I’ve been putting off this one about ADHD and autism as it's such a massive area. But the two conditions are often associated and go together (commonly referred to as Audhd if you have both).
As well as having commonalities they are seemingly contradictory, so you can see why some people might offer criticism and I have no answer for this. For example, autistics need their set routines with people whereas people with ADHD find it hard to stick to routines, so critics say 'oh well that covers every behaviour, doesn’t it?'. I don't have an answer except to say that people with one or other or both conditions tend to be at the extreme of such traits.
When I was diagnosed with autism, my assessor mentioned the possibility of ADHD (which I was also diagnosed with a few months later) but said they mask each other. This may also cause conflict where the autistic side of a person may need to be on their own but the ADHD side needs company and to be sociable. One is, in effect, masking the other making it difficult to know where one begins and the other ends. So if autism is predominant, the resistance to change will usually drive the behaviour whereas if ADHD is predominant then seeking change and resistance to routines will be predominant.
I think it can also change with age. For instance, when I was in my teens through to my 30s. I wanted change and to experiment with different things. I wanted to break out of routines - I probably made myself do it to some extent, and some of it was avoidance eg from certain jobs - but I felt it was the time to do it when I was younger. But as I’ve got older, I’ve reverted to type. Autism type maybe!
Another example is music. When I was a child I only had a few records (singles) which I would play to death, and the same when I got a new album so I'd have to listen to the same artists. I don’t know if this is an ADHD thing but for decades I've preferred variety in music and listening to different artists side-by-side. if I’m listening to my music on iTunes I like the surprise of not knowing what's coming up next and put it on shuffle.
Another example I was discussing with a friend in Messenger was about people who always holiday in exactly the same place and the same hotel year after year. Yes, I have gone back to the same towns or seaside places I’ve liked but I almost never go back to the same accommodation in the same place. I like to have a different experience each time.
Another example: my autistic self is quite a stickler for spelling and grammar but my ADHD self makes lots of errors and has a blind spot with some words and rules.
As I say, critics may rightly argue that we we all fit into one or the other, that's it's a catch-all. But although they're seemingly opposite, maybe they're two sides of the same coin, a bit like anxiety and depression which can both present very differently even though a lot of people have them both together. They may just have a tendency to get one more than the other although people use them interchangeably. But I think anxiety presents very different. I tend more to this greatly. When I'm in an anxiety state I’m on hyper alert, I'm jittery, my thoughts are racing, adrenal is careering around my body. While I’m not saying there aren't many symptoms for depression too, they're very slowed down. Then again, after a prolonged period of anxiety you can be slowed down too because your adrenal system is burnt out and spent. But it’s not necessarily that you’re depressed.
As you can see, it's all very complicated and I've not got my head around it yet myself, so I can see how other people might be confused too. Anyway, I’ll probably return to this as it's such a big area .
But what are your thoughts? Please do leave your comments below.
Many thanks
Very interesting. I think autism and adhd are very linked, 2 sides of a condition. When I lived in boscombe, initially, I liked the routine of marks and spencers every day and walking down the same street, which was an autistic thing, but after a while, it drove me to despair, and made me want big change, different people and a new place, which we eventually got which I believe was the adhd taking over at the time.
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