Hello again - Back again recent offical ASD/ADHD

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I find myself back here again after a brief hiatus. A negative diagnosis for Aspergers many years ago flung me into a bit of spiral of self questioning, substance abuse and various challenges caused by comparing myself to others and feeling dreadful. This morning I was officially diagnosed with ASD after a bit of a battle initially with my GP to get a referral, and rather a long wait to be seen by specialists. Earlier this year I was diagnosed with combined subtype ADHD which was actually more of a surprise to me at the time.

Things are beginning to make sense a bit now. My partner has been very supportive and encouraged me towards gettng reassessed if I wanted to. Initially I was very reluctant, as my previous experiences with mental health professionals and psychiatrists was anything but helpful, but I am now hopefully discovering what my baseline is hopefully starting to see a way forward.

I don't know if I was expecting to feel different, but I actually feel nothing at all today now other than slight disbelief and relief that I don;t need to be remembering any more appointments. I previously found a lot of useful information here, but also previously had a nagging feeling that I didn't belong, turns out that it just how I feel just about everywhere though!

Not sure what happens now, maybe the realisation will hit me more in the next few days. I want to start being kinder to myself and exploring what it might mean to thrive in the future. I nearly didn't get this far, and may not be here at all if it weren't for the handful of people I trust, but I am trying now to shift my outlook towards optiism, even though some of my worst fear about the world we inhabit have been confirmed over the past few years.

Autism Spectrum! I hope you get to keep the diagnosis and find it pleasantly interesting.

Um... Beyond that...you are 45...hopefully you have built yourself a good life and the diagnosis is more interesting than useful.

One thing I found that might be of use as you get older and see doctors more and more. I have often heard the question "How much pain do you feel, on a scale from one to ten?" Huh! That's a tough question...I do not have a gauge to read the answer off of.

I found "The Comparative Pain scale" and find it useful in answering that question. I have not found a reliable source for the chart (the link I gave might not work for long) but it generally appears to be possible to find a copy of the scale on the Internet if you look for it.

Disclaimer: So far I have found my medical providers are very disinterested in adjusting their technique due to my Autism. They like using the usual vague and imprecise pain scale. They assume I will understand and remember everything they tell me. They aren't careful about how they say stuff because they assume I know what they mean. GROAN!

P.S. If you are so inclined I have found a few movies and some TV shows that plausibly show Autism. You might find something like that interesting. Note: I said "interesting", not "educational". We're all different!

Welcome back after that brief hiatus of 15 years.

Congratulations on your persistence that finally paid off.

Autism and ADHD often co-occur. There is a very recent unofficial name for having both conditions, "AuDHD". It is up to you if you want to embrace that name.

An introduction to AuDHD

Thanks for taking the time to read through here. Indeed at this point in life I am aware that I have a lot to be thankful for and having a different lens to reframe my experiences up to this point is indeed interesting!

The pain scale thing is quite interesting, a lot of my similarly wired friends are covered in tattoos at this point which I find to be interesting (never went there myself, largely down to not being satisfied with designs/liklihood of changing my mind which I realise is the whole point that it shows something like a record about a particular time however I digress) but as a gardener I have had more than my fair share of weird but potentially quite serious injuries that cause others to have a bit of an "oh sh.." moment when they see, however even when bits are hanging off I never really experienced sensations that were intolerable. We all likely need to be doubly cautious, for instance I have been carrying a back injury for years which showed up recently on an MRI scan and never caused me much concern until grave faced doctors started talking about cauda equina syndrome etc (not there yet finger crossed), obviously there have been periods of discomfort but only a couple of times where the pain was almost intolerable.

Generally I don't tend to bother watching movies as it is rare they will hold my attention or I struggle to suspend the disbelief, but maybe one day I will get back to a place where I can sit still for long enough!

Thanks for the warm welcome! Like many friendships/hobbies etc I always mean to return at some point and just rely on the hope that things will still be there when I think to go back!

I have been reading quite a bit on Reddit etc about AuDHD this year, and a lot of accounts ring true with me. I have to be a bit careful with social media in general though as I am already spread too thin with my time and there is so much left uncompleted!

That Embrace Autism link you posted has been super informative thank you! I likely would have never found that site in amongst all the noise. I will likely point my partner to that site as I think there are some very useful points covered. I am currently digging through some of the articles and studies referenced there and have also dropped waaay too much money on books which will start triclking in over the next few days. A lot of the books seem like a decent investment (again many AuDHD redditor suggestions) which will likely be useful to my other similarly wired friends and also my partner and colleagues, once I have sorted the wood from the trees I will try to suggest any which might also benefit folks on here.

You are welcome. The Embrace Autism link is a great introduction. Using google will point you to more detailed sourcing.

Up until 2013 Autism and ADHD were considered unrelated conditions. The DSM 5 manual released that year said you can diagnose a person with both conditions. AuDHD came out of the neurodivergent community and has become widely recognized in the last year or so. While AuDHD is not official diagnosis many proffessionals reconize it.

Welcome back to Wrong Planet!