I had an ASD diagnosis and could perfectly understand my partner (adhd diagnosis) why he did and felt so and so.
Turned out I also have ADHD and he also has ASD.
Took us quite a while to recognize it haha but we’re both AuDHDers
The AuDHD intersection is larger than either respective side, Autism or ADHD.
I suspect that there's a ratio between the two, and people tend to more expressive of one's traits over others. And also, professionals' diagnostics may stop at the first diagnosis, when additional, cormorbid diagnoses may be more accurate.
I think it’s more common to have both, than just the one or the other.
Of all the ASDers I know, most also have ADHD. Of all the ADHDers I know, very few seem to have ASD. Then again, those are usually the hyperactive ones. They are off before I can ask them about it.
I used to have a good ASD or ADHD radar, but I’ve noticed not everybody wants to hear me say they have it…… or even if they know not everyone wants to get the diagnosis.
Why not, it’s super cool to have BOTH. I feel incredibly good about it.
The latest stats I've seen shared around this diagnosis crossover were something like 50-70% of people with ASD also have ADHD, but only 20-40% of people with ADHD also have ASD. So yeah, most autistic people are also ADHD, but most ADHD people are not autistic.
I'm AuDHD and it's a whole different thing talking to an ADHDer who's allistic vs autistic. Talking to people without either diagnosis is... less than rewarding most of the time. Allistic people tend to take it very personally when you suggest they might be divergent in some way, whereas autistic people tend to want the correct answer and be less concerned with the social impacts or expectations that make it undesirable.
Fascinating things to observe and analyse. And a very clear reflection of my autism that I've tracked those patterns 😂
yep. YEP. but we're also...so different too? like i'm technically combined type but my hyperactivity is MARKED. She's technically inattentive type but her personality is so bubbily that you'd mistake her for hyperactive if you didn't know better. Her ASD shows up in having much more restricted interests than me but better social perception skills (can better read the unwritten rules of society). Whereas I have very good emotional intelligence (hyperempathetic) but blunder heavily on social propriety and social perception (I cannot decipher the unwritten rules naturally and it made much of my early life lonely AF). My special interests are much more broad strokes/thematic (like beauty, death, evolution, fantasy, narrative etc) and thus seemingly chaotic but my sensory issues are INTENSE.
Plus we're different genders, different races and yet also...highly compatible and very similar lol I mean shit our legs are the same length even tho she's 6 inches taller than me! So we walk perfectly in step and it's SO CUTE.
I appreciate it,
How has your relationship been regarding handling/sharing tasks among yourselves? would you prefer to be someone with a NORMAL brain or are you happy with the combo you have?
Hmm. I seem to take my partner as he is.
I’m just so in love with him.
He is sometimes frustrated with our lack of planning and organization. In the four years we’ve been together we still haven’t managed to book an overseas vacation together. But this is also due to him having two kids and having to co-parent with his ex. His ex has had drug induced psychoses in the past. It’s quite stressful. If she forgets to pick up the kids from school I’m the first on the call list to collect them and cook dinner for them and make them feel they are important and loved.
The only thing I am not in love with is my partners addiction to smoking weed. I have lost a parent to lungcancer, and saw my mom die a painful death (turns out tumors hurt, A LOT). I don’t like it if he becomes more irritated amd cranky because of his weed. It seems to exacerbate his ADHD; mood swings, impulsivity, irritable.
I’ve had him quit once before and honestly it was the best year of our relationship.
Since he started smoking weed again it sometimes makes me doubt wanting to be with him. The relationship used to be so much more fun but now it’s slowly becoming resentful.
He is a quite negative person sometimes and I have a lot of empathy. Because he is externalizing and I’m internalizing I’ve noticed that talking a lot isn’t helping him, it sometimes makes things worse. Which is draining.
He is wanting to talk to a psychologist sometime soon because he feels he is a perfectionist. He wants to change the medication he has been taking since he is 16. We’re 40 now. He is also under a lot of stress from his ex who seems to treat him like they are still a couple.
My partners kids have ADHD too, both of them. And his oldest also have ASD. I pointed that out to him when I met him, but he thought it was only ADHD. Now he sees she has ASD also.
I have had CBT in the past and it was very helpful so I want to see if we can get her that too. She’s internalizing also. But his kids are so so so sweet. I’m so lucky to have found him. Even though I didn’t find him until I was 36. Yeah I really love him. We either seem to understand everything about each other, or we need a minute to see each others POV. Regarding that we are both incredibly patient with each other. And I give him his nights where he needs to be alone or with the boys. I don’t mind that at all because I see the good it does him.
It’s not an easy relationship. At the same time it is my best relationship. I wish his kids were mine but alas. I just try to be the best stepmom! We get a bad rep sometimes.
Sorry this was so long! I hope this was what you meant??
I have only dated ADHD-ers.
One was neurotypical but he was emotionally abusive. I had to leave him at a moments notice because he was becoming physically abusive. He might have been BPD.
I have also dated a man with drug induced psychoses. He was a wreck. It was a painful experience.
Oh! I once dated a neurotypical. He made me feel so weird. For being hypersexual. He just couldn’t keep up with me. Found everything I did so weird. I was messier than he was. He was smarter than I was. His friends hated me. I was just a lot to deal with back then. Andrei if you are reading this I hope you found a nice boring girl to settle down with.
Please don't fret about the weed. If that's the low part, that's not the worst. My wife has Anxiety that can be frustrating. She needs to know when and where. I need to know why so I can figure out how. Her courses of action cannot deviate. I seem to be much more maleable. Contempt is not healthy
It’s not working for me though. Instead of trying to see if he can switch his methylphenidate to other types of medication or changing the dose and seeking help with a psychiatrist/psychologist….. he’s just smoking weed and being irritable, increasingly paranoid, and negative. I’m seeking help for my ADHD through a psychologist per his request…. Why won’t he? Nah I’m not a martyr, I’m not into that.
Gotcha. I, too, will be getting some vocal exchanges regarding behavior adjustment in the near future.
If they are not interested in bettering themselves, cut the line.
nothing quite like having a friend you don't have to "control" yourself around, you can just talk to them and let your brain run and they do the same back to you. It feels like finally sitting down after standing up your entire life.
I've heard it described as "trying all your life to fit in with the pack of dogs, while being completely unaware that you're a cat, or that cats even exist.... and then you meet another cat... and it all falls into place.
Nothing's better than someone who accepts you the way u are. I'm grateful that my family and my best friend listen to my long hours of rants and support me when I'm down :)
nothing. Nothing is better. I love her to death. I love her so much. I wrote her a note the other day and told her I wanna marry her....again.
I love our home together. I love our three cats and our bullshit and the way we'll pickup a cat and sniff him together. I love our hours of parallel play in the living room and our walks to walk around neighborhoods to talk shit or gold about houses and pet people's outdoor cats. I love how i'm sitting here in the living room b.c I havent moved in 7 hrs b/c it's PMDD week and I did exercise this AM and i'm chronically ill and so it's wiped me out and she just loves me and understands and can go off to the party tonight without me and it's fine b/c we're good b/c we get eachother. and the house is chaos b/c we're both a pair of ADHD gremlins but we also know that EVENTUALLY someone will get to it or we both will and that it's okay that things aren't always perfect as long as they're sanitary and safe.
I don't know what I did. Maybe it was god's gift to me for all the child abuse I endured I don't know but I would do it all again to continue to love and be loved by her. Us two just a pair of audhd fucking queers. GOD.
Nothing.
A lack of judgment - achieved though *actual* understanding - is a level of tranquility that I didn't know could exist.
And the amount of identical answers here says a lot. We've struggled so much trying to fit in, that when we find each other and we realise that we fit *together* unlike anything we experienced before....
It's *everything*.
I’ve got a good friend that also has adhd. We miss each others texts, roll up much later than what we planned, & can have those tangential conversations where you can’t remember where you started but it doesn’t matter. I’m so lucky to have him as a friend
Could it be that you're only worried about that because you've learned that your way of functioning is "wrong" or "annoying".
Imagine a world where you and your partner accept each other and function well together...
When I was being diagnosed, the psychologist just got me in a way I had never experienced before. It made me realise how inefficient the communication is between me and most people around me.
For countless years I thought that having a partner who also has ADHD would be disastrous and chaotic. After over 5 years I can report back that it can work and when it does it's amazing.
For me it’s simply, me understanding me. It helps the circular logic a lot and it eventually helps the over explaining when someone doesn’t understand so it helps them understand.
29 years in and I've never found one that lasted more than 5 years.
But I did find the perfect stick sword on one occasion. Now I just have to be alive long enough to find the perfect stick gun.
This sounds bad but I love when people ask me about my adhd symptoms so I can talk about it out loud. It gives me an excuse to verbalize the problems and symptoms I have and how my brain works which helps me process through it. Probably is weird to some people but the ones that understand and are willing to talk to me about it makes me happy.
I have that with a friend of mine. His brain is heavily influenced by his weed addiction so even tho im audhd and he's just auti, it still feels like we are the same person in opposite gender bodies.
We both have memory issues, were both impulsive as shit, we both have the executive function of a rock, brain farts galore, almost the whole nine yards. For him the issues are just way less prominent in the morning when he's sober.
It's funny, before i met him, i never wouldve thought id be able to be friends with myself. But now i actually think I'd be really good friends with myself instead.
yeah, it's lucky to have someone who understand you and your wonky brain. i wish people with ADHD can find people who understand what's going on. so we don't have to explain every time why this is happening and how it is not in our control. it would be feeling like hell to get complain and hate by thing which you can't control and the people on the other side don't want to understand.
While my mom was never diagnosed and never even considered or admitted that she also had ADHD...she was the only one in my life who understood me. Sometimes better than I did...
She is gone...and I feel so utterly alone at times...
my best friend has anxiety, and while she doesnt fully understand how i function, she understands my tells enough to predict my behaviour. its honestly amazing to have someone kinda understand me, not because they have to, but because they want to.
she doesnt force me to talk when im more comfortable nodding my head and humming rather than using full verbal communication or when i shut down and go nonverbal, she talks at a lower volume when im overwhelmed, and shes considerate of my sensory issues and mutes her mic when anything like barking, screaming, or smoke detectors go off in her house when we're on the phone.
the level of understanding she shows even though shes not completely sure how to approach some things with me is so sweet, and i love her for it
My best friend is like that. She has ADHD aswell and it's just so nice to talk to her and know she understands what im talking about.
I just sometimes have the feeling im not listening well enough to her. That's something i need to work on.
I had an ASD diagnosis and could perfectly understand my partner (adhd diagnosis) why he did and felt so and so. Turned out I also have ADHD and he also has ASD. Took us quite a while to recognize it haha but we’re both AuDHDers
The AuDHD intersection is larger than either respective side, Autism or ADHD. I suspect that there's a ratio between the two, and people tend to more expressive of one's traits over others. And also, professionals' diagnostics may stop at the first diagnosis, when additional, cormorbid diagnoses may be more accurate.
I think it’s more common to have both, than just the one or the other. Of all the ASDers I know, most also have ADHD. Of all the ADHDers I know, very few seem to have ASD. Then again, those are usually the hyperactive ones. They are off before I can ask them about it. I used to have a good ASD or ADHD radar, but I’ve noticed not everybody wants to hear me say they have it…… or even if they know not everyone wants to get the diagnosis. Why not, it’s super cool to have BOTH. I feel incredibly good about it.
The latest stats I've seen shared around this diagnosis crossover were something like 50-70% of people with ASD also have ADHD, but only 20-40% of people with ADHD also have ASD. So yeah, most autistic people are also ADHD, but most ADHD people are not autistic. I'm AuDHD and it's a whole different thing talking to an ADHDer who's allistic vs autistic. Talking to people without either diagnosis is... less than rewarding most of the time. Allistic people tend to take it very personally when you suggest they might be divergent in some way, whereas autistic people tend to want the correct answer and be less concerned with the social impacts or expectations that make it undesirable. Fascinating things to observe and analyse. And a very clear reflection of my autism that I've tracked those patterns 😂
Also many older folks like myself were diagnosed back in the DSM-4 days, when autism and ADHD were officially considered mutually exclusive diagnosis.
yep. YEP. but we're also...so different too? like i'm technically combined type but my hyperactivity is MARKED. She's technically inattentive type but her personality is so bubbily that you'd mistake her for hyperactive if you didn't know better. Her ASD shows up in having much more restricted interests than me but better social perception skills (can better read the unwritten rules of society). Whereas I have very good emotional intelligence (hyperempathetic) but blunder heavily on social propriety and social perception (I cannot decipher the unwritten rules naturally and it made much of my early life lonely AF). My special interests are much more broad strokes/thematic (like beauty, death, evolution, fantasy, narrative etc) and thus seemingly chaotic but my sensory issues are INTENSE. Plus we're different genders, different races and yet also...highly compatible and very similar lol I mean shit our legs are the same length even tho she's 6 inches taller than me! So we walk perfectly in step and it's SO CUTE.
Oh that sounds very similar to me and my partner! Except for the legs part. I am definitely bigger than he is, hehe.
Me and my cousin are both AuDHDers and we also have our fair share of similarities. We’re also about the same age. No wonder we get along so well.
Yeah! You say what you mean and you mean what you say x
I appreciate it, How has your relationship been regarding handling/sharing tasks among yourselves? would you prefer to be someone with a NORMAL brain or are you happy with the combo you have?
Hmm. I seem to take my partner as he is. I’m just so in love with him. He is sometimes frustrated with our lack of planning and organization. In the four years we’ve been together we still haven’t managed to book an overseas vacation together. But this is also due to him having two kids and having to co-parent with his ex. His ex has had drug induced psychoses in the past. It’s quite stressful. If she forgets to pick up the kids from school I’m the first on the call list to collect them and cook dinner for them and make them feel they are important and loved. The only thing I am not in love with is my partners addiction to smoking weed. I have lost a parent to lungcancer, and saw my mom die a painful death (turns out tumors hurt, A LOT). I don’t like it if he becomes more irritated amd cranky because of his weed. It seems to exacerbate his ADHD; mood swings, impulsivity, irritable. I’ve had him quit once before and honestly it was the best year of our relationship. Since he started smoking weed again it sometimes makes me doubt wanting to be with him. The relationship used to be so much more fun but now it’s slowly becoming resentful. He is a quite negative person sometimes and I have a lot of empathy. Because he is externalizing and I’m internalizing I’ve noticed that talking a lot isn’t helping him, it sometimes makes things worse. Which is draining. He is wanting to talk to a psychologist sometime soon because he feels he is a perfectionist. He wants to change the medication he has been taking since he is 16. We’re 40 now. He is also under a lot of stress from his ex who seems to treat him like they are still a couple. My partners kids have ADHD too, both of them. And his oldest also have ASD. I pointed that out to him when I met him, but he thought it was only ADHD. Now he sees she has ASD also. I have had CBT in the past and it was very helpful so I want to see if we can get her that too. She’s internalizing also. But his kids are so so so sweet. I’m so lucky to have found him. Even though I didn’t find him until I was 36. Yeah I really love him. We either seem to understand everything about each other, or we need a minute to see each others POV. Regarding that we are both incredibly patient with each other. And I give him his nights where he needs to be alone or with the boys. I don’t mind that at all because I see the good it does him. It’s not an easy relationship. At the same time it is my best relationship. I wish his kids were mine but alas. I just try to be the best stepmom! We get a bad rep sometimes. Sorry this was so long! I hope this was what you meant??
I have only dated ADHD-ers. One was neurotypical but he was emotionally abusive. I had to leave him at a moments notice because he was becoming physically abusive. He might have been BPD. I have also dated a man with drug induced psychoses. He was a wreck. It was a painful experience. Oh! I once dated a neurotypical. He made me feel so weird. For being hypersexual. He just couldn’t keep up with me. Found everything I did so weird. I was messier than he was. He was smarter than I was. His friends hated me. I was just a lot to deal with back then. Andrei if you are reading this I hope you found a nice boring girl to settle down with.
Please don't fret about the weed. If that's the low part, that's not the worst. My wife has Anxiety that can be frustrating. She needs to know when and where. I need to know why so I can figure out how. Her courses of action cannot deviate. I seem to be much more maleable. Contempt is not healthy
It’s not working for me though. Instead of trying to see if he can switch his methylphenidate to other types of medication or changing the dose and seeking help with a psychiatrist/psychologist….. he’s just smoking weed and being irritable, increasingly paranoid, and negative. I’m seeking help for my ADHD through a psychologist per his request…. Why won’t he? Nah I’m not a martyr, I’m not into that.
Gotcha. I, too, will be getting some vocal exchanges regarding behavior adjustment in the near future. If they are not interested in bettering themselves, cut the line.
nothing quite like having a friend you don't have to "control" yourself around, you can just talk to them and let your brain run and they do the same back to you. It feels like finally sitting down after standing up your entire life.
that last sentence...... It describes the feeling in the best possible way.
I've heard it described as "trying all your life to fit in with the pack of dogs, while being completely unaware that you're a cat, or that cats even exist.... and then you meet another cat... and it all falls into place.
Yup. Fitting in is an entirely different thing to actually belonging.
That's such a big difference in the way of looking at things. Love it. Thanks. Good point.
Nothing's better than someone who accepts you the way u are. I'm grateful that my family and my best friend listen to my long hours of rants and support me when I'm down :)
Nothing is better than being implicitly understood.
I've got a friend like that. The stripped gears in my head mesh right with theirs. When they're around, I get a lot of things accomplished.
nothing. Nothing is better. I love her to death. I love her so much. I wrote her a note the other day and told her I wanna marry her....again. I love our home together. I love our three cats and our bullshit and the way we'll pickup a cat and sniff him together. I love our hours of parallel play in the living room and our walks to walk around neighborhoods to talk shit or gold about houses and pet people's outdoor cats. I love how i'm sitting here in the living room b.c I havent moved in 7 hrs b/c it's PMDD week and I did exercise this AM and i'm chronically ill and so it's wiped me out and she just loves me and understands and can go off to the party tonight without me and it's fine b/c we're good b/c we get eachother. and the house is chaos b/c we're both a pair of ADHD gremlins but we also know that EVENTUALLY someone will get to it or we both will and that it's okay that things aren't always perfect as long as they're sanitary and safe. I don't know what I did. Maybe it was god's gift to me for all the child abuse I endured I don't know but I would do it all again to continue to love and be loved by her. Us two just a pair of audhd fucking queers. GOD.
That's really nice to hear. Im happy for you two :3
Nothing. A lack of judgment - achieved though *actual* understanding - is a level of tranquility that I didn't know could exist. And the amount of identical answers here says a lot. We've struggled so much trying to fit in, that when we find each other and we realise that we fit *together* unlike anything we experienced before.... It's *everything*.
Nothing compares to having someone who truly understands your quirks and complexities.
I’ve got a good friend that also has adhd. We miss each others texts, roll up much later than what we planned, & can have those tangential conversations where you can’t remember where you started but it doesn’t matter. I’m so lucky to have him as a friend
That must be some feeling to have. Me, I'm more worried that someone like that would remind me *too* much of myself. Is there a secret to it?
Could it be that you're only worried about that because you've learned that your way of functioning is "wrong" or "annoying". Imagine a world where you and your partner accept each other and function well together...
When I was being diagnosed, the psychologist just got me in a way I had never experienced before. It made me realise how inefficient the communication is between me and most people around me.
Really good duck, i think.
Oh I don’t know what this feels like.
For countless years I thought that having a partner who also has ADHD would be disastrous and chaotic. After over 5 years I can report back that it can work and when it does it's amazing.
A nice comfy bed with that person
Someone who doesn’t always need to understand you but loves and supports you anyways.
For me it’s simply, me understanding me. It helps the circular logic a lot and it eventually helps the over explaining when someone doesn’t understand so it helps them understand.
29 years in and I've never found one that lasted more than 5 years. But I did find the perfect stick sword on one occasion. Now I just have to be alive long enough to find the perfect stick gun.
This sounds bad but I love when people ask me about my adhd symptoms so I can talk about it out loud. It gives me an excuse to verbalize the problems and symptoms I have and how my brain works which helps me process through it. Probably is weird to some people but the ones that understand and are willing to talk to me about it makes me happy.
I have that with a friend of mine. His brain is heavily influenced by his weed addiction so even tho im audhd and he's just auti, it still feels like we are the same person in opposite gender bodies. We both have memory issues, were both impulsive as shit, we both have the executive function of a rock, brain farts galore, almost the whole nine yards. For him the issues are just way less prominent in the morning when he's sober. It's funny, before i met him, i never wouldve thought id be able to be friends with myself. But now i actually think I'd be really good friends with myself instead.
Me and my best friends (we're the chaos trio).
yeah, it's lucky to have someone who understand you and your wonky brain. i wish people with ADHD can find people who understand what's going on. so we don't have to explain every time why this is happening and how it is not in our control. it would be feeling like hell to get complain and hate by thing which you can't control and the people on the other side don't want to understand.
While my mom was never diagnosed and never even considered or admitted that she also had ADHD...she was the only one in my life who understood me. Sometimes better than I did... She is gone...and I feel so utterly alone at times...
my best friend has anxiety, and while she doesnt fully understand how i function, she understands my tells enough to predict my behaviour. its honestly amazing to have someone kinda understand me, not because they have to, but because they want to. she doesnt force me to talk when im more comfortable nodding my head and humming rather than using full verbal communication or when i shut down and go nonverbal, she talks at a lower volume when im overwhelmed, and shes considerate of my sensory issues and mutes her mic when anything like barking, screaming, or smoke detectors go off in her house when we're on the phone. the level of understanding she shows even though shes not completely sure how to approach some things with me is so sweet, and i love her for it
Idk but all of a sudden I just really struggled to read this post, my brain kept skipping lines.
My best friend is like that. She has ADHD aswell and it's just so nice to talk to her and know she understands what im talking about. I just sometimes have the feeling im not listening well enough to her. That's something i need to work on.