Overactivity

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When I was a kid I was misdiagnosed with just ADHD, the Autism wasn't something their radar was trained on. And I'm a girl, so it might still have been missed. I now know that ADHD and Autism can occur together. I was hyper, but I could always sleep.
Fast forward 40+ years and I have one child and several grandkids who are on the spectrum. Several, in fact most, have sleep issues. I also work with Autistic kids and not only do their family members report severe sleep disturbance, but these kids just cannot sit down. It's like there's a battery pack inside of them and they just roam constantly, seemingly aimlessly ( they may have a destination only they know about, I guess ). I can't remember if my hyperactivity was as severe as theirs is, I wish I could've seen a video of what I was like. I know that I was impulsive.
This behavior is the hardest for me to take. I find myself wondering how these kids aren't rail thin, or why they don't simply drop from exhaustion? It's like Mania that I have witnessed in patient's with Bipolar. I've also Googled these things and most of the articles are related to sleep only, I haven't found anything that really addresses the overactivity, or what to do about it. Maybe I see my young self in these kids and that's why it's so hard for me to be around it. I just want to say wtf?! You're not trying to get anything, you're not going anywhere so will you please just stop moving for 5 minutes?
I know that's not very nice but it's the way I feel. As painful as some of the memories are, sometimes I think I'm glad they didn't diagnose me until age 50. I got my ass whipped for squirming, I don't think it helped my state one bit. But, I often wonder if that wasn't the reason I was able to pass as neurotypical, for so long.

I also wonder what I was truly like as a kid. It's very difficult to see into the past and my memory is sketchy.
I was also forced with violence and threats of violence into behaving in inauthentic ways. And that probably contributed to me passing as normal.
I struggle with slowing myself down these days. Always doing something. I need to just breathe more!

I can relate. Unfortunately, I slowed myself down with Opiates and became addicted. I'm coming up on 9 years clean and I have begun to allow myself to move again. I'm always mowing, cleaning, doing something useful. I also learn new subjects better when I'm moving. My own overactivity drove my family crazy when I was little, I think they might have hated me.

When I was a child I would never stop moving. It often seemed completely purposeless to other people, but I usually always had a "reason", even if it was to just pace around and get some stimulation by moving. I still have a hard time holding still as an adult, but I have "self control" now, so I do my best to force myself to stay put.

I also have always had sleeping problems. I can be exhausted mentally and physically, and I still find it hard to get asleep and stay asleep for more than an hour, so I wake up frequently during the night. I really have no idea why, though. Sometimes I think that my brain itself just won't calm down enough to let me get proper sleep.