Autistic and ADHD? AuDHD?

Commanded2bwell

I was diagnosed autistic by a clinician nearly five years ago. It's been a rough ride, not helped by the fact that the diagnosis only came about because I became clinically depressed, so I was already at the bottom of the cliff before I had been told there was danger of a cliff! At least, that's how it felt.

I've been reflecting on the struggle that it's taken to come to terms with my "new reality" and the changes this requires me to make in my ambitions, my self-identity, my assessments of my capabilities and, hence, my life choices. It's left me feeling that there's something else going on. I feel like there might be a piece of the puzzle missing, and so I've lately come to wonder if my diagnosis only got 50% of it right. I have read estimates that up to 70% of diagnosed autistics are also diagnosed, or strongly suspected of being, ADHD, and I certainly feel like several of my traits are not common, text-book autism. And I'm certain that a couple of my close relatives are undiagnosed ADHD!

And yet... I could point to my tendency to talk too much and frequent impulse to socialise, which is not supposed to be text-book autism. Yet, it very clearly is. One of the features of social awkwardness in autism is talking too much, to the point of it being inappropriate. Many autistics seek out social opportunities. It's the usual trope of "We want to be involved and included, we just don't want to be under pressure to take part when we get out of our depth, which is very shallow."

It's all very confusing.

I just did an online screening test (the usual caveats apply) and scored 3 where the threshold for a possible positive result is 4 (some of those caveats are that many of the questions are daft and hard to relate to my real life, as opposed to some theoretical alternative me who experiences the situations that the questions relate to). So, I suppose the result is, at best, inconclusive.

The purpose of this ramble is basically me wondering out loud what to do next. Is there something to this notion? Might it be worth pursuing? I doubt there would be any material gain from this in terms of changes to benefits, but I'm not looking for that. I'm interested in knowing what's going on in this chaotic lump of meat between my ears. I want to live a stable, productive life in which I'm in charge and don't have to be paranoid about some mystery neuropathy that might be lurking, undiagnosed, in the shadows, waiting to trip me up.

If ADHD is part my the puzzle, I need to know about it. But I don't think I've got any evidence beyond a vague feeling, after five years, that there's still something more going on.

Cheers

Jimm_Alumni

From research I've read there does indeed seem to be some correlation, or comorbidity, between ADHD and Autism. However, I do believe it's still far from conclusive, unless there's been more research since I last read about it.

Do you still have any contact or access to your local adult autism clinic? I am not sure how it is in some other trusts but in my NHS Trust the same clinic handles autism and ADHD for adults. If you can contact them I'm sure it would be a good first place to get some answers on how to go about being checked?

Other than that the GP is often the next place to call, they have their own questionnaire to go through usually and if you reach the clinical threshold score on it they will then refer you.

I will give a small warning, the current wait times for ADHD is very, very long in many NHS trusts. Our better understanding and awareness of ADHD, coupled with COVID/lockdown disrupting many peoples lives and thus their coping mechanisms means many people have realised they may have ADHD and so are going for diagnosis. I was one of them!