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Let’s Talk! Autism in Women and People Raised as Women. Pt. 3
Student Advocates
Hosted and produced by Amanda Antell. Produced and edited by Carrie Cantrell. Transcriptions authored by Shecki Julian. Amanda, Ericka, and Elianna deeply explore the differences between autism and ADHD symptoms.
You can also listen to this episode on Spotify.
Transcript
Amanda: Hello, my name is Amanda, and I am the producer and the host of the Let’s Talk Autism podcast series. Today’s episode is a conversation between myself, Eliana, and Erica, with our talk being the third discussion centering around the similarities and differences of autism and ADHD in women and people raised as women. This episode dives deeply into the symptoms and experiences autistic and ADHD community members face, revealing both sharp contrasts and wide overlaps. The attitudes surrounding autism and ADHD in women and people raised as women are also deeply explored, providing a personal insight of autistic meltdowns and ADHD exhaustion. With all this in mind, I hope you enjoy today’s episode and come out of it with new thoughts and perspectives about both conditions.
So, to start off with, how about my name is Amanda. I’m a PCC disability advocate who’s specializes in autism advocacy projects like this, and I hope to be a veterinarian one day, so I’m taking a bunch of prerequisite classes and finishing a degree at Oregon State online right now. So hopefully that will happen in the next year.
Erica: My name is Erica; I use she/her pronouns. Over the course of the year, I work three jobs. I’m not attending school. Let’s see… I have an ADHD diagnosis. Actually, really simply, my therapist is talking to me about whether or not I have autism. I don’t actually have a strong opinion about that; I think it would make sense if I don’t have autism. But yeah, so I have ADHD and I was diagnosed at around age 12.
Eliana: My name is Eliana; I use she/they pronouns. I have an associates of science from PCC. I’m working towards taking on the Urban and Public Affairs program at PSU. I was diagnosed with my ADHD around 2019. So yeah, I was definitely over 20 when that happened.
Amanda: And for me, I was diagnosed with autism when I was actually 31, so I was way older than both of you [laughs]. And that’s not unusual, actually, for latened diagnosis with autism and ADHD in women and people raised as women. There’s actually a long history of that, but suffice to say – we’ll kind of go into this later in the interview, but for the longest time, it was specifically thought to be a condition in boys, and really, until the racism aspect of these studies was kind of explored and kind of peeled back, experts thought it was specifically adolescent white boys. So it was like this diagnostic range was, like, just very narrow for the longest time. So in the 90s, it was just said that – most of it was like, girls and people raised as girls were really severe on the spectrum. It was just said that girls cannot have autism. And I don’t know how often ADHD was really diagnosed in girls at the time, but it was really limited as well. So the result is you just have a lot of people with latened diagnoses in both conditions. So yeah, I’m not surprised on either of those fronts with Eliana.
Erica: I was actually, as a very small child, I was definitely showing signs of being different, of having different needs than other kids, having different strengths and weaknesses, struggling academically and sometimes socially. And so my parents were also very, you know – they did something about it; they explored what their options were. So like, around age eight, they put me through a whole lot of tests with the help of some local public school staff, and so we got a bunch of results back, and that was the first time that my parents were talked to about the possibility that I could have ADHD. I guess there was a psychologist that we saw very briefly who thought I might have ADHD and autism, but we didn’t stick with him for very long. The actual official diagnosis that I got was around age 12, right after both of my parents were diagnosed; they would have been about 47 and 48 at the time, so they got their really late diagnosis. And then they looked at me and they were like, “Well, she obviously has ADHD, but let’s get an official test done as well.”
Eliana: My path to getting diagnosed was after having a major mental health blowout at OSU where I had a psychotic break or something. It’s really hard to remember what the person at CAP said I was experiencing because of just how much stress I was under at the time. So I was undiagnosed. I did really well academically. I think it was because I really was rewarded with the dopamine hit of doing well in school and I just kind of understood things really well. And then, also, there’s the dopamine hit of being liked by your teachers and doing a good job and kind of like the reward and praise you get for that. So I’m wondering if that might be part of why I did well academically. I mostly did pretty well in school. Typically early signs of ADHD in other ways would be the rejection sensitivity dysphoria, because of just like, how much bullying really sucked for me. And you know, all the time teachers will tell you, “Oh, well, they keep doing it because they get a reaction out of you.” Or, you know, the old saying, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” And it’s like, no, this really, really sucks. So that was kind of early warning signs. After my major blowout at OSU, I was really, really depressed and out of it, and I needed some psychiatric help. I’ve been to therapists before, but I had never gotten an ADHD diagnosis. I had had two previous psychological evaluations. Never did ADHD seem to come into the picture. We had a friend of the family who had a son who had ADHD – I think she also had ADHD – who said that I had ADHD, but my mom was like, “No, that’s not what the doctor said, so we’re just going to keep with this.” So I went to a psychiatrist who I still see who was a woman with ADHD herself, and when I started explaining things to her, she was just kind of like, “Not another one.” So she was very frustrated that another, you know, person assigned female at birth and raised as a girl had ADHD and was not properly diagnosed with ADHD. And she gave me the test, and I scored pretty high on the having ADHD scale, so I got my diagnosis.
Amanda: So for me, my mother really tried hard to get me diagnosed when I was a kid, because she wasn’t a mental health professional, but she definitely knew I was very different. Like, I didn’t have any kind of developmental delays or anything, but the way I acted and the way I just kind of went space cadet when I got bored with conversations so easily kind of made her think something was very different about me. And just the fact that I could get so interested in animals and not pay attention to literally anyone or anything around me after that [laughs], she definitely knew I was different. And so I didn’t get diagnosed until I was, like, 31. My mental health kind of took a hit just due to the academic pressure of me going back to school after a long period of depression. Yeah, my therapist right away noticed I had autism and just told me to get officially diagnosed, and my wife was like, “Okay, yeah, you need to do this.”
So how would you both describe your autism or ADHD in your own words?
Erica: When I first saw that question, I was inclined to answer it with just a list of my symptoms, but I’ve been thinking about it more. Like yeah, I definitely think about it as, like, a list of my symptoms. But also this conversation about ADHD, you know, all the different ways that people can view it – you know, some people, including some people who have it but just won’t admit it, or don’t have a diagnosis. Some people don’t believe that ADHD exists, and they have various ways of explaining why they think that. There are some people who see ADHD – I don’t know, they’re like, they don’t want it to be a disability, or they don’t want to see it solely as a disability. And so they’ll be like, “ADHD is a superpower.” And then there’s ADHD as a serious disability. I see my ADHD as a disability. At the same time, it’s not something about myself that I hate. I certainly don’t like the superpower idea; it feels super invalidating to the disability part. But I do also – like, I don’t hate my ADHD; I don’t wish that I didn’t have ADHD. I don’t think that there’s nothing beautiful about it; I think that it can be really cool, but it is also, at the same time, a disability. And so that’s kind of my experience of it. So it’s like, it’s a part of me, and it’s not bad, and I like myself as someone who has ADHD.
Eliana: Whenever I think about my ADHD, it’s like, some days are just fine. So it’s very much a – what systems am I allowed to create for myself in order to function? So for me, it’s like, I might not get something done immediately. This is something that comes up a lot at home, in terms of, like, doing the dishes. So it’s like, if I’ve just had a meal, I might just want to digest my meal and feel that, and then it’s like, I might get distracted to do something, but I will eventually wash a dish. But this washing dishes schedule for me doesn’t always work out well for my mom. So it’s kind of like, am I interacting with others, and what do they prefer to have happen? Versus like, what is just kind of something that can flow with me? In my day to day, I don’t need an ADHD medication or anything to get things done. I just kind of get things done at a different time or pace, but I’ve definitely had the experience of – I can logically understand something that needs to get done, but then my brain will not want to do the thing or I can’t get it done. So having ADHD, for me, has been learning what my brain is trying to tell me and responding to it appropriately. Like when the pandemic hit, and we all had to go to online learning, I could reasonably understand – I could logically understand needing to like log in at home, and then get the work done and do all that. But my brain was like, “I hate this, and I can’t do it.” And it’s like, even if I took all of my medications, I couldn’t get the work done; I really couldn’t focus in class. It’s definitely been a thing of, like, learning how to work with this part of my brain and how it works. Then, how much it affects me depends on how much I can apply the patterns in the ways of doing things that I know I can do.
Amanda: Thank you. So the way I would describe my autism is this kind of detachment which allows me to handle a lot of situations in the veterinary setting very well, especially an emergency, because it’s like – I want the animal to be okay, but I’m also in that mindset where it’s like, if they’re an emergency, the prognosis is probably not good anyways. Although, that being said, if you have a pet, and they have an emergency situation, please get them to the emergency room as soon as possible. The sooner you get them there, the better. It’s kind of interesting with what Erica said about the superpower thing, because I have heard that before, especially about high-functioning autism, which kind of feeds into the controversy of the term “high-functioning” versus “low-functioning.” I kind of agree with Erica where I would say it’s very dismissive, and almost – invalidating is probably a pretty good word for it, too. The way I would describe it better, or at least with my autism, is that it’s a double-edged sword. It makes me very good at very specific things, like I’m very academically gifted with any kind of English subject, like writing and reading; I can memorize stuff very easily, like from an anatomy book; and I can understand concepts very well from a physiology textbook because it relates to animals. But if it’s a subject I’m not interested in, or if I don’t have a natural affinity for it, I really struggle. Like, physics was kind of the worst of the core sciences for me. Math, I have to do this process I call “lather, rinse, repeat” where I literally have to learn a math concept one specific way, and then I have to see the formula one specific way, and I have to literally repeat this process for hours until my brain finally accepts it as fact or truth. So there are definitely – so I would say that both ADHD and autism do give us kind of an edge in subjects we like, but that does not make our lives easier. I definitely agree with Erica there.
Erica: Yeah, I connect a lot with what Eliana was saying about how having ADHD, it kind of just makes your body wants to do different things. It has different times; it has different paces. I experienced that, too. Yeah, and I also agree with the whole double-edged sword thing. I was trying to think of, like, what are the ADHD-specific strengths? And honestly, like, I guess hyper-focus is the one that I experience the most. And then, I don’t know… I also enjoy how, like, my brain kind of goes all over the place and exists differently within time. Like, I don’t think of it as a superpower, but I do think of it as a difference that I enjoy sometimes.
Amanda: One thing I’ve noticed about autism versus ADHD, in terms of just a comparison in my talks with other people, is that autism – at least with my autism – is that I can focus intensely on a task or a subject for hours on end, and I can’t do anything else. Like, when I’m in that mode, I’m actually terrible at multitasking. From what I’ve noticed with people with ADHD, the people I’ve talked to, including both of you, is that you’re very good at multitasking and very good at handling yourself in situations where your brain is kind of adjusting to new situations almost simultaneously. I’m not sure if I’m making sense with that description, but that’s just been kind of an interesting observation I’ve noticed.
Erica: Yeah, I also observe people with autism, and I feel like there’s a there’s a connection between the ADHD hyper-focus, and – is it autistic hyper-focus? I don’t know what you call it. But I feel like also like, personally, I don’t have as many interest-based times where I just am absorbed in a particular interest or task as I used to. Yeah, it just doesn’t end up being a big part of my life the way it seems to be for people with autism.
Eliana: Yeah, from what I’ve noticed, from, you know, reading what autistic people talk about from their experiences, it’s like, I don’t think I have the same kind of like hyper-focus that autistic people do. I certainly have things that I’ll get really interested in, and I’ll just, like, think about it all the time. It’s like, I just love thinking about it; it’s a very good dopamine receptor. And that kind of goes back to how would I describe, you know, my ADHD. It’s kind of like, because you’re born with low dopamine, you’re just kind of always searching for dopamine, you know, providers. You’re always running low, you’re always trying to find that energy that you get from dopamine. And so that would be a major, like, push. So it’s like, I can do a lot of things, and I can be really creative and have a lot of, like, pattern recognition whenever I’m getting something that – interacting with something I’m getting a lot of dopamine reward from. But once, like, the dopamine mines run dry from whatever I’m interacting with, it’s like I just can’t do anything; I can’t focus on it. My brain wants to be anywhere other than here; it just starts thinking about things that it thinks are fun. It’s just, like, randomly flipping through channels, trying to find something entertaining. So it’s like, when things work out for my ADHD, then it’s great. But if things are not working out for my ADHD, and I still have to do stuff with the thing that isn’t giving me ADHD, then it’s a really hard time. So that’s how – you know, that’s kind how of the ADHD experience is. Sometimes, when you hit that dopamine mine, you do incredible things, but when the dopamine stops flowing, it’s really going to stink.
Amanda: Yeah, so the hyper-focus thing, that depends on who you talk to in the autistic community. But a lot of us call that the “special interest” thing where it’s like, again, we just kind of hyper-focus on one or two subjects in our life. And it’s kind of like what Erica said, it kind of consumes – I’m not gonna lie, my special interests with animals definitely consumes me, and I love it wholeheartedly because, I don’t know, I love animals; I connect with them better than people. And I love freaking people out with my animal knowledge facts, with just random gross stuff, or like really violent stuff in the animal kingdom. It’s actually kind of amazing to me what people don’t realize about animal behavior a lot of times in daily life. But so, since we’re kind of talking about special interests and other and other kind of prominent signs of autism and ADHD, how would you describe your other ADHD symptoms? Like, we talked about kind of how you guys can kind of shift between tasks fairly easily as long as your dopamine is up, but is there anything else that kind of comes to mind with ADHD symptoms?
Erica: I want to talk about, like, the multitasking and switching between things. I feel like sometimes it works well, and sometimes transitions are actually really hard. And I don’t I don’t have the words to talk more about transitions being hard right now. But I do think, like, I have found myself really thriving in fast-paced environments. Like I worked at a fast food restaurant for a while, and I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did, especially also because I tend to be kind of like a slow-paced, easygoing person. But you know, I think there’s also a dopamine hit from, like, moving really quickly and getting all these things done, and like the rush of people coming in. Like, when you can actually manage what you’re doing, it can be really rewarding. My most prominent ADHD symptoms… My big one is time blindness. I just don’t experience time the same way that other people do. I think, you know, when I look back to like, when did I first experience time blindness? I think it was also connected to, like, hyper-focus. So I’d be a little kid in my own world, and I would not recognize the passage of time. And then people would have expectations of me; they would have things that they wanted from me. Even as a small child, they wanted me to get ready for school, and I didn’t I didn’t get that; it didn’t make sense. I was in my head [laughs], and I didn’t see time. And actually, when I look back at that time, people got upset with me for being late before they explained to me what being late was. And so it was very confusing. I remember, there was a day when I found out – I think someone told me that my teacher felt bad or felt insulted when I was late, and no one had told me that, and I was like, “Wait, what?” It was a really difficult concept for me. I didn’t understand it. I mean, the other ones are definitely there, but I feel like this is the one that people notice the most. It causes me the most social friction, even as an adult – not so much anymore. When I reached adulthood, you know, all these all these adults throughout my childhood had told me different things. They told me I needed to work harder. That was the big one. They told me I needed to work harder at being on time. And I was like, “Cool, thanks.” I realized that there was not a single person I had ever met that knew what was going on and knew what to do about it so that I could be punctual. How could I get myself to function in a way that would allow that to happen? And gradually, I did kind of figure out how to work with myself. So that that was that was kind of a big moment for me just realizing like, it’s all on me; like, there are not resources that I have found that have found me that will help me with this. And then my other symptoms, I have hyper-focus; it’s actually really nice. Occasionally it becomes an issue if like, someone says my name, and I’m too busy focusing on something else to hear them. That doesn’t happen very often, just occasionally. And then general executive dysfunction, you know, the lack of dopamine – can’t get myself to do the thing that I think I should do right now; I have to find a way around that. And then, this isn’t a big symptom, but I have been noticing I do have a little bit of that ADHD forgetfulness. It’s not at the level of some other people who have forgetfulness or poor working memory as one of their main symptoms.
Eliana: About the whole forgetfulness thing, it’s like, sometimes I’ll be working on something or in a conversation, and I’ll go like, “Oh, this thing,” or, “I need to do this thing,” and then it’ll just evaporate from my brain in like, one second. It’ll just be like, “Oh, I never thought of that before. What was that?” And then it just is gone. Or, this is a thing of like food waste, where if something is hidden in a back corner of the fridge, I will forget that it’s there, and if I don’t see it again, I won’t remember that it exists. So there’s a lot of out of sight, out of mind to it. There’s – what else was there? There’s the forgetfulness. There’s definitely, like, I think needing to warm up my brain to remember things. So if I go into a class or a test, I’ll need to kind of do some stuff beforehand to get my brain in that zone to start thinking about things. The executive dysfunction is very – like, I think ADHD people can be very efficiency-minded, so we’re always kind of thinking of how much effort goes into something versus how much reward comes out of it. So it’s like, if I need to clean a really messy space, and I’m really overwhelmed by all the options and all the things I have to do, it’s very much like, how much dopamine reward am I going to get out of cleaning this space or doing a task, versus how much dopamine am I going to get out of it. So I feel like that is, you know – kind of getting back to the whole thing with that, as you know, ADHD people are always kind of rationing dopamine in their brains, whether they’re conscious of it or not.
Amanda: Thank you. That’s very interesting. So I think I kind of talked about the intense hyper-focus I have with animals and just how, if I don’t have enough engagement in a conversation, I kind of just kind of veer off and go on to kind of do my own thing. And it’s not even that I feel bad about being excluded from anything; it’s just that I’m bored. I want to do something else that actually requires my time. Otherwise, why am I in this conversation? And for some reason, that really makes people offended or like they’re afraid they offend me, even though I keep repeatedly insisting that’s not the case. But anyways, it’s kind of interesting with the fast food story, because it makes me think of observation hours I’ve collected in emergency. Emergency vet care has probably been my favorite because it’s the most stimulating environment; there’s always something to do. Everything’s just so fast-paced, and there’s just so many cool surgeries to watch. And I feel very bad for the patients there, but it’s just a great environment for me. Whereas clinical, it’s any clinical – whether it was small animals, whether it was exotic, whether it was even equine – even the short stint I did at equine, there’s a lot of downtime; you’re not really doing anything. Honestly, it’s really boring. And it’s like I would just be literally wandering around the clinic, looking for things to clean because I was so bored. So yeah.
So another prominent symptom I have is probably like, probably my meltdowns, or kind of the build-up to meltdowns. When I build up to meltdowns, I would say that I get I get very animated and I start talking fairly fast, and I can feel my body temperature rising and tensing up, and when that happens, it’s like I know I have to leave the situation with the rise and explosion that’s going to happen, and that’s not good for anyone involved. Because I’m pretty high-functioning, and I guess I mask – I don’t know if I mask very well, honestly, but I guess because I was raised neurotypical, I guess I’m used to interacting with neurotypical people on kind of a longer-term basis. So it’s like I can last a little longer even when I’m stressed. But when my stress levels do hit a certain point, I just kind of start snapping; I get very angry very easily, so I just need to leave the situation. So that, and my kind of special interest and intense focus of animals, I would say, are probably my most prominent autism symptoms.
And these symptoms kind of play into – kind of going on to the next questions. It’s like, I think our symptoms kind of play into some stereotypes a little bit when we talk about autism and ADHD, where it’s like, you have time blindness; you kind of experience task and time management differently with ADHD. And then I have the special interests that autism is kind of known for at least, not with animals specifically, just the fact that I have one, I guess. So would you say that both of you kind of fit that stereotype of ADHD in some way? Or would you say that ADHD is pretty different compared to what most public or neurotypical people think when they think of ADHD?
Erica: Yeah, I feel like the big ADHD stereotype is the hyperactive little boy. And I don’t know, maybe it’s kind of expanded to just like the hyperactive little kid. I’ve definitely like, I’ve also worked with kids before, and I’ve seen girls with ADHD who have similar hyperactivity as the hyperactive little boy stereotype. But there are lots of different ways to experience ADHD, lots of different ways that look like – you know, the DSM V breaks it into three categories; so there’s the primarily hyperactive, there’s the primarily inattentive, and the combined type. I am pretty sure I was diagnosed with the primarily inattentive type, so you really don’t see me physically showing hyperactivity very often. Some people with the primarily inattentive type will talk about how they are hyperactive on the inside, but not the outside. I’m not sure how much I connect with that. I feel like I certainly have a lot going on in my head, but it doesn’t feel overwhelming very often. I feel like I’m kind of I’m a fairly calm person; sometimes I get excited about things, like, kind of normal. But yeah, I also think that inattentive type, I know that a lot of other people who have inattentive type get overlooked, because they really don’t fit that stereotype. You know, they’re quiet, maybe they’re good in academia. And then a lot of people like that, they don’t get a diagnosis until they’re like in college or later.
Eliana: Yeah so, in regards to stereotypes, it’s like, if you ask someone to describe an ADHD kid, they’re probably going to go with the hyperactive boy stereotype of ADHD. I think with time maybe like, I don’t know if it’s as much of a stereotype as it is kind of like things that someone who is, you know, raised as a woman would experience. So it’s like, chattiness is something that’s associated with hyperactivity in girls. So there’s chattiness, being really exuberant and outgoing, but that’s kind of an acceptable gender presentation for girls as being very, you know, outwards and talkative and, you know, just kind of all over the place. It’s like, it’s like a weird girl kind of thing. It’s, you know, just kind of out there, but it’s still an acceptable gender presentation. So I’m wondering if that’s part of why girls maybe didn’t get diagnosed, because it’s just like, “Oh, she’s just an outgoing girl. She’s just a, you know, chatty, friendly, outgoing girl who maybe has some special interests, but it’s still acceptable within certain parameters.” Like as a combined-type person, that may have been a significant reason as to why I wasn’t diagnosed. It’s just like, “Oh, this kid’s just chatty and friendly and loves talking with people.” And it’s like, you know, I love talking with people, but it’s also a dopamine hit for me. So I think that might be part of it is just the friendliness that is allowed to be present in girls that isn’t really allowed to be present in guys. Because guys, I think, are expected to be more stoic and not as outgoing, while girls can be much more social in that sense with the hyperactive side of ADHD.
Amanda: Thank you. So with autism, really, I would say that the biggest one I can think of as stereotypes is that special interest, intense focus. But another really prominent symptom that I think people think of are stimming, which – I’m not sure either of you know what that is, but essentially, it’s a way we – it’s kind of like a motor function or action that we do to kind of regulate ourselves to kind of stop the energy from building up inside of us. Like for me, when I stand still, I kind of sway back and forth a little bit, and I don’t even realize I’m doing it. And I kind of gesture with my hands a lot in conversations to keep myself on track in conversations. So other people, it’s like, they sniff objects; they need kind of something like a stress ball or something, or just some kind of texture that kind of satisfies a specific stimuli that keeps their brain focused and kind of the dopamine receptors engaged.
Some other things are the fact that obviously, it’s still kind of primarily thought of in boys and specifically, white boys. In fact, for the longest time, it was thought that people of color didn’t even get autism. And thankfully, that thought has been recently proven wrong. Another thing is the meltdowns and just kind of how scary they are to me. What a lot of people and what a lot of media gets wrong about autistic meltdowns is how frequently they happen and how easily they can happen. That’s a very gross misrepresentation, because first of all, two autistic people, they’re not going to be at the same level, even if whether they’re both high-functioning or low-functioning or not, they’re not going to be triggered by the same sensitivities. They’re going to have different tolerance levels; they’re going to have different preferences. And there’s going to have be different circumstances surrounding both of those people, and that’s going trigger meltdowns differently. And it’s like, what a meltdown actually looks like is, I guess it can be kind of similar to a tantrum a little bit in terms of what it might look like to neurotypical people, but it just feels very different. The way a meltdown feels versus a tantrum is that I would say, like, the world is kind of literally collapsing around you, and there’s like a giant anaconda trying to squeeze your rib cage until you can’t breathe anymore. So you just need to scream and kind of let all that energy out, otherwise it’s going to be too physically painful.
Probably the other biggest social stereotype I can think of with autism is the fact that we’re very antisocial and lack empathy. I hate that. Like, holy crap, do I hate that last one, because I actually think autistic people are some of the most empathetic people on the planet, but what happens is we misread social cues, and because of these unsaid social rules, we don’t understand what’s actually expected of us and what and what people actually want from us. So it just leads to a lot of miscommunications and misunderstandings, and a lot of this ableist attitude: “Oh, you’re lazy,” or, “You should try harder,” kind of like what both of you described. And it’s also our fault that we don’t have any friends, and the social rejection is our fault.
Erica: That disconnect between what we experience in our own bodies and how people perceive it as something, like, social that has to do with them is like such a thing. I think about this a lot when I just think about what it was like for me growing up with ADHD, and also just how I navigate as an adult – like, it’s something I always have to consider. It’s one of the reasons why I put so much effort into finding a way to be punctual, because it’s such a huge, important part of our culture, as far as perceiving that I have respect for and care for other people. Also, like, I experience people being on time for me positively as well, just like everyone else. So that was an important thing for me.
Eliana: The old “evap” hits again.
Amanda: The old memory “evap.”
Eliana: With the fidgeting or stimming thing, I don’t know if this would be classified as stimming, but I kind of view the attention span as a game of Pong. So it’s like there’s the one bar that I need to hit if my attention is the ball that’s in between the two paddles of the Pong game. It’s like one of the paddles is the thing I need to be focusing on. But then, in the meantime, like the idle where I don’t need to be doing anything per se, it’s like I need to be doing something else. Like right now, I’m playing a little fill-in-the-bubble color game to try to keep my focus. Like I’m still present here, but it’s like I need like a blinder, in a way, to keep my focus in check, something to have my brain to occupy with in idle.
Erica: I remembered the other thing I wanted to talk about. So, stimming. There’s conversation in the ADHD community about how people with ADHD stim also. The way that you describe your stimming, it sounds like it can serve different functions. So you explained what meltdowns and the build-up to meltdowns feels like, and you kind of connected stimming to that. My mom has hyperactive ADHD – or combined type one and two – and so I can feel her hyperactive energy, and she is always, like, rubbing her thumbs against her other fingers in this way that she, like, manages that energy and keeps herself focused. Honestly, I really should ask her what all it does for her, but I’ve just noticed that as well.
Amanda: Thank you. So funnily enough, that’s kind of another symptom of mine, in my opinion, with autism, where I talk a lot and I talk very fast. So if either of you need me to repeat myself or slow down, please just tell me. I don’t mean to do that. It’s just my brain is so fast that I often don’t know how to slow it down sometimes when I’m on a roll about something.
In terms of the stimming, I can’t speak for your mother obviously, but at least what stimming does for me is that it mitigates the mental stimulation in my brain from building up and it just kind of – like I said, it manifests differently for different people with autism. It’s like we just need some kind of feedback with specific textures, like I have these old blankets I’m holding now that I had since I was a baby, and there’s something about the texture and the smell that just brings me such comfort when I’m just doing the most basic of tasks. It’s like, I’m not even stressed out talking to either of you; it’s just that, for some reason, I need to physically touch them. I don’t know why.
Eliana: The understanding people – so this overlaps with ADHD folks and autistic folks with, like, understanding things. Like, I’ll read something, but it’s not what like a neurotypical person intended, or someone will say something, and maybe I’ll have a different interpretation of it. There’s that. Yeah. And it’s not also, I wouldn’t say that you talk fast or get on a roll, which is another ADHD overlap with autism; I do think it’s just kind of like ADHD. Also just memory evaporation, where it happens and then it passes by very quickly. It’s like being in a passing car. Like, “Oh, I see nothing; now I don’t. It doesn’t exist anymore.”
Amanda: So we’ve kind of talked about autistic meltdowns a little, or at least I did. Would you say that ADHD kind of has something similar to meltdowns as well? And if so, what would you say triggers your sensitivities and these meltdowns?
Erica: Your description of meltdowns feels really different than, I guess, how I would imagine when my ADHD gets really bad. I think it’s really different, because for me, personally, it’s not this like big, super, like, physical feeling thing. I think when my ADHD gets really bad, my mind just goes in every direction and doesn’t keep coherence a whole lot. You know, sometimes I can get emotionally overwhelmed with – I’m gonna pause there.
Eliana: I think that shutdowns happen when, like – ADHD meltdowns happen when we’re not allowed to exist with our ADHD in a way that is acceptable to our ADHD, so when you have, like, social fuck-ups or something. I remember being a child and visiting a friend of my father with my dad. And at the time, you know, as an undiagnosed ADHD child, I kept interrupting people. And he, like, I was – eventually I ended up alone in a room with this man, and he, like, got a very quiet voice and got down close to me, and said I needed to stop interrupting people, or he would do something. I don’t even remember what he said because of just how freaked out I was. So… and then I was just in a really bad way for the rest of the day and for a while.
And then it’s like, if you need to be taking a test or something and you’re not allowed to function in a way which your ADHD allows, or if you’re stressed out and your ADHD is just kind of going, “Let’s focus on something other than what you need to be focusing on right now.” And then you have just this kind of cycle and snowballing of disappointment in yourself and the rejection sensitivity dysphoria of like, “I’m going to fuck up, and I’m going to do terrible, and it’s going to really suck, and it’s going to do this,” and there’s kind of a spiraling of despair. I think when you’re just kind of not able to function in society in a way that neurotypical people maybe are more able to function, it becomes difficult. Like, say, on a job, when I need to be responding to my body and my brain in a way that it needs to be responded to, but that’s not how corporate wants things to be done or that’s not how your manager wants to do things, then that can be a problem. I think, with my ADHD, I need things to make sense. Like, I just can’t do things because I’m told to do them; like, it needs to make sense. And that’s been a thing that has run into multiple managers as an issue for me. And, like, other kinds of sensory issues that have become problems as well. So I think that’s where ADHD has been a problem for me in terms of like meltdowns, I suppose.
Amanda: So yeah, I wasn’t sure what the equivalent word for it in terms of the ADHD side was for meltdowns; I just kind of used the terminology from the autism side, so I apologize about that. So would you say that that stress build-up is kind of the main trigger of ADHD shutdowns, would that be appropriate?
Eliana: I don’t know if it’s as much of a shutdown as it is just getting so bogged down in stress, and it’s like, in a pinch, you just kind of end up in a need for security, like an emotional security in a way, to like get that consistent levels of dopamine. And then, it’s like what you brought up before with getting really fast with things. I think that’s something as well that ADHD people can experience when they find a new like major dopamine mine, and they just need to keep mining it and it’s a really big hit. So like, if you find a new fandom or something you get into, or other form of media, something you just love, it’s like, “I need to talk about this with people, I need to talk about it,” and you’ll talk really fast. And so I think that’s how it would best be described.
Erica: About ADHD shutdown, I have maybe had a few points in my life especially – No, no, not as many when I’m an adult; I haven’t had as much experience with the rejection sensitivity. I definitely had some of it as a child. When I think of, like, an ADHD shutdown for myself or for the people in my family, there are a couple of things. So like, just in everyday life when my ADHD is the worst, it’s usually because I’m tired. You know, maybe I haven’t gotten enough sleep; maybe I don’t have enough food. You know, it’s just like basic physical functioning things. When my physical energy is low, my executive dysfunction is worse. So actually, just last night, I had a really busy day, and I got home. And one of the ways that I seek dopamine is via social media, so I watch videos, I look at photos, everything’s else. It’s honestly like kind of a pretty slow source, but it is a common thing that I do. And then I just was moving really slowly, and I forgot to eat, and then that made things worse. And yeah, just like, if I don’t have the energy to do what I need to do, it makes my ADHD worse, which makes it harder to do things that can boost my energy again.
But there’s another thing that I’ve seen happen. There are people in my life who struggle with organization. I think this is not just people with ADHD, but all kinds of people can experience negative mental health sometimes if they’re in an environment that feels too busy or too overstimulating. And so there’s a trap that people can fall into where we have this “out of sight, out of mind” system, and so we keep things physically visible, but then things pile up. And, you know, like, maybe it’s in our mind for a minute, and we’re like, “Oh, I’m going to address that.” But then something else needs to be addressed, and something else needs to be addressed. And then we end up with these, like, physical piles of things that need to be addressed, things that we intend to address. Then that becomes really overwhelming. So like, sometimes in my family, I have family members with ADHD who just end up with a lot of stuff, and they want to clean their physical space. It’s really, really overwhelming; it just feels like so much. And you know, what Eliana was saying about the dopamine equation is – you know, how much effort versus how much reward – that equation very frequently is not good for dealing with the physical buildup of tasks.
Eliana: Yeah, I definitely think if you have ADHD, you’re probably going to be a lot more distracted by feeling tired and by feeling hungry, because it’s like you always have that ability to just have your attention pulled away from whatever you need to be focusing on. You’ll be like, “I’m hungry, I’m tired, I have like some kind of achy thing happening, and I can’t do this.” It’s like it’s a dopamine leak, I’m wondering, you know, going back to that equation. And then it’s like, there’s a certain sensitivity sometimes; it depends from person to person. So my dad most likely has some kind of ADHD, and if I ever ask him something, I always have to preface it going, like, “I’m not trying to pressure you. I’m not trying to do this, that, or the other thing. I’m just purely asking out of curiosity.” So I have to, like, lower the stakes for him before I ask him a question about certain things, in that sense. And then going back to what Erica said about physical piles, it’s – you know, it is “out of sight, out of mind,” but at the same time, then you get all this clutter in your space, and it can become overwhelming.
Amanda: Thank you. So for me, at least with my autism, it’s like I can procrastinate on tasks to a certain degree, but it actually builds my anxiety if I don’t do it. So basically, I have to eventually do these tasks, which is why, like – my schoolwork is probably the most reflective of this, where I just have to do this so far ahead of time, because I’m just going to be stressed out about this assignment if I don’t do it. And – which often works out to me, for me, because I have depressive episodes interwoven throughout the term anyway, so I couldn’t give myself a break for a few days. But what triggers my autistic tendencies probably most often, again, is kind of just unexpected changes or circumstances and assignments.
This to me was probably the most common occurrence in chem lab, general chem lab, where it’s like, you have this procedure, you have to gather all this data for a lab, and you only have three-and-a-half hours to do it. And it’s lab. So if both of you have ever taken a lab – and I’m pretty sure both, at least Eliana would have definitely – I don’t know about Erica. I apologize if I’m kind of being presumptuous here. But things go wrong in lab; that’s just what happens. It’s just kind of the reality of it. So it’s like, I would just be so freaked out if anything went wrong with lab, and man, the worst meltdown I had was probably in physics where my lab group kind of dogpiled me and I had to switch lab groups because it was such a bad experience. And kind of more recently with anatomy lab, it’s like my partner and I got to dissect this dogfish shark, which was super cool. But there was a miscommunication about skinning the dogfish shark, so my lab partner and I had to waste a whole lab period trying to skin that stupid thing, and I will tell you, it’s way harder to skin a shark than it is a mink because their skin is cartilaginous. So it’s like trying to peel off recently bonded super glue. Yeah, that’s not gonna work very well. So essentially, those unexpected changes kind of cause stress build up inside of me and I kind of start talking fast; I kind of hyper-fixate on the fact that certain things aren’t done. I piss my lab mates off, and I have to leave the room or apparently switch lab groups, sometimes, so it can be pretty bad.
And other things that kind of trigger me – not really so much meltdowns, but that just make life hell for me in a specific moment. I have specific sound sensitivities, like fire alarms and smoke detectors are the absolute worst sound triggers for me. Like, they are physically painful; it’s like a drill kind of going into your skull. It’s that bad. I would just I just remember being in elementary school and just being in the fetal position, because they don’t tell you when the stupid alarms go off for drills for some reason. And everyone just thought I was over-dramatic and just overreacting, and I was crying, and it was just so bad. In terms of – I have a highly sensitive sense of smell, but usually, I just force myself to live with it. Then lastly, the main trigger I can think of is, like, bananas. I hate bananas, like, with every fiber of my being. They’re gross, mushy, and get stuck in your throat. I apologize to both of you if either of you like bananas.
Erica: Oh, I fully accept your hatred of bananas. I’m sorry about that experience, but I have no issue with it. [laughs]
Eliana: I definitely relate with you with the whole needing to know what’s happening and having clear communication. I’ve noticed that it’s better if I’m helping people, and then it’s like my focus isn’t so much that I’m gonna fuck up. But it’s like, at least I was able to help other people get through things. I definitely love having structure and knowing what’s happening and clear communication on that. Like, yeah, I’ve had panic attacks and stuff or anxiety attacks before and, like, not getting something done. So definitely a coping mechanism that I figured out is to strike while the iron is hot and get something done as soon as I can get it done, so then I’m not waiting around and going, “Oh, man, I need to do this thing. Oh, man, I need to do this thing.” And then it affects the ratio of dopamine I have versus dopamine reward. And yes, that would be a situation, I think, with ADHD in that sense.
Amanda: What would you like your employers or your instructors to know about your ADHD that might help you in class or just would make your life overall easier in school or work?
Eliana: One thing I remembered with the sounds, I can hear, like, technology work that other people can’t hear. Like we have solar panels on my house roof, and I can hear that, like the generator or whatever it is that connects to the power, that absorbs the power from the solar energy thing. I can hear it up the stairs; I can hear it from all the way down in the basement when it’s working, if that helps. It is a distractibility thing of hearing things and smelling things, too.
Going into what you said with the instructor thing, I, as an ADHD person, need to sit in the front of class where I won’t be distracted by people around me and I won’t be made sleepy by being surrounded by all that body heat. In terms of working, I need to be able to have my own systems. So it’s like, I’ll figure out ways to do things that are more efficient at work, for instance, and that are easier for my dopamine to work with. So being able to do that, of having some agency and independence at work, is something that’s important for me. Going back to the school part, I know this is definitely not a thing for all ADHD folks, but things don’t exist to my brain if they’re not tangible, and I definitely like a more structured work environment. So, joined to the tangible thing, I know that I can’t learn online, and I don’t really like having everything be based in a digital space, even if class is held in person. Yeah, I like being able to have pieces of paper I can touch and work with, and I need to be able to have agency and structure.
Erica: So I have spent some time in college; it’s just been a bit. I also like to sit at the front of the class. I had a 504 plan, like before college, and one of my main accommodations was there was extra time for tests. It was really important for me usually when it was, like, writing exams. A symptom I haven’t talked much about is I also really struggle with knowing how much time and effort and what the whole process looks like to accomplish something. And that was something that I struggled a lot with in writing, even though I really enjoyed writing at the same time. Like, when someone would ask me to write a paper, I just had no way of organizing myself and preparing myself; I didn’t know what to expect, and that was actually something I struggled with. That was one of the main reasons I struggled academically as a kid, because I just didn’t have a system for understanding, first of all, the expectations fully, because I would have my own ideas of what I wanted to do. I wanted it to be fun and interesting for me, and sometimes that meant that I made a whole lot more work for myself than what people were asking of me. But then I also just had no concept of the time and the energy that it would take to do something or what tools I would need to have prepared. So I feel like that has gotten better over time. I still do struggle with it sometimes, and now that I know about it, I’m like, “Okay, I have a project, and I really need to think this through first.” But yeah, like in college, it was mostly just some simple accommodations. I probably could have used reaching out to Disability Services more in my last years of college. At work, I usually am able to get by in my jobs without asking – well, you can ask for accommodations without saying what they’re for, and I’m often able to just navigate workplaces without asking for a whole lot. I often don’t tell my employers that I have ADHD because I don’t trust people to understand what that means. I never know what they’re going to think of me when I tell them that I have ADHD. The workplace, it’s like, it depends on the workplace. It absolutely does. I just don’t assume that my workplace is an entirely, like, emotionally or intellectually safe place. Obviously, I like it when it is.
What I want people to know about ADHD is that it is definitely different for everybody, that I need people to believe that I am putting effort in. I need them to believe in my good intentions and my effort. If I’m struggling with something, I need someone to just – you know, if there’s an issue, I need it communicated clearly. And I also like to know why things happen; that is really helpful for me. I’ve had interactions with bosses where I’m like, “Okay, this happened; was it for this reason?” and I’ll get this vague response. It’s like corporate-speak, and it doesn’t work for me. What I end up doing when I’m in that kind of corporate-speak, indirect environment is I stop offering my thoughts and ideas, and I kind of just do the basics of what I’m asked to do. Then I don’t contribute to the community as much, which, you know, maybe there are pros and cons to that for people as well.
Amanda: Thank you both. So going off kind of what Erica said, would you would you say that either of you regularly disclose to either your employers, your instructors, or even friends and family? Why or why not?
Eliana: With friends, it’s like, if I’m making friends with someone, I feel like they would know that I have ADHD. It’s kind of obvious to me, but maybe it’s not obvious to everyone. So I’m definitely much more open and honest with friends and family because, you know, they’re my friends and family; they should be cool with it. And if they’re living with me, and they want to understand why something’s happening or they’re otherwise interacting with me, they should probably know why maybe something’s happening that they aren’t expecting, like, someone who’s more neurotypical to do.
At PCC, I feel pretty safe addressing that I have ADHD. I’m like, “Oh, yeah, here’s the thing that works really good for me.” If the subject ever does come up, I’m not fretting having to explain things to people at PCC. One time, I had a pre-calc instructor, and the way he taught the class wasn’t super intuitive for me to understand, so it was a little more difficult. It was also early in my diagnosis process when I was trying out medications. Like, I had that kind of short conversation with him about it that was more casual, and he was like, “Oh, whenever someone was diagnosed ADHD or anything like that, they were just whisked away to the, like, special ed classes, and I never saw them again.” [laughs] So it wasn’t like, you know, like negative or anything. It was just like, “Oh, this guy doesn’t really know that much about ADHD.”
I’m less inclined to talk about it in, like, corporate settings at work, because I once had a manager who didn’t know what PTSD was, and it was for a company that was very like, “Oh yes, we hire people with disabilities, and we hire people with, you know, all these other kinds of stuff.” And that he wouldn’t, in his training as a manager, be taught like, “Oh, yes, here’s what PTSD is,” or anything like that was a little surprising to me. I just, in general, don’t trust managers and other sorts of folks in corporate settings unless they’ve shown that they are a pretty all right person that I do have ADHD or any other kind of mental disorder, because I don’t trust them to understand or not be weird about it. But yeah, it’s definitely a case of where I’m like, “Oh, why do we do this thing?” I need to understand why something happens and things need to make sense to me. I don’t know if it’s because of me maybe growing up and having not the best adults around where something goes wrong after I’ve done what an adult has told me to do, and then they get mad at me about it or something like that. It’s just, like, a general lack of trust of authority figures and not being able to keep myself safe when I’m still beholden to this person who has the ability to fire me and stuff like that. And then there’s also the added negative aspect of rejection sensitivity.
Erica: I am finding that more and more people in my family are getting diagnosed with ADHD rather than autism. And so yeah, it’s a very open thing in my family. I think there are members of my family who are undiagnosed, and we’ll see if they get a diagnosis or not. As far as friends go, I am open with friends. I have also noticed that I’m drawn to other people with ADHD and other neurodivergence. Anyway, I do have some friends who don’t have ADHD, but they usually have something else. It’s important to me to communicate it because I like to, you know, I still struggle with punctuality. So it ends up being a conversation of like, “Oh, yeah, this is normal for me; let me know if you need something from me regarding timeliness,” or something like that. It’s just like, “Yes, I have this. This is how I experience it. If it’s a problem, let’s talk about it.”
And then employers – yeah, I don’t trust people to understand. Some employers are fine. And then sometimes I realize, like, it’s still not important for me to tell them if it’s not relevant, even if I do trust them. Also, going back to what I want people to know and how I want people to respond to ADHD… So like, because ADHD is different for everyone, if you know that someone has ADHD and you are curious about anything, just ask, you know. Or if you’re trying to accommodate someone with ADHD, ask them how. Just have that conversation, because everyone experiences it differently. Everyone has different needs and different symptoms, and I think that’s the kindest thing you can do.
Amanda: Thank you. Thank you both. So for me, it’s kind of interesting, when I… So for friends and family, because my diagnosis was just so late, I obviously I told my mom and my sister about it immediately. And to them, it was this huge relief, because so much about my childhood with them made so much sense, like, that explains so much. And that was actually really good closure for them as well. My sister is six years younger than me, and she always wondered why I would get so irritable with her and just snap at her almost randomly – to her was random, but to me, it’s like there was this build-up of irritation for, like, a long time in those moments. For my mom, she was just finally so happy. She finally had an answer about me that there was like – in that there was something wrong with me. I mean, it’s still kind of a learning process, and they still have a lot of questions for me, but I’m happy to talk about it with them. The rest of the family, I don’t really talk to them a lot, but I told my mother that if it comes up in conversation, it’s not a secret. Like, I’m okay with people knowing.
So with instructors, I actually regularly disclose before every term that I have autism. Like, yeah, I do go for accommodations if I need them, but I always let my instructors know I have autism, because to me, it actually empowers me. Like, it gives me a position where I can approach a conversation. If it goes bad, I can approach them and be like, “Hey, what’s going on? There was obviously some kind of miscommunication here. Let’s not get angry. Let’s just talk about this.”
Employers? It hasn’t come up with employers yet, but I intend to fully disclose when I do, because it’s kind of the same situation where it’s like, “Okay, I might say something. I’m autistic; I might miss something whether it might be sarcasm, or there’s some kind of unspoken social rule in a conversation that I’m not getting.” So yeah, it’s better to just kind of talk about it. And at this point, it’s kind of prevented people in management positions from bullying me, actually. Like, there was this nonprofit I really wanted to volunteer at initially, because it would have looked really good on the resume for vet school. And for some reason, this woman got this idea in her head that I wanted to handle wildlife, like, right away, and I repeatedly told this woman, “No, I just want to take notes on what the veterinarian is doing. I’m just following the veterinarian around; I have no intention of handling wildlife. I don’t want to injure myself or the animal.” Again, she just would not let this go, and eventually I was like, “Okay, I’m autistic, so if I said something gave you this idea, I’m sorry. But we need to talk about this.” And suddenly she backed off and sent me this response email that centered around an organization member of theirs who was also autistic. And I’m like, “What does this have to do with our conversation? Apologize to me. You know what? You were a jerk to me; apologize to me. What does this have to do with our conversation?” So at least that’s been my experience. And the responses have been primarily positive and neutral. I mean, you get some questions that are kind of like, okay, I’m not sure how you got this idea, but okay. That also kind of makes it all the more rewarding because I can dispel rumors or misconceptions about autism that were developed from media or certain organizations that I don’t know? I’m allowed to say on this podcast. [sighs]
So I think whatever position all of us take, I think it’s not – there’s no right or wrong answer. To me, it’s just about what we’re comfortable with and just how we choose to handle our situations. I do think it’s very interesting, though, that a lot of people I’ve talked to just choose the exact opposite route of me – again, it’s not good or bad to me. It’s just very interesting.
Erica: Yeah, I think it depends on what all of our needs are. At work, I don’t need a lot of accommodations usually, and because I do see a risk in people just – they could see that I have this diagnosis and they don’t realize how little they know about it, and then maybe they make assumptions about me rather than just going to me directly without prior knowledge and saying, “Hey, this is going on; what’s this about?” Then, you know, maybe I can educate them. If I feel unsafe disclosing my diagnosis still, I can still say, like, “Well, I work in this way,” and just not attribute it to ADHD. But I think, yeah, it makes perfect sense if you fully anticipate needing to have those conversations, or needing accommodations, it makes sense to disclose.
I also forgot about academia. There are some limits to this, but I feel like academia is an environment where there is, usually there’s a disability department. I don’t know, maybe not every business has an area of HR that’s disability-specific. But at schools, there’s like, disability resources at every school I’ve ever been to, and so I feel like it’s a place where people understand more. So yeah, I am always open in an academic environment.
Eliana: Yeah, schools are definitely a much safer environment, it feels like, to talk about these things, because there are those disability accommodation centers, so there’s just a higher general level of understanding. I’m very nervous, just based off of my experience with the more corporate world, about accommodations or anything like that, or understanding from management, because their bottom line is to make profits and you can be replaced. So if you do have to explain something, and they’re not aware of it, then you also have to go through the energy of having to explain things to them. Then I have physical issues. So just with my interactions with HR through corporations, when it comes to my physical issues and trying to like get answers out of that, I don’t at all trust people to be – or managers or corporate – to at all be considerate to my other disabilities, even if they are legally required to be, because it’s just, like, then I would have to hire an employment lawyer and go through all that mess. So it’s just a very scary and daunting situation to even consider being open about unless it was absolutely necessary.
Amanda: So I’m afraid that our conversations kind of coming to an end, but are there any closing statements or questions you have about the conversation we just had, or just any closing thoughts in general? For the record, I think both of you did amazing in this conversation, and I really am grateful that you’re willing to just, essentially, bare your souls to me like this when you basically don’t know me at all.
Erica: I connect with – you know, you were talking about how it can be cool to dispel misconceptions about what you experience being autistic to people. And I definitely feel that with ADHD; I love talking about it. I tend to be a pretty open book about these things, because it’s just, it’s really interesting to me. Do we all like having ADHD or autism?
Amanda: That’s an interesting question, because I would say I definitely feel empowered. So maybe, I guess I would say it’s like – I kind of differentiate my emotions and feelings pretty specifically though, so I’m not sure if empowerment is, like, liking it. But I would say I definitely don’t dislike it. I personally love the fact that I had – when I finally got diagnosed, that I finally had an explanation about just why I operate the way I do, because I used to feel so guilty, and I just feel… I was convinced I was stupid. I was convinced I was – not lazy, per se, but I was just convinced for the longest time that I just was lesser than everyone else, because my brain just couldn’t operate on the same level or function as everyone else could in lab or specific areas of academics. So I felt really happy when I got my diagnosis, and I think that’s kind of what propelled me in the space of advocacy, just because I’m not the only one is what I quickly discovered.
Eliana: If there was a button that would just take away my ADHD, I wouldn’t take it away. I like it. I think it’s really cool that there’s, like, a diverse way to be human and the way our brains work. I can’t speak for other people, because I do know some ADHD people who have a really hard time with emotional regulation and impulse control, and it does very much negatively impact their life, so I can’t speak for those people. But for me, I wouldn’t get rid of it. I enjoy certain aspects of my ADHD. It’s just kind of silly. And it’s like, I get this high from just loving things and doing things, and I can do a lot of creative interesting stuff with all the different weird connections my brain makes and all the stuff that it does. So I think my ADHD helps me in a lot of ways. And so yeah, that’s what I would say, is it’s cool. It has its drawbacks, but it also has its pros, and I wouldn’t get rid of it if I had the option to.
Erica: I also would not get rid of my ADHD if I had the option to. I feel like, when I got my diagnosis, I definitely was having difficulties as a kid. I wasn’t at the point where I thought I was stupid or felt really bad about myself, but I definitely felt a relief, especially as I understood it more, just like a validation like, okay, this is measurable. This is you know, like, something that we can look at with more structure, not like a big question, like, “Oh, why does this happen? Why am I like this?” And so that was really helpful. I was on medication for a while. Like, I think when my parents and I all got diagnosed, even another family member or two got diagnosed around the same time as well. We all got on medication together, and then there was a point at which, like, there was an issue with our medical insurance, and I wasn’t able to be on medication anymore. And I was really, really terrified of being off medication, because I had this idea in my mind that I would lose my friends, and I would not be able to function well, and I was just terrified of not having my medication anymore. But then, inevitably, I ran out, and I didn’t lose my friends. You know, I still – you know, my challenges changed. The medication didn’t erase everything that I struggled with. But yeah, I ended up making a decision that I also liked who I was off of my medication. This, of course, is a very personal story, because everyone experiences medication differently. Some people really love who they are on the medication, and it’s very good, but it’s like a layer to my experience of liking my situation. I definitely have to manage it.
Eliana: Yeah, it’s definitely a relief, getting the diagnosis and understanding it more and being able to get the help you need, finally, after not getting the help and maybe not understanding fully what was happening.
Amanda: Thank you. So I think that can kind of conclude today’s podcast, and thank you, Eliana and Erica, for sharing your stories. And I hope you guys continue being awesome!
This concludes the autism subject series of autism versus ADHD in women and people raised as women. This does not mean that this topic is done in the series; it means that we can circle back around to if more autistic and ADHD community members want to continue the conversation. With this in mind, the main takeaway I would like audience members to have is that even though ADHD and autism may have many similarities, they still manifest differently, and that the women and people raised as women living with these conditions have to develop their own adaptations to survive everyday life. Furthermore, each individual is different, and it’s important to exercise patience and understanding when trying to meet their accommodation needs. The overall advice I would have for this is that, if you have an employee or student openly disclose, specifically ask them what they need from you as their boss, instructor, supervisor, or even a family member or friend. This way, we are not only accommodating you by speaking with you on the neurotypical playing field, but you are accommodating us so that we can function in this environment. I hope you enjoyed the Let’s Talk Autism podcast series so far and that you will tune in next time for the first talk centering around autism versus ADHD in binary and nonbinary communities.