You might be autistic/ADHD if....

[ofwarren]

I just saw this game over on Wrong Planet and thought it might be fun on here. You just write "you might be autistic/ADHD if.." and then write some funny anecdote about your traits.
I'll start

You might be autistic if as a child you spent a whole day cleaning every copper coin out of the big whisky bottle at home with Brasso, just to make them shine.

You might be autistic if you thought reading the phone book was fun, and the Yellow Pages was even more exciting!

🤣🤣🤣
I regularly thank the autism gods that I live in the country with very little break ins!!

Yes! Me!
I just go around telling everyone I have allergies so I have to keep them on ...
Which I do, but actually a lot of them are sensitivities but they're so bad they're basically allergies ...

Me.
This thread and everything about it is wonderful

You might be autistic if anytime life gets overwhelming (several times a week at least), you go and watch the same TV series/film for the 20,000 time (1995 Pride and Prejudice, I am looking at you. I literally wore the original video out).

You might be autistic if you have an almost infinite list of rules concerning what foods are allowed to touch, what order they should be on the plate, and what can be combined (or not, usually not combined), but you only realise that other people do not do this when you get to university and people look at you funny because you pick out all the bacon bits in a carbonara to eat last.

You might be autistic if, when you get to university, your regional accent draws such attention to yourself, that all the training at masking kicks in and you wake up the next morning with a completely neutral accent (I was so relieved at diagnosis for understanding why I did this, as it was such a "weird" thing to do I couldn't forgive myself for it).

You might be autistic if you pretend you have hearing loss because you actually have auditory processing disorder but people won't accommodate that.

Does anyone else read these things and think they sound completely normal? As in lots of people do them? I've never been diagnosed for anything and I do pretty much all of these things and don't think they are particularly odd!

Hence the 'might' in the original sentence. You can't make a tick-box list for autism/ADHD, we are just sharing some of the interesting things we do that form a tiny part of a complex set of behaviours that are different for each one of us.

It's often said on here but - if you've met one neurodivergent person, you've met one neurodivergent person!

@hoorayandupsherises i can relate to the accent thing.

In fresher week I ended up hanging out with a group of German students in a noisy pub, along with some others, but I would accidentally laugh at their jokes, or pick up on the gist of the conversation and play along that it became intensely embarrassing when they assumed I could speak or certainly understand German. That was the first time I had an inkling I was doing something odd. I just hadn’t registered at all that they weren’t speaking English.

I also have a truly mortifying tendency to lose my ability to speak normal English to anyone with broken English. I must come across a racist twat.

I'm so happy since diagnosis to come across exchanges like this, as I am so happy to hear your experience and not feel so alone! I hope it helps you too.

I definitely do the accent thing too. I had an Irish boss temporarily and I'd be desperately trying not to pick up her accent when talking to her as it definitely sounds like I'm at worst mocking her, at best a bit of a joker. But I don't exactly have control over it.

It's so exhausting sometimes...

You know you have ADHD your ND brain thinks sleep is uneccessary ? I am awake as I was thinking random thoughts like snow flakes drifting through my head and just as I was dropping off, my brain launched into a show tune medly and I was wide awake again as my ASD brain had to Google the correct words for the songs !!

Also when you lose your phone all the time but can't ring it to find it because it is on silent so no one can ring you !!

I do exactly this!

Well these- both of your examples.

Also when you lose your phone all the time but can't ring it to find it because it is on silent so no one can ring you !!

Definitely this.

i find that people regularly complain that I never answer your phone/messages.

My phone at work was ringing and someone was in the office. They asked me why I wasn't picking up, I replied, no, I don't know what they were calling about.

Cue silence.

Forgot to mask that time!

I have also disabled voicemail. I will never listen to a voicemail. No one who knew me would leave me a voicemail.

I’m shit at opening mail too. Even more so now there’s less of it so it’s almost certainly something that requires me to do something.

Also when you lose your phone all the time but can't ring it to find it because it is on silent so no one can ring you !!

@Didiplanthis and anyone else who finds this happening- I set an alarm on my phone to go off at the same time everyday so I can't lose it for longer than 24 hours. I also muted all my whatsapp chats and apps so that the only thing that makes sound is a phone call or text message, and bought a brightly coloured phone so that it doesnt blend in like a black one does.

That's a good idea.. I have a brightly coloured case too.. and my car and house keys on a fluorescent lanyard !

Oh dear this is me

I am utterly incapable of sending a birthday card to family members on time. Failed at it for 1/4 of a century. I even buy cards but forget to send them.

When you swap holiday pictures of drain covers with your sister.

I am kind of glad you said this - I mean, I'm sorry you have this problem too, but I am glad you made me realise this is another ND thing for me! Having only been diagnosed for three years, I haven't got all this figured out ...

I'm 42 and have to triple check the date of my mum's birthday every year

famous last words, sometimes we are the last to know! (speaking as someone who went 40+ years without realising I am autistic. )

ooo that sounds fun. (not sarcastic)

I almost set the kitchen on fire doing that, with a tea towel next to the gas hob. It was only the Siamese cat coming to find me that alerted me to it.

You might have adhd if you decide to make mashed potatoes at midnight and your Dd asks for Yorkshire puddings mash and gravy for breakfast seeing as it will be ready made and it's her ultimate safe food.

This has reminded me of post-coital pasta cooking at 2am as a teenager. The sex made me hungry and I'd cook a pasta meal. I'm assuming that's not the norm but it's not a question that's considered polite to ask I suppose.

You may have adhd if your mum tells you to have a shower and three hours later you still haven't done it and she's told you at least 6 times.

My DC do that midnight cooking all the time, they are on a completely different clock and don't do 'snacks' it has to be safe food. Even if that means baking their own bread at 1 in the morning.

All very ND but also I benefit from it as I often don't need to cook 😊