Neurodiversity support thread for women with diagnosed, self diagnosed or suspected ADHD and ASC

[BertieBotts]

Continuing the good work of the lovely EauRouge :) Our first thread in the shiny new section. Seems like they created it just in time for us to fill up the old one

Link to the previous thread

This is a support thread for any posters who feel that they might be (or know that they are) on the Autistic spectrum or have ADHD. Feel free to jump in! Some of us are diagnosed, some not, some trying to work out what it's all about. Women with these kinds of issues often present differently to men and as such, can go undiagnosed for a long time. Hopefully, we can help each other understand ourselves and be there for support along the way too.

Links

List of female AS traits by Tania Marshall

AS traits in women and girls by Everyday Aspergers

Musings of an Aspie - Cynthia Kim's blog (Noted as being one of the only sources of information about being a parent with Aspergers)

Autistic Women's Collective

Women with ADHD by ADDitude magazine - this is a really good website in general (though it really needs a redesign). Lots of good, well researched info on ADHD and especially ADHD in women and girls. Do follow the links to other articles. They also have a closed facebook group which is good for info (FB is down so can't put the link up.)

Books
Aspergirls by Rudy Simone

You Mean I'm Not Lazy, Stupid Or Crazy?!: A Self-help Book for Adults with Attention Deficit Disorder by Kate Kelly. (This is available as a PDF somewhere online but I can't find it now - sorry!)

Speakers

This is a new one but it's something I've found really helpful so I hope nobody minds me adding it. I won't link directly to videos because they show up in the thread, but worth searching youtube/Ted/google:

Russell Barkley: Clinical Psychologist who specialises in the subject area of ADHD. He explains it better than anybody else I have come across and has practical solutions to support life with it. He is VERY long-winded, but his talks are packed with info. Highly recommend.

Ned Hallowell: Another psychologist who actually lives with ADHD himself and has interesting insights. Author of the book "The ADHD effect on marriage". He is a little bit cheesy but worth a watch.

Sorry I only have ADHD links to put here but if anybody knows a good ASC speaker, feel free to add!

Online quizzes

Of course no online quiz is sufficient for diagnosis, but can be a useful signposting tool and a starting point for discussion with your GP.

RDOS Aspergers test

AQ test

Adult ADHD screening test

Symptom checklist of ADHD in women

Totally nickelbabe I don't feel weird here

I bet you feel like a curtain has been drawn away revealing the real you you'll have to get to know yourself all over again with fresh eyes. It's exciting.

I can best describe my feelings as being like a jigsaw piece. Everyone is a jigsaw piece and they all fit together to make a picture. Everyone else is happy because they know which piece they are and where they belong.

I'm a jigsaw piece too, but from a different picture. I can pretend that my piece fits, but it feels wrong and looks out of place and awkward. I don't know where my picture is though. I've never found it.

I might have found it now though? Perhaps?

Nickel. Yes! Not to the crying, but trying to work out who I am, and not having a clue.

Hidden, funny you say that about jigsaw pieces, I was thinking almost exactly the same thing the other day! About being a jigsaw but I don't make up a picture yet.

That's spooky LeChien

We can be this jigsaw! Some of the pieces are oddly shaped, they don't exactly make a picture yet somehow they fit together nicely. www.vat19.com/item/baffler-jigsaw-puzzle

Yeah, Polter they used to drug kids back in the 70s apparently. I was stunned and shocked when I read my notes. Those two drugs are some heavy psychiatric shit I don't speak to my mother so I don't know what I was like other than she once said I was bossy and they used to joke that I'd make a good shop steward. I can remember not wanting to be in groups with other kids though. I used to have one to one friendships.

I'm too scared to go down the NHS route. Too many bad experiences with ds1 and I'm taking antidepressants, so they'll just blame the depression. I've found the NHS psychs to be totally gormless. They just turn up for work and claim their salary without doing any fucking good whatsoever. The psychologist who we went to see to help ds1 believed in the 'Refrigerator Mother' theory I went crazy in his office when he came out with that bullshit. He got a shock when I challenged him. I crashed my car into a fence after that consultation because I was so upset and disturbed by him.

If the psychologist doesn't identify it, I'll save up and pay to go to the Lorna Wing centre.

Polter I'm starting to see ds2 come to terms with it and accept himself. I never thought it would happen and it's really good to see.

I don't know what I could have achieved, but as it is I have very few qualifications, and have spent my life doing what I'm expected to do but not doing it well enough so end up failing.
Now I want to be me.

This thought came in my mind yesterday. Sometimes you see a video of someone in a car and there is a bird flying alongside their window.

For a few moments they are keeping time but inevitably the bird slows and changes course and raises up and flaps off.

It made me think of the person in the car as NT and the bird as the ND. They can only connect briefly due to their differences.

Just one of my random crazy thought processes!

That's great Allo I like that

I only liked one on one friendships too. As an adult the concept of groups of women meeting up and going on holiday together is one that confuses me to say the least! I did once, about 10 years ago decide to go on my friends hen party which was a few days in Spain with about 10 women. She is literally my oldest friend. I found it vey difficult and tiring.

Also I have never been able to bring myself to dance at social gatherings. I escape to the loo to get some peace!

Also, just wanted to say that a friend of mine also feels he's on the spectrum. But he wants to be NT. He thinks counselling may help him to behave like a NT person. Personally I don't feel that way. But I do feel that a realisation that maybe I'm differently wired may help me to cope better with my difficulties.

It's impossible to be NT. Acting just increases the stress and you end up needing longer and longer to recover. I guess if a person is outgoing and surrounded by nice, understanding people then it might not be too bad.

In my experience, the world is inhabited by unpleasant, NT jerks and wanting to be like one of them is fruitless. They're just different and are capable of doing an npd person over and leaving them by the roadside so to speak

I agree with you hiddenhome - you are quite right. I don't really meet up with my friends very often. A once a month coffee with just one person is literally about as much as I can cope with. My friend thinks I should try to change this but I'm not unhappy with how I am. The only thing that I have felt bad about it is my disorganisation which makes me feel I have failed as an adult. But at least if I can understand myself better I can maybe forgive myself for taking longer to learn these skills.

What sort of stuff are you disorganised about boden?

Housework and home making for one. I have improved but it takes intense effort for me to know how to organise our house properly. At 20 I had no idea whatsoever. At 35 I'm a lot better but it's still a work in progress.

My time keeping is naturally bad. I can be on time now but again this has taken years to improve and requires a lot of effort.

If I have to go shopping, I get very confused and overloaded and unless I have a list I forget entirely what I came for.

Oh and another thing - my parents organise and sort out the running of my car on my behalf.

I write a lot of stuff down, particularly at work. I can't concentrate enough to receive spoken instructions alone.

I find security in routine. If the house is clean then I feel in control and that stuff won't go wrong.

Yes I find social gatherings hard.
I prefer it when there's music, and always prefer going to clubs than pubs - at a club I can go onto the dancefloor and just dance - not have to worry about talking to people (which usually ends up with me drinking too fast and talking too much).
I do hate it when people (men) try to dance close to me though. It's nasty.

I love the idea if going away, and have been away with groups of friends a few times, but wvery time I've lost it (now known as "meltdown") within a few days, and I have never understood why I fjnd it impossible to just have a week away without one. Obviously this stuff must niggle at me in the background and because I can't see it happening, it becomes an explosion.

boden
I haven't got a clue either.
It's worse the more there is to do.
Dh ends up cooking and cleaning most of the time because it just doesn't occur to me.

Over the years I have found that I'm much less stressed when things are tidy. And because I've got 3 children I have had to work on it. If I can't find someone's socks in the morning I can feel the panic rising!

My ex husband who is definitely autistic lives in absolute chaos and he doesn't have any curtains. Dd2 does not want to stay with him any more because she finds the state of his house embarrassing which is a shame.

Yes I agree about spoken instructions. I need to be able to read things.

Dh helped me write lists so I get things done, but if I do something else one day, I then don't do the things on the list, as the day is cocked up!
I have to write everything down or it doesn't get done at all.

I was trying to explain to dd about friends today, she was teasing me for being a Billy no mates. I have a couple of people I consider very good friends. One I see every two - four months. Any more and it's too much. We have a few hours catching up and drinking tea, and it's great. I know she would be there if I needed her, and vice versa.
The other I live next door to, sometimes we blank each other as we're not in the mood (she thinks she has ASD too), but we can tell each other anything.
I would say apart from dh and the dc, they are the only people I really feel comfortable with. It takes me ages to feel properly comfortable with someone.
I only have limited energy for socialising, and as appointments count as socialising (not sure why?), I can go ages between seeing people.

I really relate to that LeChien. For me it's very daunting when I have to go to some event at one of my children's schools. My children want me to go of course and I spend a lot of time worrying and stressing about how tired I'm going to be afterwards, which I always am. I've had to force myself to set up play dates for my children as well because they drain me but I know how important that is for them. Likewise, appointments I have or meetings are exhausting.