If you’re neurodivergent, can you pick up on when others around you are?

[Naaarna]

Just interested. I feel as if I can. It’s made me wonder if others around me who I haven’t disclosed to can see it very obviously in me Apparently though neurodivergent people are more likely to be friends, partners, etc with other ND folk because they just understand each other well.

I am not but people always ask me if my daughter is (she is) I don’t think it’s just ND people that can tell though. Sometimes it’s obvious like with my daughter.

I've heard it called the Adar (like the gaydar) for autism

There’s definitely a radar! My ADHD DS is intensely close to two friends who are certainly both ND. My ADHD DH’s close friends from school all have ND DC so chances are…!

I don’t know if I’m ND myself although I suspect I’m not 100% typical. I definitely have a couple of ND friends.

Definitely!! Both myself and my DS13 have a strong Audar. We don't have any NT close friends and the ones we know are very NT and social. It stands out so much to us now even when it's not obvious we can just tell when someone is ND. I probably stand out to others too

Yes - More so with kids.

Now I'm getting nervous.. I'm undiagnosed but am aware I have so many ND traits. Dh and I are invited to a dinner where the 3 wives are all psychotherapists. I may as well stick a sign on my head...

Wow first I’ve heard that a boy not liking football is likely to be ND.

Sexist bollocks.

I have ADHD, so does my husband ( both diagnosed long after we married) , one of our daughters has Autism/ADHD, and so do several of my friends and family.

I'm an autism parent. Can spot it a mile off now. Also it's been a lightbulb moment for me. I am also drawn to other ND adults.

Often, especially with other women. Men are a little trickier, but I work in IT which does attract a greater than average ND workforce, but also attracted the geeky NT people.
I've also come to realise almost all my friends are autistic ( either diagnosed or self diagnosed), some have ADHD too but I find people with ADHD harder to get on with.

Any examples of writing style tells? Only if you feel like it!
(Full disclosure, I've been asked by people on online forums if I'm ASD before, but never by people who know me IRL, so that's my skin in the game.)

In my experience a lot of mental health professionals have little to no knowledge of ND let alone recognising it. I wouldn't worry.

I can pick it up easily, but don't mention it if they don't bring it up. I know two people who are undiagnosed but it's obvious. It's probably why I get on with them so well. From experience, people don't recognise it in me but another ND person might if they spend time enough with me.

Interesting. I have both asd and adhd so not sure if I should hate myself or not. I dont though.

Yes, it's like the old saying about a "gaydar" I think, we are all picking up and filtering informati0n all the time and ND people are no different. My DD started at secondary school, she is autistic and struggled with the transition. Two older ND teens staged an intervention with me (I was a regular at the school for meetings 😂) where they "told" me she was autistic. Very sweet, they said they wanted to tell me so I could help her more. She'd never told anyone let alone two much older kids she didn't know!

@PeanutsArentNuts It’s hard to put my finger on! And of course there will be tons of autistic posters who I don’t clock at all. But with the ones I get right away, there is a feeling of effort and earnestness that comes off the page. Sometimes posts are very short and concise factual sentences, other times longer chunks of text with lots of detail and not much narrative structure. Sometimes unusual spacing between words or sentences. It could be that what I’m picking up on is not autism per se but a related language processing issue.

Your reply wouldn’t trigger my writing style neuro-dar at all. I wonder whether people on internet forums are more likely to be ND themselves and so are more likely spot it - or even almost assume it? - in others? Or be more comfortable asking? And most people over the age of about 40 IRL probably don’t know much about ASD (particularly in women).

Weirdly I was having this conversation this afternoon with DH’s cousin. She has recently had an inattentive ADHD diagnosis after her husband was diagnosed a few years ago. Since then she estimates that 75% of her friendship circle have either been diagnosed or are undergoing ND assessments.

DH suspects he may be ND (ADHD) and I have had thoughts for a long time that I may have ASD but am still debating about whether to get an assessment.

That's very thoughtful and interesting @Bunnyhair I could definitely see earnestness (maybe more accurately, eagerness to inform?) and 'clipped' short sentence style as characteristic of some of my ASD friends.

It has always been ND people who have asked me if I'm also ND, and I've wondered if it's because I sometimes write too formally -- not a native speaker! Also in the context of a shared interest/hobby, where I let my geek flag flyyyyyyy😅

Yep! I was on a work call recently with another ND woman in another org and we clocked one another right away 😁 (was one of the most productive calls I've had in a while tbh!)

my teenage ds has an ASD diagnosis and I suspect I am ND too.
We are always recognising fellow ND people, it is like a gaydar.

Most of my friends are ND in some way, even if it's "just" dyslexia (which can affect executive function not just literacy skills)

DS1 has a fine collection of diagnoses, autism being the most evident, but also dyspraxia, and I manage to make him look adept at sport. He also instinctively uses my coping strategies such as carry everything everyday to school in order not to forget things. I had wondered about dyspraxia for years, but the more I find out about late diagnosed ADHD in women, the more I wonder who wrote my biography. I also wonder what DS's consultant thought about my highly detailed mindmap on luridly coloured paper* that I took to the GP when I flagged my concerns about DS. I suspect it contained more information than the actual words of it.

*harder to lose than white paper

DS2 is "only" dyslexic, but he is so much like me and spends half the time on another planet.

There's a lot of relations I do wonder about on both sides of my family and I think DH is the one of the few males in his family who isn't autistic. He misses a lot of DS's traits because it is normal amongst so many family members, but it's the younger children getting diagnosed in recent years. He's a total geek but doesn't have the social/ communication issues of DS, DNs or his DBs.

Very obviously NT people often bamboozle me, especially those who are highly motivated to comform (and get it right rather than treading water to catch up on something unquantifiable that's missing. I like people who like what they like, and who know their stuff or try random things. All my close friends have been very invidual. About the one shared characteristic many of them have had is creativity.

And I have tripped the NDdar of various diagnosed ND friends.

I do think that if everyone around you is emerging as ND and they seem normal to you, that could be indicating something.
Likewise very NT people from very NT families with very NT friends probably don't do much in-depth crossing of patgs with ND people.

My DC is dyslexic and dyspraxic and awaiting assessment for ADHD and ASD. If be surprised if she didn't get both.
She's 9. All of her friends are neurodiverse and there's a group of at least 5 and a couple that dip in and out.
They've been friends since the first few years of school.
As they've got older they're neurodiversities have become more pronounced. I have a lot round for play dates and it's getting more and more challenging the older they get!
I also work in a special needs school and the amount of staff getting diagnosed with different neurodiversities is immense... Alongside all the pupils with similar diagnosis!
I think I'm undiagnosed ASD (at least) and my best friend has ADHD, she was late diagnosed but it sings from her! We've been friends over 20 years and bonded very quickly after meeting,even though we appear massively different to each other.
Also, at work, it's common that the students move from mainstream into year 7 with no friends in primary to find their tribe at High School and have friends for the first time.

I sometimes notice writing styles on MN, particularly if it's quite clipped and to the point (which might not be the original or intended point) and lacking a typical conversational flow that forums tend to have.

The very rambly OPs with 20 paragraphs of "lets call him X" "lets call her Y" (or worse no paragraphs) tend to lose me pretty early on. There's more variables than the way people think involved in that style though.

I can pick up on others. I don't have a diagnosis but sometimes wonder if I'm ND. I work with lots of ND children and young people too. I'm convinced my partner is on the spectrum somewhere too.

I think we share some traits but others seem generally opposite. I hate when we all get lumped together as we tend to have different needs!