A Day in the Life of Autism and ADHD: The Holding Pattern

Being an engineering nerd, I find the best way to understand something is to write about it. And that applies to my AuDHD brain too. So here is my AuDHD experience for today.

I did not have the best sleep last night. I woke up at 3:00am and didn't really get back to sleep very well. So I'm starting the day with low spoons.  Mark, my cousin from Australia, is coming today at 10:30 to take me to go see my cousin Maggie, who just had surgery. I haven't seen him for 15+ years, and I'm definitely looking forward to meeting him. Then this afternoon I'm taking Fen to do the shopping at 3:00pm. So a really messy day. 

Yesterday

Yesterday I could feel my ADHD getting excited about seeing Mark but my autism was bemoaning the fact we have to go out so many times. Anyway, I've already planned my morning, when I'll shower before Mark arrives, etc. I don't like the uncertainty of what will happen after we have visited Maggie. Will he simply drop me back home and that's it? Or will he drop me off and stay for a while? Or will we go out for lunch? My autism really doesn't like the high level of uncertainty. So it's kind of freaking out a bit. Meantime, my ADHD is all excited about seeing Mark.

Stuck in a Holding Pattern

This is one of those days in which I feel like I'm in a perpetual holding pattern waiting for things that are going to force me to go out somewhere and therefore interrupt the deep focus my autism craves. This makes it so hard for me to get started on anything, because I know I'm going to be stopped sometime in the not too distant future. Thus I get stuck not really being able to start anything, despite the fact I really want to, and just end up feeling bad because I'm wasting time unable to do the things I want/need to do.

Also, I'm not sure if I will get some or any of my usual 11:00 to 12:00 nap time. Naps are important, especially when I'm already on low spoons and have more demands coming.

The Certainty Paradox

Yes, I could message Mark and ask him what the plans were after we had seen Maggie. But a big part of me doesn't want to do this for fear that it will lead to even more social load. For example, he may not have even thought about us having lunch together and if I introduce that idea he may think it's a good one and I just landed myself having lunch with him, when really I don't want to. Actually, that's not entirely true: ADHD wants lunch, my autism does not.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that in the act of trying to gain more certainty, there is always the chance I will end up trading uncertainty for more spoon-eating social stuff. So my autism gets the certainty it craves, only it's loaded with a big social cost, which is going to cost me spoons. 

Then the Guilt

I feel kind of bad thinking like this, it seems like I don't want to see Mark, and I don't care about him much. In reality, I really do, and my ADHD is very excited about seeing him and would like nothing better than to have lunch with him and have a really good catch up. My autism on the other hand wants to keep it short and sweet, so I can be back by 11:00 for my morning nap. 

ADHD and My New Reality

It's the classic conflict between autism and ADHD in an AuDHD mind. But for me this is all still very new. Up until mid last year, my ADHD reigned supreme and my autism just followed along. Now my autism is in charge and has way more say in how I feel and the way I experience things. There are so many things that are new to me now and it's often hard to navigate them and figure out what I should do. 

The People Pleasing Complication

Add to that a large dose of historical people pleasing. I really don't like putting other people out and I end up very conflicted between my needs as an AuDHD person and the normal social expectations society wants me to adhere to. And internally I have the complex relationship between my autism and ADHD to balance as well.

The Project I'd Rather Be Doing

Beneath all of this is the fact that I am currently working on a very cool and extremely challenging project that both my autism and ADHD absolutely love doing and they would ideally like to be locked away in a room doing nothing but working on this project. So my system is craving the deep monotropic absorption of working on an interesting project but is thwarted by the needs of the outside world. 

The project is one that combines hardware and software plus communication in a very structured yet flexible way. Involving complex systems, hardware, software and the creation of standards and protocols makes it the kind of thing my brian just loves to hyperfocus on for days on end.

I think this might need to be a low spoons type day where I just need to accept the messy nature of the uncertainty and set very low goals, limited tasks. 

My Strategy For Today

This is going to be my basic strategy for today:

• I'm treating today as a low spoons day: don't try to be too ambitious
• There are two simple little functions for the project I'm going to write
• I'm not going to message Mark, I'll see how it goes instead, leaving all my options open
• I identified what's going on in my brain and that it's not a bad thing. It's just how my brain works, I need to accept that more
• I'll get some exercise and have a shower before Mark comes, so I can at least get fitter while waiting
• After lunch, I'm going to give myself a chance to recover from the morning before I go shopping this afternoon
• I really need to stop feeling bad about accommodating my needs, that's a longer term goal 🙂

A big take away for me is that I need to start acknowledging the fact I do have multiple disabilities and that's fine. Yes, while they do create more challenges for me and certainly make my life so much harder sometimes, that doesn't mean I have to let them hold me back or limit my potential. The reverse is true: much of my potential is the result of not in spite of my neurodivergence. I am really looking forward to the day when I can work as a unified system and just be the person I should be rather than trying to be the person society thinks I should be.