Support thread for women with suspected/diagnosed/self-diagnosed ASD or ADHD

[EauRouge]

Previous thread here.

Hello all, I know I'm new but the old thread was full, so here's a shiny new one. This is a thread for adult women who have ASD or ADHD, or suspect they do, to support each other.

Here are some resources that might be useful:

Links

List of female AS traits by Tania Marshall.

Article about women and girls on the spectrum by NAS.

List of female traits by Everyday Aspergers

Musings of an Aspie- Cynthia Kim's blog (one of the few sources I have found about being a parent with Aspergers)

Autistic Women's Collective

Recognising ADHD in women from ADDitude Magazine

Resources for women with ADHD from ADDitude Magazine

Adult ADHD support (coming soon by the looks of things)

Books

Aspergirls by Rudy Simone

The Complete Guide to Aspergers Syndrome by Tony Attwood

You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid or Crazy?!: The Classic Self-help Book for Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder by Kate Kelly (I haven't read this one but I have heard it recommended many times- apologies if it's no good!)

Online tests

(Online tests are not 100% certain but can give you a very good idea and a starting point for talking to your GP if you're seeking diagnosis)

RDOS Aspergers quiz (the best one IMO)

AQ test

ADHD test

ADHD questionnaire for women

Info dump complete

Please come and join in!

Noeuf totally understand the unliked thing. I have experienced downright hostility in some jobs. Hopefully the assessment will help you join the dots.

I read somewhere that so called NT's can be like animals circling their prey as they detect our vulnerability. It certainly makes sense to me!! Good luck.

Noeuf, I think what you are feeling is completely normal. I was the same. The thing that comforted me was that if I wasn't autistic then at least I might get some idea of what was 'wrong' (I already knew it wasn't BPD). Also, the psych might be private and earn money from seeing you, but they are still bound by the same rules as NHS psychs and have the same training. I've had both NHS and private health care and the main difference is nicer furniture.

I've also been through a lot of 'who am I' over the last few years. I've been trying to fit myself in a box for so many years, like am I an outdoorsy type or a rock and roll type or a petrolhead... but there's no reason why I can't just like the things I like. I'm feeling more confident about it now and starting to figure out who I am. Which is a bloody lovely feeling.

Thanks Eau and thread people.
Does anyone else wonder if they have Bipolar or personality disorders or stuff like that? I think maybe realising late on in life is hard because your coping strategies and experiences have made so you don't fit with a straight forward tick box to the average eye.
So I don't really care about other people because they don't come into my head. but history shows that I have felt duty bound to help people even when it affects me because that's what people do.

I'm diagnosed bipolar and have had four (radically) different personality disorder labels suggested over the years, none of which really fitted (I don't have those labels any more). When I had my assessment the assessor said this kind of psychiatric history is common in undiagnosed ASD women.

I had a bit of a realisation last night after posting. It's not so much the computer stuff which is an issue, it's the fact I think of it as open ended. I don't tend to think "Right, I've got an hour until I need to make dinner, I'll pop onto the computer for a bit" I just think "Yay, that's over, computer time!" and sit down on it without really thinking what comes next. The timetabling starts Monday... so I'll be more aware of it, perhaps. Hopefully.

Polter I don't know, actually. I suppose that I do think boundaries and consistency are important. I mainly dislike people conflating that to mean punishment, because I don't think it's the only way to set boundaries. And there's a weird thing that a lot of people think being consistent means having the same penalty/reward for set things all the time, which is a bit unrealistic and not all that practical. Especially if you have ADHD. The important thing with consistency is that the rules are the same all the time, that you don't change them willy nilly depending on how tired you are or whatever. (This is also hard for ADHD parents, but easier!)

I identify most of all with parenting strategies which encourage parents to connect on a person to person level with their DC rather than having this quite disconnected feeling, I feel that in most cases rewards, praise (beyond the natural pleased reaction when your child does something nice) and punishments (even token ones) are a case of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

But then perhaps I'm overthinking the whole thing. I mean I'm sure all of us would love to have the kind of relationship with our DC where we can calmly discuss things, explain it easily to their point of view, magically find a perfect compromise, etc, but life isn't really like that.

It's really hot here, too, so tempers are fraying.

Surely boundaries and consistency mean much the same as what you were saying earlier, polter about sticking with what you've told your son? Your boundaries are negotiated rather than set, but that's fine because most adult boundaries are too.

Gunblebee that's really interesting especially as Aspergers and asd are quite recent in dx away from classic autism, I'm 41 so I wonder if now it would be easier to be me at 16?

gumblebee

I'm glad I wasn't put through any diagnostic 'system' when I was younger because I think I would have easily been misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and/or borderline personality disorder. I 'tick the boxes' for both of them but think those behaviours are actually autistic traits. Imo historically probably lots of women were misdiagnosed. (It explains why diagnosed autism rates are higher in males, I think eventually we'll get to a 50/50 split)

Re: the alcohol use- I'm really noticing this as I'm pregnant atm so can't drink. The difference in my ability to cope with group social situations is staggering. I've tried a couple of times and it's been disaterous. Stimming, no eye contact, awkward attempts at chit chat, ending up in my own with empty seats either side of me. Normally I have a couple of glasses of wine and can 'pass' as a relatively normal person.

So I can see how this dependency on alcohol to function in social situations could turn into a problem dependency.

bertie
It is so hard to parent an asd DC when you have asd yourself. I had a meltdown yesterday when DS took something very literally and ruined something of mine. I was so upset, then his lack of empathy made me even more upset.

Does anyone know of specific resources for asd mums parenting asd sons?

Since becoming aware that there's more to me than just being dyslexic (I think!), my research/online testing has suggested ASD/Asperger's, dyspraxia (to be fair, my sister thinks I have that and she is a physio!), ADD/ADHD, bipolar and borderline personality disorder. I suspect I function a little too well to have the last two but I wonder about traits. I've only had two points in life where I totally broke down and in reality I still carried on at uni with one (tonnes of help from my Mum).

I certainly have compulsive behaviours where I can't stop until things are done - cleaning and tidying I'm like this. Only the things I want to do though.

I used to drink loads, made some bad choices because of drink. In the end, I realised I was spiralling so I stopped drinking for a year. Nowadays it's in perspective but it took 2 years when I had kidney problems, then was pregnant and then BF before I really found the balance.

Yes Athena - it's interesting to me how general psychiatrists never seem to ask about early development or childhood and I suspect maybe that is affecting the diagnoses they're choosing.

I'm still annoyed at myself for messing up my assessment. It was at very short notice so I didn't have a lot of time to write the responses on the form they gave me or think about my answers to the questions, so I forgot to mention all sorts of things like my very late (and still not great) development of self-care skills, terrible handwriting as a child, being taken to audiologists because people thought I was deaf, childhood inability to understand pleasantries like please and thank you - that combined with the fact DP was unprepared for the questions he was asked is making me worry I haven't actually communicated my difficulties properly.

I drank loads at uni, and smoked a lot of weed. I was a huge mess. I was so homesick and really hated everything about uni. Eventually my parents could see how miserable I was, but I should have dropped out long before I did.

Misdiagnoses of bipolar and/or personality disorders are pretty common from what I've heard, especially borderline PD because some of the traits of being undiagnosed ASD can look like borderline PD- unstable relationships (due to communication difficulties in ASD), unstable emotions (caused by executive functioning difficulties in ASD), drinking/drugs, suicidal thoughts or self-harm could all come from not knowing what was 'wrong' with you.

So that coupled with the fact that it may not occur to people or psychologists that autism might be the cause of difficulties that an adult woman is having, it makes sense that women are being missed and diagnosed with something else. There's a lot of catching up to do for the NHS and for private psychiatrists.

But I have also read that growing up undiagnosed can cause people to develop a personality disorder, so it's possible to have both.

Athena, I've found very little info about being a parent with Aspergers and a lot of what I have found has been lists of the different ways our DCs will be screwed up from having autistic parents . Cynthia Kim has written a bit about being a parent with Aspergers but I don't know if her child is also on the spectrum. There's a FB group call "I have Aspergers and so does my kid" that's very helpful.

In a way I feel like I should do as much as possible to support other mothers with autism because in 25 years it might be my DD1 looking for help with her children. Maybe if I do enough now then things will be easier for her.

DS doesn't have ASD and I have (suspected) ADHD. DS might have ADHD but it's not certain at all yet. But yes, dealing with challenging behaviour in children coupled with challenging aspects of yourself is hard!

Slightly unrelated- but goodness me I'm worn out! My niece is stopping over and she's only just gone up to bed. I'm normally in bed around now, but I need some me time before I go up. I love her to bits, and we've had great fun playing board games and stuff, but she's at an awkward age (pre teen, too old for me to treat like a kid, but too young for me to treat as a peer) and I've had to keep up the pretence for a lot longer than I would if she wasn't here.

Just wanted to complain to some people who hopefully 'get it'.

bertie

Sorry for the assumption.

chrohnically

Oh yes I get that. We stayed in living room later than usual 2 nights ago so when we went to bed I was a lot later with my usual, long winded, 'wind down' routine/me time so I didn't get to sleep until really late. I was so tired the next day it ruined the whole day. I fell asleep in the middle of the day and nearly missed picking DC up from school.

eau

Yes, I was a big binge drinker at Uni too. But as bad as this sounds it was good- I had a social life! I was happy. I actually loved clubbing, as odd as that sounds for someone with sensory issues. Something about the rhythmic vibrations of techno/house type music seemed to sooth me.

After a big trauma and when I wasn't functioning/coping at all I begged my parents to let me take a year out of Uni but their reaction was to threaten to have me sectioned! (I hadn't done/said anything that would remotely warrent that fwiw)

So Yes the thing about blaming autistic parents. Mine certainly did plenty that didn't help me so I have to do a fair amount of rationalising to see their flaws as a consequence of all of our traits clashing. It also makes me quite pessimistic about my abilities to parent DCs esp the asd one. My nt DC I'm good with but with both of them DP carries most of the parenting load.

gumble

They did surgery on me because they thought I was going deaf when really it was auditory processing disorder linked to asd!

I'm really about that now. I could have died!

That's appalling Athena. I'm so sorry that happened to you. have you suffered long term effects from the surgery?

I was lucky and passed all the hearing tests. The audiologist looked in my ears and told me they were full of mashed potatoes. I believed him

Nothing that isn't minor.

At least it does show that things have improved over the last 30 years. Hopefully we are the last generation not to get diagnoses as children.

Oh god, seems i've without knowing made a massive parenting faux pas :( have a thread in chat thats not gone well. Shit :(

Thank you
I can accept being told i am wrong, but there are people saying for eg "if i did that with my older child, we wouldnt have the relationship we do now" what makes it worse is people in RL and some on the thread have been nonplussed, so (as i just said there) when people who are nt cant agree on it, how the hell am i supposed to know what is appropriate. :(

:) i'll do my best.

Partly i'm angry though. Not at the mners, but that people 'let me' get to this stage. I've been going massively wrong for years without knowing. What if the person who reported on me didnt, and i left something on fb that ruined my relationship with my children, without me ever knowing what i did wrong? :( my whole life i've been broken and noone ever tried to do anything about it

Social networks and the internet in general are entirely new social settings and the rules are still inchoate; this is the first generation of parents whose children will have their childhoods permanently recorded and shared with the world in this way. When the social rules are in flux in this way, and on a worldwide network which includes people from many different cultural backgrounds with different attitudes to nudity, personal sovereignty, childhood, shame etc., it's no surprise it's confusing.

I missed your thread, I hope you are OK. MN can get really nasty sometimes.