PDD-NOS or AS & inattentive ADHD question.

Post Reply New Topic

I am going to try and elaborate as much as possible while trying not to be too confusing. My main question is somewhat of a mix between whether or not I should look into a diagnoses for AS or PDD-NOS, and whether or not anyone thinks or knows of a link between ADD, adderal, and autism. Mainly because when I take adderall my PDD like symptoms are multiplied by a significant amount. I will give a back story and the main point. I figure you could skip the back story if you want to just get to what information I can list about what symptoms of autism that I appear to have. Thanks


BACK STORY:

My mother described me, as a child, as easy. She said I was very quiet, didn't cry, and liked to be off doing my own thing. She said if she went to pick me up while I was busy doing something that I would get upset and make a fuss. And that I never really cried when her other children would, or needed any attention or praise. I had what I think is normal speech developement according to her and began to babble words like, " dada, nye nye (night-night), mama " at six months. Single words with a mild vocabulary at nine months, small sentences at a year, and speaking fairly well at about 1.5 years. At which time my mother and father split up, and I was exclusively in my fathers custody. My father said I did things like twirl my hair and suck my thumb all the time, sat in my crib without complaint, and generally was just quiet and easy going. Granted my father had no prior child raising experience. So I won't use much of his, " I dunno... a normal kid. " responses.

I was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD and OCD, first with ADD by a shrink and psychiatrist, and a few years later another shrink diagnosed me with ADD/OCD and I was prescribed adderall, to which I hated and took on and off via my dads wishes and mother constant disapproval of it, and took it on and off until about age 10. At which I transferred from a class size at a private catholic school of about twelve kids to a public school with about 30. Thirty kids that didn't like me, and who I failed to befriend or enjoy. After spending 4th and 5th grade utterly miserable, nearly friendless, and with what I would refer to best as extraordinarily bad depersonalization disorder and depression... I decided I couldn't do it anymore.

So I didn't go back to school. I didn't do anything really besides play video games online and sleep during the day... and rarely hung out with my friends, or had periods of hanging out with them that were very brief to the point where I only remember one or two instances. So yeah, for the most part I was indoors for three months and only left for the dentist, my braces, and doctor appointments. I also generally enjoyed myself. I had a few great friends online whom I played videogames with and who were also mature (roughly 7-10 years older than myself). I played video games with them, talked with them, and essentially lived in the internet while never touching any schoolwork. Over this period of time my OCD slowly disappeared, too.

After that reclusive episode I decided to go to high school and play football... and all that good stuff. This choice came from a realization that I could not just hide forever, and that high school was generally important for social growth and future advancements... but yeah. At the start of high school I had zero real friends, and the only friends I really had at all were the ones that I grew up with since seven years old... two out of the three were in my grade. Though playing football, wrestling, and track... and playing them fairly well I had started to hang out with my first group of friends. From those friend, throughout the course of high school, I've learned to become FAR less awkward through an intense and semi subconscious analysis of peoples reactions, their styles of humor, responses, etc. and migrated from the athletic group to the older more drug and music oriented group. And hung out with those people, mostly older kids and the few ones FAR older. Until My last semester in high school when I realized that I preferred the idea of college over jail and being with those type of people.

At the end of high school I had heard stories about me from people I had never met, people recognized me by my nickname, and I for the most part did not understand why, or ever really care. Although, regardless of my ability to give people a positive impression, I have never really made any good friends until my transfer to MTU. Even the good friends that I make become distant through my lack of maintenance. And even now I have a hard time not alienating myself from them... recently being the worst case due to my first technical girlfriend living 100 miles away from campus and requiring a drive every weekend since Jan. 14th.

TO THE MAIN POINT: (Sorry about the length of that first part... just figured I would give a lot of details)

I have really only started to take adderall normally since I arrived at MTU. What I have noticed a lot lately, with the help of my girlfriend, is that I fit a lot of the categories for PDD-NOS, and that while on adderall I show far far more intense symptoms. I had noticed this effect the other times when I tried to take it to help me... like when I first got to high school, and again when I first got to college... but both times I ended up hating how it changed me over being able to study a thousand times more efficiently. How it changed me was by amplifying the characteristic of myself that I will try to describe below by like 70%.

Firstly, in general, I have absolutely no idea how to properly maintain eye contact. I speak in a very monotone voice and people who do not know me well often think I am upset or very angry. I try to give facial expressions to clue in my meaning, but really I have no idea how to look outside of odd expressions either good for illustrating humor or good intentions. In a serious argument I do not know what to do besides quell the situation, I never get upset at a person berating me and just tend to analyze the persons reasons and logic then try to quell the situation. I am somewhat terrible at expressing affection as well. and can't remember the last time I've told anyone that I love them, regardless of it being true or not. While I do care deeply, I do not understand or feel comfortable in expressing affection at all. I react awkwardly to friends attempts at hugs, never really understood why the hell you would shake hands outside of it just being an expression similar to removing your hat in appropriate situations. My expressions when I am not being conscious of them is referred to as very cold and intimidating... while I am not in any way feeling that way. In photos people say I look furious or " like I want to kill someone " when no matter how I look I don't see how they get that... my blank expression is considered " furious " by other people.

From what I have read of the communication aspect of it... well, I suppose this near essay length ... essay... thing... is a fair representation of how I say far too much on a topic and, recently brought to my attention, tend to dominate conversations when I talk about things that I am passionate about. I talk about them too quickly, I use almost constant metaphors while not giving people time to catch up, and very few people can understand some of the more complex/imaginative things that I talk about without me sort of guiding them through a written version. In normal conversation I am accused of being insensitive... and when I ask why or in what way they usually do not have an answer. Which of course gives me no way to really assess it. In normal small talk conversation I am blatantly uncomfortable and bad at it. I cannot do long phone conversations... I just don't get it, especially with a girl in a gossip fashion... I suppose small talk in general is absolutely not my thing, I can do it and sort of display faux engagement, but I usually dislike it a lot... and most of the time I just throw out what I figure are appropriate responses like a short laugh, asking them a question about a particular point, and anything to lower my level of involvement in the gossip, but I almost always do listen.

I can't think of anything else that may be helpful at the moment... but would appreciate questions that may stir them out of me. And of course any query/responses given in general. Sorry if this has gaps of logic or is confusing in certain areas. I can address any of those too, but when it comes to writing like this I tend to burn out and edit too much... then stop myself before I totally ruin it. Anyway, thanks for your time and patience if you did read it.

ADD and autism commonly occur together, but many people have just one or the other.

You do have some PDD-like traits, yes. I don't know whether they are enough for diagnosis, but generally, ask yourself, "Are these traits getting in the way of me living my life?" If so, there's reason to look into it.

Why would your PDD-like traits increase on Adderal? I don't know, but here's some thoughts:

--Side effects are causing physical or mental stress for you; you compensate by pulling resources from other areas like socializing or maintaining proper body language.

--Some people feel less creative on Adderal; maybe you're losing some creativity while you're on it, and that happens to be what you use to keep up the "normal act".

--If Adderal allows you to focus on what you want to focus on, as it should, then maybe you are simply prioritizing what you want to focus on--probably schoolwork, since that's why you're taking it. People on the autism spectrum can be a little bit obsessive anyway... how I would love to be able to point my obsessiveness where I wanted it to go!

You sound like me. Different era and gender, so the details worked out differently. I secretly want to dominate every conversation, but I know no one whats to hear what I have to say. I was never diagnosed as a kid -- they acted like I was a problem, but wouldn't name it. A high school teacher said I was intimidating, and that I had a "superior attitude," whatever that is. When I try to soften it, I just look like an idiot and an easy target.

Adderall -- bad news. I ditched it, along with the few other things I tried. I felt like continuing it would have been hazardous to my health. I forget which drugs to blame, but I got some weirdo symptoms that lasted for a couple of years after I stopped taking the stuff. I don't believe they know what they're doing, and I don't trust them any more than I would trust the drug dealer on the corner. (Actually, I trust the shrinks less than the drug dealers for knowledge and honesty, but the legal stuff has quality control, so I guess it's even.)
I would like to use the Adderall once in a while, for important days, but they act like that's a terrible idea.

As far as allowing me to focus where I want to focus... it's a really long explanation to get across the idea of how the ADD works on my thoughts... so I will just try to sum it up. If you would like more detail I can help. Anyway...Adderall allows me to focus in a sense like if you put up a shield or filter against thoughts. My brain can apparently apply this shield in a form of super focusing where I can see it in my head as if I were the screen in a matrix movie. Without interest in the topic that shield does not exist and cannot be forced outside of a very weak attempt. So it's like my subconscious interest in the subject is directly related to how much I can really think about it. And my interest in the subject is so random that I don't even know what I am interested in... goes from forestry, to videogames, to movies, to writing short stories, to writing theories, etc. And it never stays the same for too long period of time, just has more frequent re-occuring themes.

So with adderall that shield is always up, and the problem always reminds me of when I had significant OCD. While it does let me focus, it's like once adderall stops the ADD from working then my OCD comes back. And whichever of my... I guess you could call them obsessions... is most prominent, is what I am studying until I am satisfied with my progress or the effect settles off enough for me to break the hold and turn my attention. With that ability and focus is where the obsession comes out. It's like I have to do as much of it as I can before I lose the ability, and often that fear distracts me from studying what I really should. The obsessions are usually pretty much the same too, they all relate with intelligence and an attempt to understand intelligence. The less relative what I have to study is to cognition equals the stronger the OCD related feeling to go back and get all the things I can out of my brief clarity.

Yeah, a lot of times people think I am just giving a " better than you attitude " when I talk about things I enjoy or I'm good at... which I understand why they would think that, but at the same time I don't understand it. It may just be my inability to read people... because I know I'm bad at relating to people on things like affection, or group mentality, or understanding. I.E. clapping, dancing, being " wild " at party's, hugging, etc... those never mean a thing to me, and I have no idea how to tell what people think of me based off just looks or body language, but what I can do is analyze their patterns in how they respond or talk to me. I do like 95% of my communicating online, and over the years have learned to detect peoples intentions or meanings through the differences in their speech patterns.

So when I talk about something positive about myself, opposed to their idea of me, it's almost always the same sort of feigned appreciation with a sense of total lack of care. And they either try to downplay whatever I am saying as if it's nothing special. I.E. when I got a 3.7 in my first semester of college with 16 credits some of my friends strait up didn't believe me, and others pulled crap like saying ," well yeah... but you probably had easy classes". If I talk about how I had to talk to a prof and explain that I did all my chem work in my head... their responses seemed like they suddenly just didn't want to talk to me, even though they asked all the questions leading to the response. It's not like I just bust up to people I don't know that well and tell them that I am exceptionally good at something. Or even just start a conversation with a friend ranting about how awesome I am. It seems like they just hate the fact that I can do a lot of these things so easily that it upsets them instead of making them happy for me. So I've learned to either just hold it back and say AS LITTLE about me as possible, or just talk about it with like the two people that I trust to not give depressing responses.

So yeah, I also don't enjoy adderall at all, but the difference is extraordinarily significant. And one of the main problems is that while on it my self monitoring is out the window. And it really messes things up because I don't consider that some of the things I am just blurting out could come off as arrogant or elitest when I really don't intend them to be like that... I mean it's just how they are in general. And like you said... trying to just soften it up or make it look less impressive is really frustrating because then they almost always sort of downplay it as much as possible in their response. And after a lifetime of having " not smart " pressed into my head by my friends and teachers, to prove them totally wrong, and not be allowed to talk about it, is frustrating in the least.

I think I have a reasonable explanation for why adderall or any medication with methylphenidate in it causes increased symptoms for autistics in general. Adderall stimulates dopamine, a powerful neurotransmitter, which causes the brain to go into overdrive and communication between different parts of the brain increases. Unfortunately, this also includes the brain cells that process information from the outside world. Autism is basically the result of increased or decreased sensory information the brain is processing. For instance, speech delay is likely caused by the brain not processing sounds and voices which is why a lot of us needed some or a lot of speech therapy. Stimming, like when we flap or rock or anything we do, is likely the result of too much touch sensitivity that's likely making our skin feel strange and uncomfortable.

I remember when I took adderall for my A.D.H.D (inattentive) and all of my autism symptoms, sensitivity to noises, lights, and or course, the marathons I have to run up in my room to make my skin stop crawling increased. I also started getting nasty headaches so my mom took me off it.

It seems we're still rather inferior in the ideal treatment of multiple neurological syndromes at once. Just stating the obvious there.

Gweezle

One thing I have noticed regarding drug interaction with people who are legitimately helped by narcotic medicine used in treatment of disorders is that the patient doesn't actually develop a resistance to the drug. That and the response to the drug varies from typical or " normal " people. As where a lot of normal people would give me a lot of money or possibly go further for my adderall, I personally enjoy nothing about the drug, and if I take it on a regular basis for too long I begin to lose my mind, and thats with proper dosage, adequate sleep and nutrition.

Now, while adderall may fill in and help one portion of my brain... you also have to consider that stiches aren't really the proper medical solution to a stabbing victim with chest wounds from a seven inch knife. One of the most significant problems is that our ability to treat mental wounds and illnesses was about as effective as our ability to treat physical ones in the 1700's.

Sometimes like in my case you have symptoms of both. I am like sorta border line. There are 500000000000 different dx wars.

Good one. May I use that?

I have an analogy that's a little awkward:
I've had glasses since around the age of 10 or so, but I only use them when necessary.
I sometimes use them when driving, depending on where I'm going or the time of day (and they help with glare and depth perception at night). I drive without them more often than not. I certainly take them off when reading or using the computer, rather than trying to force my eyes to double-adapt to a cure that is not necessary in different situations. At the age of 20 or so, I barely passed a driving test without glasses. Today I would probably not exactly pass, but I would be close.
My brothers and my son also had glasses from an early age and they simply wore them all the time. Their prescriptions got stronger, to the point where they look like coke bottles.

I suspect that Adderal would be similar, in that it would be helpful on some days and harmful on other days. Has anyone tried using it that way, and why do the shrinks think it would be bad?

Yes you can use that... although replace "was about as effective" with "is about as effective" ... typo on my part.

As far as the glasses to adderall analogy... I think the answer is a bit complicated from my point of view. As your glasses manipulate how the information is received and encoded. It also removes your eyes need to stress and work harder to adapt. To me your brothers and your sons condition somewhat remind me of the " fat man " condition, where they go from overweight to 1000lbs and bedridden. They simply removed the body's requirements of exercise to maintain their condition. So while you never let your eyes just sit around and get "fat", the men you mentioned may have let that happen... but that's just speculation, I'm sure it's more complex than that.

With adderall I think the mechanisms for it are slightly different. Possibly even the inverse for a lot of people where instead of it letting the mind weaken it lets the mind over work. Inattentive ADD seems, at least for me, to be my brains way of managing itself and subconsciously refraining from over working. When I take adderall as prescribed for too long I quickly remember what it's like to be mentally fatigued to the point of confusion, not from lack of sleep or nutrition though, just from overworking my mind. What happens in two days of adderall taking, where I do not digress from constant intense thought, has only happened to me while I was off adderall once. Which was when I decided to stay awake for as long as I could, using counter-strike (a first person shooter computer game online) as my main source of keeping my brain active and awake. So 62 hours of constant intense stimulation from videogames with no rest and very few breaks is what it takes for my uninhibited ADD mind to fatigue, opposed to two days and 24ish hours of constant study and intense thought with appropriate sleep on while taking adderall normally.

It's very common. Some psychologists recommend it. Many ADHD kids go off their meds on the weekends and in the evenings.

However, Adderal isn't like glasses, in that you can still learn how not to need it while you're taking it, by learning organization techniques that compensate for inattentiveness and such. In fact, this is probably the best way to work with moderate to severe ADHD--medicate while teaching. Eventually, you may be able to reduce the dose, or even phase medication out altogether.

(Parenting classes are also important--parents of ADHD kids require more skills than they would for typical children.)

This thread somewhat helps explain my Adderall nervous breakdown...I think...

um..

howyousay...

That is what I tried to do. learn coping strategies while on Adderall that I could use while not on it. Could work in theory. It did not quite work out that way for me though.