This chart was especially helpful for me - for sorting my traits into categories, because I don’t fit well into any single one. It explains how I was able to fly under the radar for over 30 years: by compensating each with the other two, at the cost of permanent stress and anxiety.

The extremely short version of my story is: Too good grades to be considered ADHD. Too much executive dysfunction to fulfill the expectations placed upon me for scoring high on intelligence tests. Too impulsive and thrillseeking to be considered Autistic.

  • narnachEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    It’s an interesting puzzle to see which things/symptoms you have vs which you have learned to cope/mask for, or which cancel each other outwardly but exist as internal contradictions.

    Most of the pure gifted and overlapping segments resonate, but the more isolated ones for ADHD and autism resonate much less. Makes sense, giftedness is a given for me, and allows me to compensate for a lot of other things (even if it costs me more energy than regular folks). It’s why I’m only now really considering the other aspects at age 37.

    My (computer) analogy is that it feels like my brain CPU has many cores and is overclocked, so much more powerful than a regular single core CPU regular folks have, but social interactions are something other folks have the equivalent of a dedicated graphics card for while I must simulate them on that overclocked CPU. It sort of approximates getting the job done, but it takes a lot of energy for a worse result.

    • Agamemnon@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      I’ll not read too much into the computer analogy. It will become problematic, when people spin that further. But I get what you mean.

      If you don’t mind me asking: What was the ultimate cause to make you look into Neurodiversity this late in life?

      • narnachEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        My wife was diagnosed with ADHD last year, so I’ve read up on the topic and recognized a bunch of things in myself, but also found things that did not resonate as much. Then I encountered the concept of auDHD and that resonated more.

        Parallel to this I’ve been stuck in a low energy state for too long, so I’m looking to address that. The question is how. Digging deeper into neurodivergence is how I’m doing research on likely causes before picking a specialist to help me diagnose/rule things out. I’ve seen too many folks go down wrong rabbit holes based on not getting the right help.

        • Agamemnon@lemmy.worldOPMEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          Sounds similar to my approach when I began researching about autism. But back then I was already in therapy. And all they really did was nod and agree with my analysis. 😅

          Good luck in finding a competent specialist. Because I know a few people that didn’t go down the wrong rabbit hole by themselves - they were thrown in by “experts”.

          • narnachEnglish
            2·
            1 year ago

            Thanks!

            Yeah, my wife was initially diagnosed with depression instead of ADHD so I’ve seen that up close. Over a year of antidepressants that in the end just gave her non-stop panic attacks. Proper diagnosis and medication really helped her, as well as a group therapy thing.

            I’ve got my eye on a clinical psychology center that focuses on giftedness, and has experts in various fields, like ADHD and ASD on staff. I figure that’s a solid start compared to random psychologists.