Living with AuDHD (Autism and ADHD)

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Imagine having a brain that is at constant war with itself. Desperate to fit in, yet determined to escape social situations. Obsessively creating complex structures for stability, but just as predictably smashing them all up. Chronically overwhelmed, yet unable to say no.

That’s the reality of living with both ADHD and autism. The two conditions might seem at odds with each other but can, as experts are increasingly realising, coexist and lead to non-stop internal conflict.

Until 2013, autism and ADHD couldn’t be diagnosed in the same person. Today, researchers have found that there is a 50 to 70 per cent crossover between these neurodevelopmental conditions, which is increasingly being referred to as AuDHD.

I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of 25 after spending a year ruminating daily over the best way to end my life, moving to a different country every month and quitting any job that I started. The diagnosis helped me make sense of my life, but it didn’t seem to fully fit with my experience.

Now, six years later, I finally have the missing piece of the puzzle: an autism diagnosis.

It might sound like a diagnosis too far for most people, but I was relieved. It explained an awful lot about my life to date and why I’ve always struggled with social situations.

Relationships have always confused me
As a child, I questioned why we had to visit family at Christmas just because we share DNA. The answer of “because they’ll always be there for you” felt transactional and has shaped how I have approached every relationship since.

I’ve spent my life figuring out how to be useful to people in a relentlessly exhausting trade for companionship. I constantly regulate everything – from forcing myself to make the “right” amount of eye contact, to saying the “right” things – but I never stick to my own pre-planned script. ADHD impulsivity sees me veering off course, often saying the wrong thing and then beating myself up over it for hours afterwards.

I’ve lost count of how many people have stopped talking to me for reasons I’ll never know. Group settings are even worse, as competing demands overwhelm me to the point where I often hide in the bathroom, my brain ready to explode.

Turning off the ADHD ‘noise’ with alcohol
After moving abroad at the age of 13, I discovered a way to turn off the constant AuDHD radio of thoughts blasting in my head. Getting paralytically drunk seemed to turn my brain off, at least temporarily. This coping strategy lasted until I was diagnosed with ADHD; I would kick social interactions off with a tequila shot wherever possible.

The lack of inhibition associated with ADHD saw my teenage self drinking cocktails abandoned by strangers and picked up off the tables in bars. The loud, crowded clubs left me chronically overstimulated because of my autism. The sensory overload was so intense that I’d often fall asleep right in the middle of the noise – a shutdown response when my brain simply couldn’t cope. It wasn’t unusual for my friends to find me curled up next to a thumping speaker.

However, this didn’t just happen in clubs. One time my friends spent an entire night looking for me in a pub before eventually finding me passed out under a pile of coats. It doesn’t matter whether it’s noise, lights or simply the intensity of being around people; any of this can lead to overstimulation – then shutdown. I often fell asleep in class, in the cinema and even whilst out for dinner.

I hated modelling, but I was unable to quit. My autism thrived on the predictability of receiving a daily email at 6pm that outlined my schedule for the next day. The routine provided both the structure that my mind craved and kept my ADHD brain engaged with dopamine, novelty and adrenaline.

Outsourcing my personal agency could be relaxing because it meant that someone else was in control of my life and, therefore, the “small” decisions that caused me so much stress because of my ADHD, such as what to eat for lunch. On jobs, I usually just had to do or mimic whatever the people around me said, and I wasn’t expected to talk.

However, it was also extremely stressful because my ADHD struggled with the monotony of being a human coat hanger. I had to hide the hyperactivity of my internal experience and force my face to stay calm as my mind felt like it was on fire, exploding with racing thoughts.

It was only when I was diagnosed with ADHD that everything changed. It felt like I finally had the guide to life that everybody else seemed to have. The diagnosis enabled me to access medication, which, in turn, enabled me to stop self-medicating with alcohol. After completing a law degree, I eventually got a job in law; I was determined to “hack” my ADHD by getting ahead of it.

Struggling with office life
Getting to the office was a hurdle in itself, and so I rented a flat that was over the road from it so that I didn’t have to travel every day. Although I didn’t know I was autistic at the time, I did know that I couldn’t cope with public transport during rush hour; I regularly had panic attacks if I thought I was going to be late. AuDHD impacts executive functioning skills, such as time management, which meant that I was often late, and so a flat opposite the office felt like the most sensible option, even if the rent was extortionate.

However, I wasn’t prepared for how stressful I’d find working in an office. The lights, the noise and the open-plan environment made me constantly on edge. On top of that, I was constantly worrying about making a mistake. I would beg my bewildered manager not to fire me and provide her with 15-page reports detailing everything I’d done that week for our catch ups.

I struggled to say the right thing and had difficulty regulating my behaviour. For example, one colleague used to speak very loudly in the kitchen next to my desk, which I found very distracting. One day, I snapped and impulsively emailed them to ask them to stop talking so loudly because no one cared about their weekend, only realising that this was a mistake once I’d pressed send. The mortification when they responded, cc’ing in both of our managers and the Culture Code, was like nothing I have ever experienced. It’s no excuse, but it’s an example of how undiagnosed AuDHD can contribute to these situations. Eventually, two and a half years later, I quit to become an ADHD coach and write a book.

Women are far less likely to be diagnosed with autism or ADHD
When I told my therapist that I thought I was autistic, she dismissed it because I was nothing like the autistic children that she worked with. I accepted this at face value, just as I accepted doctors telling me that I was fine (before I was diagnosed with ADHD) because I had a law degree – a symptom of autism is literal thinking.

Autism makes all relationships harder to navigate and also makes you more vulnerable to abuse. Like nine out of 10 autistic women, I have been a victim of sexual violence, including being groomed at the age of 15 by a man 10 years older than me.

When I contacted the police after being harassed by an ex-partner, they asked me a list of mandatory questions that they ask about relationships that could involve coercive and controlling behaviour. I answered “yes” to every single one. I’d been in a relationship where I’d been told what to wear, do and see, whether I could take medication, and even whether I could drink coffee, and yet I hadn’t realised that this was wrong.

Thanks to societal conditioning, women are far less likely to be diagnosed with autism or ADHD than men. Women tend to mask symptoms so that our struggles are less noticeable to others.

This is the truth of living with AuDHD, especially for women like me, who’ve spent their entire lives hiding their symptoms as a way to survive. I felt like I had to monitor every part of who I was, terrified of unintentionally doing something wrong because I could never understand the rules that everybody else seemed to know.

Our society is increasingly stigmatising neurodivergence, associating it with people seeking disability benefits and using it as a justification for poor behaviour. However, the reality is that these labels enable people to take responsibility for themselves, reclaim agency over their lives and contribute meaningfully to our society.

It is easy to view AuDHD as a convenient excuse for personal failings. However, if I’d had this diagnosis earlier when I was growing up, I would have been far less vulnerable to the harm inflicted by others. Instead of shaming the individuals seeking help, we should focus on the broken systems that allow so many people to go undiagnosed for so long. AuDHD isn’t an excuse, but it can be a life-changing lens to explain our experiences.

Ultimately, these labels enable people to “name it to tame it” – far from marking themselves as victims, they’re survivors of a world that wasn’t designed for them.

I’ve lived with ADHD and autism all my life – this is what it’s like to have both


A very enlightening article. While I knew it is common that people have both conditions I have never seen and article about what it is like to be neurodivergent in this way and I did not know it had a name.