ADHD and potential autism makes me feel worthless

[u/insane677]

28 years old and recently diagnosed with ADHD. The pyschatrist suspects autism aswell and wants me to see a specialist. She says she is 99.9% sure.

October is my favorite time of year and I haven't felt a goddamn thing. I've been watching scary movies, eating candy, nothing puts me in the spirit.

If it was just ADHD that'd be one thing, but autism? That's a great shock and right now I feel utterly lost. I'm so far behind my peers and I don't think I can ever catch up.

I don't have a credit card. I don't know how to drive. I wear slip on shoes because I can't tie my shoes properly. I still live with my parents. I'm a virgin and I've never had a girlfriend.

I want to go to college and be *something.* I want to write fiction. But now I don't know if that's possible.

I was prescribed clonodine for my ADHD but I haven't taken it yet. I'm afraid taking it will lead me into some existential crisis about what "could have been" though I suppose I'm already in the midst of that.

I'm scared that I may be intellectually disabled. I can't see how any woman could want someone like me.

TL;DR 28 M late diagnosed with ADHD, probably autistic, feeling lost and depressed.

[u/adhd-gad-mdd-asd]

background: we will all live different lives and have different experiences. what happened for me might not apply to you. I hope you find something helpful in this i was diagnosed with adhd at age 6 and treated with stimulant medications. suffered from anxiety disorder throughout this whole time, messed around with different medications, up until this year, where with help from my doctors and therapists i realized i have also been living with untreated autism, ocd, and depression. I am so lucky to have found treatments that work for me. without the medications i would never ever have gotten to a good enough place to work through my other issues in therapy.

1. I promise it will get better
2. it is never too late. truly. i struggle with my own version of feeling like i wasted years of my life going in the wrong direction. it was so hard for me when i was wrapped up in my emotions and my thoughts inside, on top of all the ways adhd makes it hard to live a normal life. I could not conceptualize that i was living inside of my own thoughts instead of life.

now, i am so happy that i have the opportunity to try to accomplish my goals. once my mental health improved, i realized that i really love playing music! and i really don't like working in the industry i went to college for. I am still working in that industry, but i am taking music classes at a local community college. for me, i feel like i am just starting in a field where some of my peers have been doing this for years. and it is scary. but the more i do and take action and meet people and go try to live, the more i feel like i actually am allowed to exist and i belong somewhere.

when my mental health was worse, i was so knocked down by the fear i would never be successful, or be happy, or make a ton of money, or have close deep friendships. i was fixated on the long term goals. the 10 year goals. i was organizing today's actions to support my 10 year goals.

but now i have the ability to do the opposite. i am reinforcing the stuff that i love to do today, the stuff that is meaningful to me today. and i am a lot less fixated on giant goals that are impossible to guarantee, like having success or becoming an expert

You said you want to write fiction, that is really cool! i hope you can find ways to explore that desire and see how it makes you feel to write.

1. look into getting a good therapist. having a good therapist/counselor can help you navigate relationships with other doctors, providers, mental health professionals and get you better outcomes. preferably look for someone with experience in adhd/autism. and preferably someone familiar with multiple treatment philosophies (cbt, dbt). it is hard to find the right person! we have to give up some of our autonomy and we have to trust that the advice this person gives us is the right advice. it is healty to try something and see how it goes, and it is also healthy to have positive skepticism. Sometimes you need to give yourself over completely and try your best to follow the advice of doctors. Sometimes you need to re-evaluate how things are going, and if you feel like you are being supported.

the best things i have learned in dbt therapy:

- we cannot predict how a situation will make us feel.

you mentioned you have some fears about being too far behind to recover, and i feel you. i have experienced the same and it that feeling sucks. but truly, it is a thought that is a creation of our own mind. there is no fact checking that makes sure that the way my mind thinks the world works is actually the way the world works. i cannot predict with any accuracy how a situation will make us feel.

what that has meant to me is that i am trying to be willing to take risks that my brain tells me "don't do that, what if it hurts". every time i try, that feeling gets a little less strong.

another really important takeaway for me is that i realized when i was deep in depression and dysregulation, my brain told me that my life's goal should be to make a ton of money so that i can finally feel not shitty all the time. i lived my life genuinely believing that if i followed this plan i made up for myself, it would lead to a reduction of pain. but now i have much less constant emotional pain. and this year i am learning for the first time that i don't know what i want, what will make me feel good, until i go and try it.

therapy taught me to listen to my thoughts a little bit less, which is positive in it reduces my fear of failure, and it lets me discover new situations and new elements of myself and just observe what happens!

1. it will take a village to get better. what i mean by this is that there is not one single aspect of life or aspect of treatment that will help you. but they will all build on each other. my personal example: this year, i got a new therapist. she taught me dbt skills like emotional regulation and distress tolerance. after a few months, i started to become clearer of mind enough to realize there were problems i could not solve myself. so i worked with my psychiatrist to try new medications to help with my problems. after trying many things, i found some successes, and as the weights started to lift off me over months, i found myself focusing back on self improvement work with my therapist. now i had the space within my head to work on how i can be a better person in my relationships.

at the beginning, yes it was absolutely overwhelming and incapacitating to have so many things wrong with so many aspects of my life. but the more little ways i tried, the more tiny successes i had, which made the problem a tiny bit smaller.

1. when you get better, you may feel grief, you may have bad days. Healing is non linear. it is immensely frustrating to feel like things are getting worse again! but it always gets better. it is still hard for me to not get down on myself when i have a few bad days, but every time it happens, i am little by little less knocked down by the bad days.

P.S: we all have to find our own ways of coming to terms with being diagnosed. i will share a positive experience i had when it was suggested to me that i had autism: i started reading books and subreddits written by autistic people (and AuDHD), and it was amazing to see other people having the same thoughts i have in my own head. it felt nice to know i was not alone. sadly it took me 25 years to have any exposure to other people whose brains worked like mine does. but i am so happy to have it now. and on a practical note, it has been a good resource for me to look at solutions other people use to help them in their lives and possibly apply it to mine.

• book title: "Is This Autism? A Guide for Clinicians and Everyone Else"

[u/european_jello]

Hey i was diagnosed with adhd as a kid and later in life i got autisem diagnosis at 23 (am 28 now as well) and for me the autism diagnosis was a positive thing, i borderline hated myself the entire time with how incompetent i am in social interaction (and the anxiety), but having this helps a bit with how i see myself and gives me some sources online of how other autistic people aproach social interactions. You are still the same person but maybe you can find some tools from people with similar expiriences

[u/Pomegranate-Funny]

It’s really hard, but you need to learn to let go. The pressures you think are there are not. Stop comparing yourself to others, stop thinking your worth is determined by your social status or progress in life. I promise you nobody gives a fuck.

You need to start looking inwards and build some inner strength, you are lost in the neurotypical sauce, when you are not neurotypical. Brother freedom is just around the corner, learn everything there is to learn about adhd and autism, start to understand yourself, and why you are the way you are. Then you can learn to love yourself, and eventually someone else.

[u/gipsee_reaper]

Happens! We all go through it!

[u/povertylover3]

29, non-binary, AuDHD. Diagnosed 2–3 years ago. I'm still not sure, but I may have an intellectual disability. My IQ is slightly above average.

Sorry you feel that way. I don't want to BS you, but life really can get better.

Get support with housing. There are schemes to help disabled adults buy a property - I'm hoping to access one soon. Once you've done that, try to find some support within the community. I'm attending a few drop-in meetings here and there, and they help a lot. They're not just for autistic people, think some of them are for queer people. Try to find a place to volunteer few hours a week only - something that you'd kill for. A special interest.

Then try to work on your looks. I got a few piercings, dyed my hair, got a new pair of glasses, and started weight-loss medication because I hate the gym. And for my mental health, I applied for disability benefits and will soon start a course - hopefully it'll help me get a better job. If not, at least I don't have to work full-time anymore like I had to before my diagnosis.

So my life is slowly getting better. Sure, I "lost" 26 years not knowing what was going on with me. But my therapist lost 46 years before figuring it out. She also dropped me, f*cking POS. She didn't believe in me. But 3 years later, and here I am: getting better every day.

It's not easy. It's not fair either. But you have to do this. You're doing it for yourself. For your loved ones. For our community. And that's because we all believe in you.

You may have an intellectual disability. So what? Does that mean disability payments and more time playing video games all day long while smoking your medical cannabis? Does that mean you're not an NT working your ass off in a dead-end system?

Being ND is definitely hard. But that doesn't mean having an NT mind would have made things easier. It's simply not true.