Anyone with ADHD questioning if they're autistic

[MotherOfRatios]

Hi
I was diagnosed with ADHD three years ago in recent months I've been questioning if I have autism and I'm just wondering if there is anyone with ADHD and autism that can tell me what there symptoms look like?
it's hard online because every time I look I think is it my ADHD?
any help would be appreciated.

I'm autistic and adhd. The two go hand in hand. Do some of the screening questionnaires online and see if it gives you an indication.

I’m the opposite. Diagnosed ASD about 7 years ago, just asked to be referred for an ADHD assessment. I read somewhere they think there’s up to 70% overlap, if you have one you have tendencies for the other…some of the things I feel are specifically ASD - sensory processing issues (can’t wear certain clothes, can’t abide some smells, overwhelmed by loud noises etc), also I really like my routines and struggle with change but I feel like my brain is chaotic, I hyper focus, get bored with my routines and suddenly desire change. I’m very fidgety, struggle to sit still and watch a movie for example, I’ll usually be doing something else at the same time like crochet.
Have a look at Purple Ella on social media/YouTube. She’s diagnosed with both and she talks about her road to diagnosis and how the different traits effect her.

i have i score highly but wanting to know some symptoms if you get me?

I love routine! So much so I hate work drinks as it disturbs my evening routine
I have always had sensory issues from being a child. especially food!

Hi @MotherOfRatios I'm waiting for an ADHD assessment via right to choose (so will probably be waiting a loooong time) but I'm v sure I meet the criteria (one of my DC was recently diagnosed) and have been wondering about ASD also because of various sensory issues. I started another thread about it here and a few people posted about crossover symptoms in case that is helpful: www.mumsnet.com/talk/neurodiverse_mumsnetters/4544244-anyone-with-adhd-also-have-the-following-traits

I did an online questionnaire, as I mentioned in the thread, but didn't score highly. I got the impression it was based on stereotypes about autism that don't apply to many of the autistic people I've met (and seem to apply more to men with autism than women)

I'll take a look
I was diagnosed via psych uk I've failed titration 3 times it's not been a nice process

@MotherOfRatios when you say failed titration - do you mean you've tried out different medications and none of them have worked out for you?

I find the system really difficult and long compared to friends who have gone with other services

I Forget to add the bp as a result I get kicked off

I sympathise with this so much - asking me to remember to take BP regularly and record it is really incompatible with my already overloaded and Chaotic life.
I have my ADHD diagnosis but nothing to help matters - the initial drugs I tried just sent me to sleep all day and made me feel really ill. I can't take the "usual" ones as I am taking Blood pressure meds.

I got the impression it was based on stereotypes about autism

So did I, assuming you're talking about the AQ50, and I think of myself as someone whose ASD is subtle and easy to miss (and indeed was missed by lots and lots of psychiatrists, psychologists, and others, for about fifteen years — only a couple of them flagged up the possibility in my notes, at CAMHS, before the diagnostic overshadowing of other misdiagnoses kicked in, and it was never followed up on, or mentioned to me or my family).

Still score around 43 (+/- 1 or 2, depending on the phase of the moon and whether Mercury's in retrograde) on it though :-/ (and similarly ASD-y on the EQ and SQ). So it can definitely be sensitive enough to identify at least some people with seemingly subtle traits. Either that, or I'm deluding myself and I'm far more obvious than I think.

<rambles gently on>

Psych UK (privately diagnosed some years ago) strongly suggested during my ADHD Dx session that I get an ASD assessment too, so I did. Hadn’t occurred to me before but she felt I strongly presented. I was diagnosed about a year later, once I’d saved up

This study seems interesting on the subject of how worthwhile the AQ50 is in a population of people with suspected ASD — it seems like it's less impressive than it looks in whole-population studies. But I wouldn't rule out out altogether as a helpful tool, and if someone does score high on it it doesn't necessarily mean they're a stereotypical autist in obvious ways. (Or even that they're autistic at all… DP scores more or less the same as me but he's not autistic, just a software engineer ) And the other way round — you might not think of yourself as like the stereotype of autism, but you could still score high on it. And you can be autistic and score low, obviously. It's just a screener, not a diagnostic tool.

I'm diagnosed with ASD and ADHD but PurpleElla makes me murdery, I'm afraid. So fucking "look how autie and ~°•quirky•°~ I am".

@ClumpingBambooIsALie just watched one of PurpleElla's videos and feel the same way 😬

I don't know enough about the screening tools to know what any of the scores mean, but will have a look at what you linked to.

My experience when I did a couple of online screening questionnaires was that there seemed to be a lot of focus on not being able to understand jokes and getting obsessed with things - the former definitely doesn't apply but the latter I kind of relate to but not in the way that the questionnaire suggested. So, it might be phr "do you spend ages planning things, researching train routes, cars etc?" That is DH all over but not me at all. What I do do is get an idea about something and then spend literally days playing out imaginary scenarios in my head about it and I'm just starting to realise that most people do not do that. E.g. I'll see a job advert and not just think 'ooh that might suit me' and think about it a bit. I'll read a bunch of stuff about that line of work, find out everything I can online about the team I'd be working with, I'll envisage the interview in 100 different ways, what it would be like to get the job, how I would describe it to people, conversations I'd have with people about it 1 week in, 6 months in, 2 years in, the people I'd make friends with, hobbies I might develop as a result but also all the negative possibilities, arguments I might have, disaster scenarios, team challenges, how I'd spend my lunchtime, the family life of a person I might sit and have a sandwich with at lunch. On and on and on ad infinitum.

Another sample question would be along the lines of: "do you get upset when things don't go exactly to plan / do you like to stick to a very set routine?" Now that's not really me at all in that I try all the time to stick to routines but my head is all over the place, I have the time blindness thing where hours can go by while I'm down an online rabbit hole / having imaginary conversations in my head with my imaginary colleagues in my imaginary new job. But, saying that, I do really have to psyche myself up for change so I will cycle the same route to work every day and if I have to take a different route, it will probably bother me more than it would most people. It's a weird combo of getting bored really, really easily but also freaking out about change.

I don't know if any of this is familiar to those with ASD but what I'm getting at is that some of the stuff on these screening tools is kind of familiar but different to how it plays out in my life

Yeah — it's kind of like there's tendencies that have the same underlying structure but manifest in different ways depending on other factors, like your personality or whether you're male or female or a million other things, and I think they try to ask about several possible permutations of the same underlying thing, but it often seems like they're offering several different possibilities which are… quite similar. It feels like if you were born as, socialised as, and live as a white English-speaking Western middle-class male, there'll be more examples that look like the way autism might manifest in your life than if you're somebody else.

Glad I'm not alone in the PurpleElla thing, I was worried I sounded really harsh 🤣

I get jokes, I just don't think most of them are funny so don't feel the need to pretend

And I rehearse fucking everything. Conversations I'll never have and all the permutations of how they could go, conversations I've had and all the ways they could've gone differently 😑

I wouldn't even mind so much but when it comes to the real thing people veer off-script about ten seconds in, skillfully avoiding all the potential conversational routes my brain planned out when I was trying to sleep. Bastards

This made me laugh!! It's a total bugger isn't it when you've worked out all the potential strands of a conversation and how you'll respond and then they don't pan out that way. Also agree about the not pretending to laugh about stuff that isn't funny.

So, do you think the above i.e. the mentally rehearsing stuff is ASD typical?

I've definitely had "omg me too" conversations with other ASDers about that kind of conversation-replaying/rehearsing tendency, though I can't guarantee it isn't also common in at least some of the general population (I'd guess maybe social anxiety sufferers?)… I suppose that's the trouble with so much of this stuff, because there is some overlap between people with ASD, people with ADHD, and people with neither, and it's impossible to truly know what the inside of other people's minds is like. Argh. Equivocating again, sorry. Must be that black and white brain of mine

One day I'd love to do a survey of people who are pretty sure they're not autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, dyspraxic, etc., and ask them about several of the things we go "omg me too" about. Just to find out which of the things are truly "things" and which are just human. Sometimes I look at long community-derived lists of autistic/ADHD traits and just think "but a lot of this could be the Barnum effect"… it's all tricky.

I've never actually heard a totally non-spergy person mention excessive conversational replaying/rehearsing, though.

Can I jump in and ask something please?

We are in the reverse situation with young teen DD.

She has just been diagnosed with ASC (so ASD). Is it worth pursuing an ADHD diagnosis too?

Seems pretty clear she has it, but the ASD assessment took 2 years and I wonder if there are any practical advantages to having both diagnoses? Thinking specifically about adaptations in school now/work later on. Or would ASD be 'enough'?

When you say replaying/rehearsing conversations, would imagining conversations and how you would like them to go count? I do this as there are things I would like to say and responses I would like to receive, but that's not how real life works. So I do it in my head, like a form of therapy.

For example, imagining telling my mother a problem and her actually listening and responding appropriately. Would that be the same sort of thing? Because I do that a lot 😂

I have friends in a similar position and they are getting their DD assessed for ADHD which she herself is convinced she has (and from what they say it certainly sounds like it). There does seem to be a big overlap so prob worth looking into but I've no idea whether there are further adaptions school wise that would be helpful and the whole thing takes so bloody long. I suppose the main benefit is just knowing what might be an issue for her if she does have ADHD so that you can be aware of it.

Had not come across the expression 'Barnum effect' before - that is very handy...

I know a fair few people who do the conversation thing but nowhere near to the level that I do it. I have entire parallel lives going on in my head much of the time. It's bloody exhausting.

I was diagnosed as an adult with both, so not sure how relevant it'll be, but I'll answer anyway.

I got the ASD diagnosis first, about 7 years ago, and it was helpful for me in finding an appropriate therapist who knew how to work with me on my mental health problems, helping the NHS mental health services understand my difficulties, and getting useful accommodations for my college and university courses.

I have a lot of difficulties with my executive functioning, which were identified during my ASD assessment and described as part and parcel of my ASD. Lots of ASD assessors will prefer to fold things like executive functioning difficulties, sensory difficulties, and coordination difficulties into the ASD diagnosis, rather than separately diagnosing ASD and ADHD, SPD and/or DCD/dyspraxia, and to be honest that approach makes sense to me, as these issues so often occur in autism and it's hard to separate out what's what in any one individual.

While the accommodations I had were useful to me while studying, I still had difficulties which weren't entirely addressed by accommodations and study techniques and such.

After I finished my degree, with a lower classification than my tutors thought I was capable of, I looked into ways of managing these difficulties.

I found research that suggested that for people with ASD who have symptoms that are also seen in ADHD, and which in ADHD are treated successfully with medication, ADHD meds can be helpful. But in the UK, these meds can only be prescribed if you have an ADHD diagnosis, not if you only have an ASD diagnosis with ASD symptoms that also occur in ADHD. So I went for an ADHD assessment earlier this year, to see if my neurodevelopmental differences would also fulfill ADHD criteria, and they do.

In other words, the ADHD diagnosis is necessary if you want to try certain medications that can be helpful for a subset of people with ASD, and I wish I'd been able to try them before doing my degree.

Otherwise, I'm not sure what the additional benefits would be, as many of the accommodations and techniques are the same whether those symptoms come from ASD or ADHD. But the situation may be different for your daughter, particularly as she's young and in education.