functional meant there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with me, or so everyone would say if I ever raised concerns.

Over the years, pieces started to fall into place. I became close friends with someone who has iADHD; I could connect with them better than almost anyone else I ever met. (They were diagnosed when it was still just "ADD" but because of the severity plus their comorbidities they were diagnosed as a child and got appropriate treatment.) People would say little things about other people with ASD or ADHD and I would think "Huh, that's interesting because I can relate to that." (Ironically, if I didn't have ASD I probably would not have had the ability to self-diagnose.)

I was open to the idea. That was strange in and of itself. I've noticed most people are hostile the possibility they have a mental illness or developmental condition, even if they definitely have one. I felt like the only person who could casually say "Yeah, I might be crazy, and some day I'd love to understand precisely in what way." I'm sure I looked at Asperger's and ADD (back when they were still commonly called that and less well understood), but only separately. The dry, technical description of the symptoms didn't seem to quite fit.

Finally, Hank Green made a video where he talked about reasons why he might have ADHD, and linked to someone else's video about ADHD. It was a list of ten symptoms, the vast major of which I had NEVER heard described as ADHD symptoms. Down the rabbit hole I went. YouTube was invaluable - hearing real, formally-diagnosed people talking about their real-life experiences and struggles.

I started talking about this with people I know, many people I interact with on a regular basis. They were nearly all extremely skeptical. Some kneejerk rejection really how ignorant people are about the conditions, which I couldn't hold against them too much because of even I was very ignorant about them until recently. "You can't be autistic because you have no problem making eye contact." "You can't have ADHD because you read lots of books." "You can't have ADHD because you can complete tasks." "You don't have autism; you just need to loosen up." (It reminded me about when I learned about introversion vs. extroversion; most people see "introvert" as synonymous with "shy.") Some people my parents' age were outright hostile to the idea, I guess seeing it as a major stigma. So many people could see trees, but nobody could see the forest. "You're just eccentric." "You're just really smart." Besides widespread ignorance, I think the interplay between ASD and iADHD does interesting things.

While I've found the online community very informative, I am bothered by what I see as toxic positivity. I kind of get it: people grew up with a lot of negativity associated with their issues, being belittled and dismissed. I don't see my condition as all bad. Without my conditions, I probably wouldn't have my career and, even if I did, I probably wouldn't be as good at it as I am. However, I also don't see it as a net positive either.

Imagine how cool, and useful, it would be to have telepathy - to read other people's minds. Now suppose you have telepathy, but you can't turn it off and can't control whose mind you read.

Incredible memory and recall sounds great...until you realize that also means you're stuck also remembering all the things you'd rather forget.

Incredible attention to detail is great for some things, but it also means you're noticing all the flaws, mistakes, and carelessness of normal humans in everyday life. All the little things normal people don't notice. And if you point them out nobody cares.

Everything ASD and ADHD have given me is a double-edge sword.

As a kid, I always wanted to be well-behaved, mature, responsible - more adult. Then I became an adult and realized so many adults are immature, irresponsible, and misbehaving. Logical in a world of people driven by emotion. Desiring order, routine, comfort, and predictability in a world full of chaos and people who like unpredictability and excitement.

The older I get the more self-aware I get, and the harder it is to really connect to people. It's hard to find people with compatible personalities and interests, and almost impossible to find people who really have the same core values you do. The loneliness often feels crushing.

I'm glad I finally know what my deal is, and I still wouldn't wish it on anybody.

Welcome to WP! I hope you find it a good place to visit.

I'm also Autism Spectrum Disorder, Level 1 (Mild) and it was a sheer fluke I ever found out (I was 64 when I was diagnosed). I was delighted by the diagnosis because it explained so much. Despite it I've done reasonably well in life, though I agree the ride was bumpy...though retirement is wonderful!

I am not ADHD but my bride is (and not mildly).

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welcome to WP!

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

Yes I think you are on the right track. You wrote: "I was briefly sent to speech therapy in middle school. "I don't have a speech impediment. I stumble over my words because my mouth can't keep up with the speed of my brain." I read avidly, but struggled with distractions and would find myself having to reread pages because I'd zoned out."

I thought my inability to read was because I was reading too slow. But in reality, my brain was reading too fast. It took me many years to figure out why. It is quite simple really. Our brains have two sides. One on the left and the other on the right. They are different brains. The left side is dominant. It is our daytime brain. The right is a secondary brain, a type of support brain. It primarily exist in our daytime in REM and NREM Sleep. The left side knows spoken words and the right side knows sung words. They are very different brains and we have multiple people that exist within us.

Now to make this even more interesting. Humans have a problem. We sometimes die when we are young. Around the age of 12 or 13 we die. Sometimes this is before we are born, or during birth or as young children. When this happens we can chose to live. The right side of our brain can come online and become the dominant brain. The left side can eventually recover and become the support brain. It is a brain flip. I died when I was around age 3 or 4. A large bull who weighted over 1,000 pound attacked me. I weighted less than 20 pounds. It was like being attacked by a dinosaur. My sleep brain came on line and stood next to my dead body. I saw my body and I saw my parents in utter horror. And a voice spoke out "Live or Die, Your Choice". I decided to live. But I came back as a very different person. I was fearless.

In 4th and 5th grade I was sent to a type of speech therapy for around one hour per day.
We would spend this time saying things like:
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
How many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?
I am not too sure this helped me in any way. But then in my first year of high school, I attended a very strange class. It went by the name Speed Reading. It taught me to read from the inside out. I would find the most important word in a paragraph and then the next most important word and then construct the paragraph from the inside out. This course made me COLLEGE MATERIEL.

Your wrote: "I don't see my condition as all bad." I would probably refer to it in this way. Most people have +s and -s. Things they are good at and things that they are not good at. But Aspies have ++s and --s. And some of us have +++++s and -----s.

One of the interesting individuals that I communicated on the site claimed to have an IQ over 150. He was different. He was a picture thinker. It is his perception that humans undergo a state change around age 11 to 13. We go from a child to an adult. During this state change, many of the cells in our brain are deleted. Except in some people we remain children and all these normally deleted cells remain. As a result, it is the reason why our variations are radically different for Aspies. We have some extra cells. If you look back in time you will find many very dynamic people who existed throughout the years. Many great writers, musicians, scientist etc.

I suspect that if you had telepathy it might not be what you desire to have. But sit back for a few minutes and think what if you have multiple brains. Two on the left side of your skull and two on the right side. You might start by reading a book by Jill Bolte Taylor called Whole Brain Living.