#i say supposed bc i haven't gotten an official dx yet but | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

duck-in-a-thrift-store · 1 month

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Personal rant bc we haven't gotten my official results yet but we did get a very stressful phone call about it, and because adhd has been kicking my ass lately. This is going to be long and rambly and all over the place, and if you're anti self-dx, I wouldn't suggest reading further (or interacting with me in general). It also sort of becomes just me psychoanalyzing my own behavior and infodumping about it

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For context, I'm autistic and adhd, and I went and talked to a psychologist a couple weeks ago and had some testing done

Personally, I don't really feel the need to have an official diagnosis for autism. I'm confident in my informed self-diagnosis (technically it was actually my parents who first suggested I might be autistic but I've learned a lot about it since then and now I'm pretty sure I'm more convinced than they are) and I just don't think a doctor's note will do much for me (totally understand and support anyone who does want to get diagnosed tho). Adhd however is another story. If I want meds that will actually work and accommodations with my school, they need proof, and as things are I am desperate for some help.

So the appointment I had a couple weeks ago was supposed to be for adhd testing, but apparently he also lowkey tested me for autism while we were there. Which like, fine, whatever, it would be sort of nice to have that validated I guess, but when we checked back in with him on the phone earlier this week he started using outdated and problematic terms like high-functioning and aspergers and I'll just say that it did not exactly inspire confidence

But that can of worms aside, let me get back to (mostly) adhd related ranting

I feel like there could be an essay about how the diagnostic process for adhd is flawed and doesn't work all that well for people who have an internalized notion that their worth as a person is dependent on their academic success and task performance and therefore spent their childhood and adolescence funneling all their efforts time and attention into school and generally being seen as a good well-behaved bright kid out of desperation to have value (and it worked- I've always made good grades, but what people don't see is the days, weeks, months of paralyzed procrastination, the anxiety-fueled mad rush in the end to get things done late, and the grace I'm inexplicably shown every time, without which my grades would be much worse)

I'm scared, that I'm going to be determined "too high functioning" to be diagnosed even though I'm currently doing basically nothing with my life outside of college and yet I'm technically failing like half of my classes right now, that they're going to say "well the signs weren't there when you were younger" even though there's a variety of explanations for why that might be, not the least of which being the fact that for some folks with both autism and adhd the traits of the two have a tendency to "hide" one another

Apparently he also ran an iq test on me, and he broke down the 5 scores to us; I scored in the upper average/above average bracket in all but the 4th, processing speed, in which I'm below average. And like yeah, I'm well aware that I'm slow, but I guess it's official now-

Anyway, my main point with the iq thing was that while he was telling us about my high scores in the first 3 areas, I'm sitting here getting more and more uneasy, bc I'm like yeah sure I'm intelligent or whatever but it isn't worth shit if I can't motivate myself to actually do anything with that potential, and the conditions under which I was tested just don't reflect my day to day life closely enough to give an accurate reading, in my opinion.

Basically I'm afraid this guy is going to look at the results of some tests- tests which I was really focused on bc of the intrinsic fear of failure that plagues my existence (even though rationally I know you can't fail a psychological evaluation) and bc I know it's a bitch of a process to even get tested in the first place and I wasn't going to waste the opportunity goddammit-

That he's going to look at them and decide that I'm "too smart" to have a learning disability, when, again, all the brains in the world wouldn't do me any good if I

1) don't have the ability to self-motivate and direct them at what I need to be working on, even if I've been beating myself up about that pile of homework or my disaster of a room for weeks or even months, and

2) have such a loose grasp on the concept of time and priorities that I have on multiple occasions found myself pulling all-nighters on personal projects or reading for pleasure or scrolling on my phone only to realize oh shit I have to get up for school in like two hours, oh fuck, I'm going to be exhausted all day, what happened to "let's go to sleep early this time, I'll just do this for like 5 more minutes and then call it a night"

or realize after one of those all-nighters that what was actually a period of about 10 hours feels more like 10 minutes to me ("man wasn't I literally just here to get dinner" the next morning, passing the caf on my way to class on exactly 0 hours of sleep and still having managed not to get any of my actual class work done in all that time)

And also just that tendency in itself is significant, to get so deeply hooked on something once it does manage to get my attention, that I often feel like I can't stop until outside forces demand it- staying up until 4am on a school night painting my phone case and texting my crush (14 or 15), making bracelet after bracelet at the kitchen table at ungodly hours of the night because I couldn't sleep and now that I'm on a roll I don't want to break the momentum (18, a few months ago), throwing horrific amounts of time at reading fanfiction of whatever series currently has my interest when I have so much work that needs to get done if I want to have a chance at passing my courses this semester (18, basically present), making a last minute birthday present for my aunt and being so caught up in the rush and the craft of what I was working on that I ignored my body's needs until I ended up pissing myself (12), etc

The fact that I've been meaning to catch up with my high school friends for weeks or months, literally something as simple as a "how have yall been" in the group chat, yet for some reason I still haven't gotten around to it

The fact that for all my alleged intelligence I still haven't learned to ride a bike or drive a car or apply for a job or develop a work-life balance or play any of the instruments I want to or have a thriving social life or feel like a person (I think these are more autism-related but I'm throwing them in anyway)

The fact that minor (or even just mistakenly perceived) disapproval or judgment or teasing or having a text left on read can send me spiraling into anxiety and convinced that everyone hates me and that I'm worthless or obnoxious or stupid (rejection sensitivity is a bitch)

The fact that when I try to read I have to make a constant conscious effort not to jump ahead and all over the place and I often have to reread the same passage multiple times to understand it because I realize that I wasn't actually paying attention the first couple of times, my mind elsewhere and my eyes wandering

I know even if I do get diagnosed they'll say it's inattentive, not hyperactive or combined, because the majority of my hyperactivity is either fairly subtle movements (because I'm socially anxious and clumsy and don't want to draw attention to myself or run the risk of breaking or disturbing something) or just straight up in my head. Like sure I'm not a nine year old boy who can't sit still in class and is constantly bouncing around all over the place and getting into trouble and driving his parents and teachers crazy (bc being seen as annoying and unruly by authority figures would have broken me), but there's always so much noise in my brain, it's always talking or playing music in the background or thinking about the 47 different projects I need to be working on and the media it wants to be engaging with instead and the 1000s of things there are to worry about in a day; sometimes I'll get stuck in a loop where I'm mentally repeating a word or phrase over and over and over again until I feel like I'm going crazy

All of this is stuff that this guy doesn't see, and that worries me when it comes to the validity of his assessment

But basically, what I'm trying to say is, I swear to god if the people around me don't believe that there's clearly something not neurotypical going on here I'm going to fucking riot

And, ranting aside, I want to end this post with a note to all my fellow neurodiverse folks who are waiting for answers or treatment or validation or support or whatever.

I feel you. Hang in there. You have my well wishes in your endeavors. And remember, it's ok to be happy with or proud of who you are and what makes you different, it's ok to embrace your neurodiversity while also acknowledging how difficult it can be to live with and the fact that you might need extra time or support with things that seem to come easily to other people. It's ok to admit that it's fucking hard sometimes, and it's ok to ask for help. Take care, mates

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