ADHD people: are you organized, routinized, punctual?

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I wasn't sure I was ADHD either. I thought possibly Inattentive, but I didn't think I had the hyperactive element. I thought hyperactive meant that the person runs around in circles with lots of physical energy. I'm not like that at all although I do stim like crazy, and my hands / feet / mind are always going at full-speed. I even stim in my sleep. I thought that those characteristics were because of my autism.

I had my ASD assessment two years before my ADHD assessment. Again, I wasn't really sure I'd fit the ADHD profile, but I was interested to find out. I was very surprised at the psychometrics involved in testing for ADHD. My tests took almost 20 hours and were actually more complex than my ASD assessment, which was 12 hours. I have a thread on here somewhere about my ADHD testing process. It was intense to say the least. In the end I was diagnosed with combined presentation, which surprised me. My scores are slightly higher for Inattentive, but my Hyper scores were quite significant as well.

It's taken a year for me to increase and adjust my ADHD meds from a baby dose (5 mg) to a higher level. With and without various doses of my SSRI. It was a really hard year for me adjusting but I think I've found my happy place now. At first it felt like the meds were simultaneously a) trying to stop a speeding locomotive (my Hyper brain), and b) trying to make a slab of cement become active (my Inattentive brain). The tension was pretty crazy but I've finally found the right dose for me.

Knock wood.

Good luck with your journey. It's entirely possible you are both ASD and ADHD. It's a very common combination.

For reference, I scored 51 out of 58 on that quiz. I thought the questions were meaningful, straightforward and easy to answer (even if overlapping a little).

^ Ditto to every word of that.

I'm not sure how to answer the poll. I'm extremely systematic, and I can be pretty decently organized that way, but I can't juggle priorities to save my life. I deal with one thing at a time and one thing only. More than a way of life to me, minimalism feels like a necessity.

Simply knowing that I have some appointment of any kind later in the week can be enough to keep me anxious for several days. For the most part, if I don't really need to go out, I don't. It's how it's been for most of my adult life. Apart from some things that have happened in my family that affected me indirectly, the pandemic so far may have been the least stressful period of my life. I stopped taking stimulants (ritalin) a couple of months after the pandemic started (I was getting more side effects than positive ones at that point, even with tiny doses), and now I'm phasing out my daily dose of sedatives (alprazolam), since the side effects of ritalin were the main reason why I took it anyway.

I can be "about to clean my room" for literally months. I don't understand it, to be honest. It doesn't make any logical sense, but it's how it is. I try to avoid postponing cleaning that much, because I'm in my room a lot of the time, so I'll be remembering it on and off all the time, and it will bother me more and more with time, even though chances are I still won't do it anyway. Sometimes I semi-randomly get something done without telling myself I'll do it (especially as a "2nd or 3rd thing on the list" kind of situation), but I rarely if ever get things done just because I told myself I would. I need to trick myself into it, and that goes for almost every little thing.

I never rely on my memory for things that need to be remembered at a specific time. I will forget them. I don't even consider the possibility that I won't, and I plan everything accordingly. I leave everything just the right way so that objects in my way/my sight will stick out and remind me of what needs to be remembered when it needs to be remembered (and/or when I know I'll actually be more likely to do it). I also use Gmail as my one and only digital assistant (I absolutely love the "snooze" feature, I use it a lot, including a lot of messages I send to myself). I try to keep my inbox clean, so any messages in there automatically "stick out".

From my perspective, ADHD is actually my main disability. It's a full-time job. It also seems to be far more visible than whatever else I have (as an adult, at least). When I first went to see a psychiatrist, he didn't think I had autism (he was quick to note that "I had good eye contact"), and I didn't think I had it either (I never actually liked routine, it's only a practical necessity to me, and it really doesn't come naturally). He was immediately convinced I had ADHD though. "I think I have ADHD. Do you think I have it?" "Oh yeah, you have it. Combined type. I can see it myself, it's pretty obvious."

As a child, I guess autism was more pronounced instead, because I just didn't like to play with other children, and I got good grades. But ADHD was always there, it's not hard to see in retrospect.


I think this makes it unlikely that you have hyperactive- or combined-type ADHD (though inattentive-type is anyone's guess...). Do you like unusually "high-energy" music and listen to it while doing quiet/slow/boring things, or do you fidget a lot, or something like that? If not, then I think hyper/combined is even less likely.

Talking over other people is something I still do. I often realize almost immediately that I'm doing it, but it's kinda hard to avoid or control if I'm interested in the conversation at all. If people get annoyed at me for it, my gut reaction is to be annoyed that they're "annoyed that I'm interested in the conversation", though I know it's silly.

OK, ability to actually read the title of the thread: nil. I don't have ADHD. Whoops. Just venting a bit- there's the "positive" stereotype of the super-neat and organised aspie, which couldn't be less like me.

That is me. Even if I know other people can and will be late, I can't be late. (It's my ASD-like daughter also. My ADHD-like son does not have that concern. In fact he likes to be on the later side. I am ASD-diagnosed and ADHD-like.)