@auticulate: “Autism + ADHD in one brain = Internalised Chaos (the Autism wants routine and the ADHD wants spontaneity).
Add to this external chaos (Hostile environments including people and policies) and you get extreme and debilitating demand avoidance.
Then add to this complex post traumatic stress disorder caused by many years of unmet needs, hostile environments and wrong labels = AuDHD with trauma. [include Depression, AuDHD Burnout]”
Source: https://x.com/auticulate/
Category: Wisdom
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Autism & ADHD in One Brain | @auticulate
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“What you’ve been waiting for” — Jason Feifer
“You’re waiting for something. And the waiting is excruciating. What are you waiting for?
Could be anything — a project in limbo, a thing you pitched, a decision from someone, a response to your email.
Whatever it is, you cannot let it go. You think about it. You obsess over it. It distracts you from other work. It absorbs your happiness.
Today, I’m going to give you a way to separate yourself. To claw back some mental energy. To just give yourself a break.”
Source: What you’ve been waiting for
Although I’ve historically been a pretty patient chap, there are certain types of ‘waiting’ that I find unbearable.
It’s typically when I’m having to wait in busy, loud, chaotic environment; numerous times I’ve just had to leave the queue, due to my Social Anxiety quickly becoming quite beastly.
I also don’t fair well when the waiting involves an ‘unknown’, such as: waiting for my car to go through an MOT, waiting to see my GP or Psychiatrist, waiting for any kind of news/information that has no timescale and is out of my control.
Whilst taking Propananol and/or Diazepam can help reduce the rawness of the anxiety, my head and body still put me through the ringer.
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Nicole Filippone on Late Diagnosed Autism
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Nicole Filippone on X: “Just to be clear, being late diagnosed, high masking, lower support needs, with highly internalized autistic traits often means our autism doesn’t “look” like autism to anyone… even medical/psychological professionals. It doesn’t mean our autistic traits aren’t visible at all.”
About Nicole Filippone: Advocate & Author @sensorystories_ Connecting dots about autism and related neurodivergent conditions. Free resources available on my website.
The closest to being correctly diagnosed with AuDHD, was 20 years ago, when I was missdiagnosed with Bipolar, after a Breakdown, by a private psychiatrist. This lead to an immediate admission into a private clinic for 6 weeks. I was subsequently medicated for Bipolar for 3 years, which was probably the worst period of my life, in terms of medication.It now astounds me that only at age of 53 have I been diagnosed with AuDHD, and even that was after a Mental Health Crisis (suicidal) last October, and the NHS psychiatrist, after an admission assessment, told me I was on the both spectrums.
It’s been hell, and continues to be. I can no longer mask, even to fake a ‘hello’ or smile. I’m totally burnt out, and have no capacity to fake anything, other than just try and exist through each day, whilst trying to come to terms with the dual diagnosis and trying ADHD medications.
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Rank Theory — an Evolutionary Theory of Depression
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Depression has been an integral part of all my adult life, starting from around the age of 18 when I was first put on antidepressants.
Rank Theory has always intrigued me, and it makes sense in many scenarios. It’s worth looking into if you are also struggling with periods of depression.
“Rank Theory is an evolutionary theory of depression, developed by Anthony Stevens and John Price, and proposes that depression promotes the survivalof genes.
Depression is an adaptive response to losing status (rank) and losing confidence in the ability to regain it. Unlike other evolutionary explanations of depression, rank theory is able to explain why depression is incapacitating…”
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/
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Signs you’re in Survival Mode | @heybobbibanks
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Signs you’re in survival mode, found on X by @heybobbibanks
Speaking from considerable and numerous experiences, throughout my life, this is a handy starting point; identify if you’re struggling:
- Little things can set you off & feel overwhelming
- You feel like you’re existing rather than living
- You feel more tired physically & emotionally
- Your memory & concentration are suffering
- You feel a lack of motivation & passion
- You want to withdraw & isolate from others
You feel out of control & anxious
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Burden of Undiagnosed ADHD
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The hidden burden of undiagnosed ADHD is needing to invent excuses in an attempt to explain or justify behavior you don’t even understand yourself.
Source: https://x.com/adhdjesse/
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AuDHD Late Diagnosis Grief Process
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Bewilderment, non acceptance, tears.
The “wait a minute” moment…
Realising a lot of your life has been a lie, fighting battles with your mind and body that you were never going to win.
Losing friends, relatives, jobs along the way, now starts to makes more sense
Anger, frustration, shame and guilt, with immense uncertainty going forward.
Questioning and reliving numerous past events; relentless rage and grief at a life lost.
Existential dread and profound identity crisis; if I’m not the person I’ve tried to be, then who am I now, and going forward?
Continues to dwell on the past, whilst simultaneously worrying about the present and future.
Rinse and repeat.
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Pathological Demand Avoidance
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Definition: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I first came across this term when I was browsing the subreddits for ADHD and Autism . After reading more about it I realised belatedly (in my 50s) that I have been coping with this my entire life.
Strangely just finding a name to something formerly ambiguous can bring a little clarity, along with grief.
Grief: for all the blame, self-blame, guilt. shame, exhaustion I could have avoided if I had known earlier. But I feel like as a 70s kid it is not so much a late diagnosis, but rather we had to wait for the world to become more aware.
I have various Autistic and ADHD symptoms, but I consider this one of the most disabling in my life. I am still paying for the consequences now, such as facing dental bills for the rest of my life because I refused to brush my teeth as a child. That is just teeth, and to an extent can be solved with money, but what about all the psychological trauma that came with the inability to do important things, and with it the labels of being lazy and irresponsible being plastered all over me for the formative years of my life?
I still have strong negative feelings for myself till today. It is strange no matter how many accomplishments I have made, I simply cannot overcome all the negative reinforcement that consumes me.
Putting on weight due to the recent bout of utter exhaust, and a painful and frustrating year of trying new medications, has left me feeling utterly wretched towards myself. As hard as I’ve tried to transform my diet, I’m just not losing weight. To not being able to fit into most of my clothes, has left me feeling so shameful, to the extent that I feel I don’t deserve to buy new clothes that will fit. So I wear the same things almost everyday, and again, that compounds the feeling ugly, fat, and lazy.
As a child, I couldn’t do homework. I just couldn’t. I would carry the anxiety with me until the very last minute, and then I would panic. It was the same when I had to study for exams. My working memory was poor (and is still poor), I couldn’t focus – that made studying very hard so I would avoid it till the last minute and then panic.
These led to disastrous consequences for my academic performance of course, so it led to more blaming and shaming. Also, imagine having to exist perpetually either in the anxiety of avoidance or the fear that comes with panic. My nervous system was constantly in flight or fright mode.
Thankfully I found other things that I was good at later on. I picked up design on my own in the late 80s, when learning resources were scarce and most people didn’t know how.
If I was interested in something I had an insatiable curiousity, leading me to learn new skills quickly in a hyperfocused state. I realised belatedly that I wasn’t bad at learning, I just had to learn in a different mode. But it was too late, the scars would always be there.
This Pathological Demand Avoidance would plague me as a designer.
Because of how hard it is for me to do most things, I would complete deadlines in panic at the last minute. My first freelance stint was terribly unsuccessful as I developed a phobia of phone calls. Each time the phone rang I would freeze. Coupled with a fear of conflict, it made freelancing near impossible.
I ended up disappointing quite a number of clients this way. Without knowing what went on behind the scenes, I plainly looked irresponsible, and I myself felt like a terrible human being. Fortunately things did get better as I got older because I developed several coping strategies, but I paid the price with my health.
There is an accumulative effect. After 40ish years of life I feel exhausted, and I can never seem to recover from this fatigue, even if no one else is putting pressure on me right now.
I just feel tired from having to live.
I have to be very on the ball about my health because of my chronic illness so most days I keep to some kind of balanced routine, which tires me out too. It took me years to even get to a point where I can have a routine, instead of just shrivelling at the word routine. I do these things even if I don’t feel like doing them, because I almost never ever feel like doing anything.
I feel like an abomination in this world like I should never have been born. Almost nobody understands the extent of the psychological fatigue I feel each day, how much I have to push myself each day just to stay alive.
What is the point of life if doing anything feels dreadful? I guess that is why I contemplated ending my own existence many times in my life. Yet there have been some bright spots that keep me going.
I just don’t know if it all balances out.
I don’t have it in me to bring suffering to others if I can help it, so I feel stuck. I can’t leave, I don’t want to be here, yet I have to continue forcing myself to keep on doing things I don’t want to. Which compounds the issue.
Some days I feel so exhausted that I just lie there and do nothing. But the inner critic appears and asks why am I being so lazy and useless. There is tremendous shame and guilt for “wasting” my life when there are a ton of other people who would do anything to be in my shoes.
I feel worse doing nothing even though all I want is to do nothing, so I force myself to do something, anything. That exhausts me again, which makes me want to do more of nothing, which makes me feel more useless and lazy, and the vicious loop continues.
I think it is possible to find things that don’t trigger my demand avoidance. I used to love exercise. I go into a worse depression if I can’t exercise. Which is why I don’t wish to get sick, be it flu, dental pain, back pain, headaches etc. I can’t imagine being bedridden again, yet I have been a number of times.
Pathological demand avoidance looks a lot like self-sabotaging behaviour. Why would anyone refuse to do homework when there are painful consequences? Why would anyone leave things to the last minute even though it is much easier to do a little bit each day? Why would anyone live in a mess? Why would anyone keep angering or disappointing people?
It has brought nothing but negativity and pain in my life, and continues to do so. But I just can’t will my brain to be otherwise. If I could, I would, because this is just inviting suffering into my life. I keep wanting myself to be someone else, I keep blaming myself for it. Can I ever accept that I am simply this way, and find a way of living that coexists with it?
The brain has a finite capacity to perform tasks. Most people have experienced mental exhaustion to a point where they simply cannot do anything else anymore, even if they still possess enough physical energy.
Both autistic and adhd people can suffer from pathological demand avoidance, so one of the theories is that our different brain structure makes us more prone to it.
I don’t know about other people, but I think I have an exceptionally sensitive nervous system, so just the mere act of existing is tiring for me because I am constantly being activated by sounds, sights, people’s energy, my mind’s noise, etc.
So having to do anything in a perpetual state of exhaustion is hard. I also think I have an impaired dopamine signalling system, so I don’t typically feel a sense of reward when I complete a task. Of course when I was younger I relied a lot on caffeine, sugar and states of hyperfocus, which made me burn out very frequently.
Doing anything out of my ingrained routine is still hard and requires ongoing momentum. Intellectually I am aware that I need more self-compassion and self-acceptance, but it is difficult to break out of that inner judgment that exists, the subconscious desire to be “normal” like everyone else.
Knowing that I am neurodivergent is somewhat new for me – within the last 6 months or so. Hence this is a new journey for me, to navigate my life and self with this new understanding. I don’t think I have truly understood yet. But being able to give this ambiguous suffering a label is at least a consolation. I now know I am not alone.
I started writing this with a spirit of sharing, hoping that sharing my experiences would be helpful to some internet stranger elsewhere, midway through writing I started feeling extremely heavy after recalling the feelings I had when I was younger, but towards the end I suddenly realised I forgot the awareness that I have this condition is new to me, so there is still space to mould that new relationship with myself.
Not Neurotypical™ 