Tag: ADHD | A Banana Peeled

In the last post, I talked about how I had basically found ways to work around my own brain. I don’t know if I have autism and/or ADHD, but the signs are there. Or at least they would be if I let myself react instinctively rather than how I have learned to deal with them. I have so honed my reactions that they are almost instinctual to me. That makes it difficult to say what my real response would be.

For example. I have a constant commentary in my head that I would never voice out loud. I learned at a very young age that no one was interested in what I had to say. Not really. Well, i shouldn’t say that no one was interested, but that most people were not interested. I would actually go further and say they were upset/offended/bothered when I did voice my opinion.

Wow. I’m reading a list of things that a non-male person with autism–well, ok. It’s about women. I’m AFAB so it relates to me, but I take issue with the fact that the article I read pathologized AFAB people who did not feel that they were women.

That aside, holy shit, I fit almost all the ‘symptoms’. They even include hyper-empathy as a possible trait. Also, hyper-focus, naivety about social interactions, and an uncommon interest in sex. By the way, I felt like some of the traits/symptoms were laughable. They said that someone who was straight, gay, transgender, or nonbinary could be autistic. Um, that’s basically saying anyone can be autistic. They also said someone who was asexual could be autistic as could someone who was hypersexual. In other words, come the fuck on with covering all the bases.

The point is, I am fifty-two years old. I have been on this earth for over a half-cetntury. I have found ways to deal with my weird traits and issues, but I never considered that I might be autistic. I knew it ran in my family, but I never once thought it could be my. Why? Because the symptoms/traits were foreign to me. “No empathy.” Well, nope. I have an overflowing of empathy. It was fornced upon me, but it was there.

Another was “No eye contact”. I didn’t like eye contact, but I knew that it was expected. I could do it, but at a cost. “Self-stimulation”. No way in hell I was going to do that. I knew better than to even try. I was a girl* and I had to sit quiet as a mouse. My father believed that children should be neither seen nor heard, especially a girl child.

The countdown to enforced family time is ticking, and as a result, my health is taking a nosedive. Oh, I can’t say for sure it’s related (see what I did there?), but I wouldn’t be surprised if it were. Let me amend. I know my mental health takes a hit during family time, but I can’t say for sure my physical decline is a direct correlation. I would not be surprised if it were, given that stress is really bad for health, but I can’t say it’s 100% true. I do know, however, that my brain starts thinking darker thoughts that get worse every day. I know that my sleep issues, which are problematic at the best of times, become even worse. The chattering in my brain that I can usually keep to a bare minimum grows louder, and it’s harder to block it out.

Side note: I’ve been grappling with the idea that I may have ADHD/ADD or at least some of the traits. I’ve never thought about it in the past because the stereotype is the hyperactive young boy who can’t sit still for five minutes, talks a mile a minute, and careening into things at a high velocity. None of that is me except on occasion the middle one, and I tend towards inertia whenever possible. In addition, I already know I have OCD tendencies, and to my mind, these two disorders are on the opposite sides of the spectrum. Also, I’m a woman, and ADD is notoriously overlooked in people of my gender in part because of the aforementioned stereotype. Here are the symptoms as they may present in women, and I match many of them. I also have four of the five comorbidities, which doesn’t make me feel any better. The only reason I hesitate with the label is because I have a good memory and don’t forget things. Other than that, though, everything else fits.

What really opened my eyes to the fact that I may have ADD (no H here) is when someone who has it explained that the ‘look, squirrel’ syndrome was followed by hyper-focus when he was really interested in something. That’s what tripped me up. I can do several things at one time, but if I’m really into something, I lose sight of everything else. I cannot be distracted once I latch onto one thing (or, worse, one person), and once I learned that was part of ADHD, things started clicking. Reading the list above, I’m struck by how I was just thinking this week how I couldn’t work in an office because so much of the social bullshit was such an anathema to me. I felt that way when I was in an office, and even though I can fake it because I’m really good at small talk (even though I hate it), I don’t understand the reasons behind much of it. I feel that way in general with social interactions and especially with the office. There was a letter at Ask A Manager this week in which the letter writer said she didn’t answer every time her coworker said hi in the morning, and he would confront her about it. Sometimes, it was because she had her headphones on, but also because she didn’t feel like it once in a while. She asked how she could push back on the confrontation and why he NEEDED her to say hi every day, and I wished she hadn’t added the part about not feeling like it once in a while because I knew the commentariat would focus on that–and they did.

Tag Archives: ADHD

Would a diagnosis be worth it?

Grasping for a reason