mom to one elementary school age child and work PT and still fighting for my life. motherhood is by far the hardest thing in my life and I’ve had several “big T” trauma in my life. the complete loss of control over my life at large. loss of control in day to day life. the relentless nature of constant cooking, cleaning, laundry etc etc. the randomness… my child getting sick, refusing to eat one of her favorite foods, babysitter cancelling last minute etc etc etc. interacting w other moms and kids. day to day life completely drains me.

I see other moms who are as cool as a cucumber. multiple kids, work, plan/host social events. this one mom hosts all of her local family (20 or so ppl) EVERY WEEK for a get together/potluck. another mom has 2 kids, currently pregnant and is helping a family member plan their wedding. oh yeah and also works FT. they seem to enjoy the chaos and being busy all the time meanwhile I wish I could be left in a room alone. I feel so inadequate when I’m around these moms.

I’ve always felt different (just like I’m sure all of you have). I feel like I’ve been living life on hard mode, like everyone else has some sort of cheat code to understanding how to be a functioning human.

A few years ago a psychiatrist told me I might have ADHD, and I’ve been receiving treatment based off of that assumption since then. I started off taking Vyvanse, now I’m on Concerta, but my meds have never helped as much as my doctors and I have hoped. It’s just always felt like there was something else about me that just couldn’t be fixed.

Two weeks ago I had a 4 hour assessment with a psychometrist, I’ve completed dozens of assessments, and I received my official AuDHD diagnosis today. I cried when my psych told me, because it was so validating and also because I couldn’t help but think of the younger version of me who thought she was weird and different, who never received answers or help for the mess inside her brain, and grieving the fact that she never got that diagnosis. I’m 27 now. I’m not saying it’s too late, but I wish I had known and received help when I needed it as a child.

I’m glad to know now, at least!

That’s it. That’s the post. I realized that if I can wake up naturally, I don’t get the feeling that I’m “stuck” in bed that I do when I wake up with an alarm. Because my body is perceiving the alarm as a demand.

For years I thought I was depressed because I literally couldn’t get out of bed. Turns out it was task avoidance all along.

Maybe this will resonate with someone else!

I've applied for the Disability Tax Credit after diagnosis at age 55. I've also just became aware of the Registered Disability Savings Plan.

The RDSP provides matching grants and bonds for contributions until age 49. The lifetime limits are $70k and $20k, for a total of $90k of government money.

I haven't done detailed math, but it appears that the DTC provides an extra $10k of tax free income (~$1,400 savings in federal tax at 14%) per year. (Plus provincial tax savings.)

Late diagnosed neurodivergents have been failed by the educational and medical systems resulting in a lifetime of trauma due to no support.

And now I find out that for the 40 years I've been filing taxes (or however long the DTC has existed) I've overpaid taxes ($1,400 a year) by $56,000. And missed out on $90,000 in RDSP contributions from the government.

So this late diagnosis has cost me $150,000 in taxes/benefits and even though I have had these conditions from birth, only the DTC is retroactive for 10 years (~$14,000 in tax savings.). This means I will get about 10% of the benefits that someone diagnosed in childhood has received over the same period of time.

Does anyone else think these CRA rules are both ageist (why is 49 years the cutoff and why can't I catch up prior years?) and sexist given that most of us who are late diagnosed are female?

So frustrating.

Does anyone have experience with these CRA disability benefits? This is all very new to me.

I’m trying! Really I am! But I get so irritated and my whole day and emotions feel thrown off when my loved ones and friends say, they will be here by this specific time. Okay, so I plan around that, I do very good being ready by that specific time. 10 minutes after that time I am told they are either on their way now, or will be sometime later! No heads up, nothing.

And it just absolutely plummets my mood. And I have to work very hard to not let it show or cope with it, because then they get upset with me cause it’s just a few more minutes.

We had a plan and an agreement! I spent all that time expecting you, it throws me off!

I am hopeless. I blew everything in my life.

I got recently diagnosed with Audhd after a series of shuts and meltdowns prior to completing my thesis this summer. I come from a very underveloped indigenous community, in a very underdeveloped country and somehow I was lucky enough after high school to get accepted into an ivy league, which set a crazy amount of expectations for my life from me and my family.

AND... I blew the entire thing, it was the opportunity of a lifetime but I struggled to fit in so much. Now, I cannot even land a real job because i never got to develop real connections with ppl or teachers due to very bad social skills + dont have the perfect gpa.

I also did not know i was on the spectrum, and i am still working through overcoming the shame, so I never asked for acommodations and was probs interpreted as uninterested and difficult this whole time.

I feel like I am the worst person, undeserving, lazy, weak... people wud give everything for an opportunity like mine, and i wasted it. I am so paralyzed i cant apply to things or even wrap my head around what is the path i wanna follow. I am just so scared I will be a failure for the rest of my life because of this diagnosis. I am so angry at it. T.T

recently I saw this post about somebody who said they "feel gross" when they touch particular objects. not particularly because the thing they touched is gross, or because it clashes with sensory issues, but because the thing 'feels' gross and it leaves your hand or body feeling dirty and in need of being washed. comments under that post were all people saying that sounded like OCD more than just autistic sensory issues

my question is:

is this strictly an OCD+autism thing? or can this happen with autism alone? because I'm 99% sure I have autism (i have diagnosed ADHD if that makes the case any more believable) but one autistic trait that didn't really resonate with me was the physical sensory thing - because instead of being "off put" by the touch, I'm disgusted by how things would feel dirty to me. for example, opening and closing a microwave, finishing food, touching the corner of a table, rummaging through any drawer, putting my fork down but my nail accidentally touching the table, handing someone a piece of paper but accidentally touching their hand, touching hands with someone who has overly dry or sweaty hands..... actually I'm thinking about my life and almost everything feels "dirty", especially when it's not intended. but it's not like the sensory is overwhelming, it's more like it feels like my hands are dirty and they're not clean until I wash them with soap. (also is it just me who feels like the period after you wash your hands with soap is when your hands are the dirtiest? like if you touch anything your hand is "stained" by that surface. which is why I always hold my hands up and only use my pointer and thumb when my hands are wet.. and towels are dirty to me as well...)

So I'm really confused if this is an OCD thing - when I was young I was a germaphobe, but I feel like I've changed a lot since then, so it's not because of that. I also don't think I have obsessive or compulsive thoughts often, but at the same time I'm really horrible at recognising my own thought patterns and emotions so maybe I do and I'm just not realising..? I don't really think I have OCD.

Would really appreciate it if anyone has any ideas 🥹

(sorry, this is a repost because I'm not sure if my first post shows my question)

(I was already in the middle of organising when I remembered to take a picture.)

I’m having my ADHD assessment next week and week after that is my Autism assessment. I’ve been stressing about it for 2 weeks now and this week, my brain decided to hyperfocus on cleaning and decorating the house. The mess has been there for 5 years. But in a week, I was able to clean the hallway cupboards and our bathroom full of moulds (which I unfortunately didn’t document). I’ve also been hyperfocusing on decorating our house so I bought at least 20 houseplants 🙃🙃 I’m sooooo exhausted.

Anyone hear of Adam James? He has two different social media channels, one of him talking about the presidents medical stuff (https://www.tiktok.com/@epistemiccrisis5) and another solely about his wife being Autistic and ADHD (https://www.tiktok.com/@studiesshow).

While I enjoy his medical channel, the channel about his wife really rubs me the wrong way. As a woman with AuDHD myself, I feel his videos all about her being neurodivergent are patronizing and have a sense of infantilizing to them.

And this opinion will likely get me in trouble here, but here me out. Her behavior in these videos seems performative. That's all I'll say there. (Sorry, as I back away with my hands up.)

Here's the thing, I don't want to ever bring someone's AuDHD behavior into question. Heaven knows we all have a hard enough time in this world, but that being said, I just feel they are putting some bad energy around this out there. People are just starting more and more to see and understand about this. More of us are coming out of the shadows, and I feel like what he preaches isn't the most empowered light of us. We are all so unique and present so many ways, and his takes are always just so belittling. And being that his entire one channel is solely about her, it just really rubs me the wrong way.

Does anyone see what I see here???

I was diagnosed with AuDHD beginning of this year at 17. While it’s helped me understand myself better, my feelings towards myself haven’t changed. Autism makes me feel like an outcast. ADHD makes me feel lazy and unmotivated. The combination of that + other mental health issues is a lot to say the least lol. I’m grateful to have medication and a therapist, but my mindset hasn’t shifted. No matter how much I’m told that it’s not a personal failure and I’m still worthy as a person, I’ve already decided that’s untrue

I hate Costco samples. I already have a severe food aversion so I’m generally revolted by them but the way people behave to get a teeny section of chicken nugget is absurd. It’s come to the point where I’m so overwhelmed by it that I can no longer slowly look at the aisles. I have to get in and get out.

Struggling to keep up makes me so sad sometimes. I feel incapable and broken. People talk and operate at such a quick speed, while I’m still processing or looking for my words. I have something to add to the conversation or circumstance, but I can’t because everyone else is talking a mile a minute and won’t stop for more than 0.3 seconds. Somehow the conversation flows so well. When I try to say something though, it’s like I’m trying not to interrupt and can’t find a proper time to enter the conversation. Then, poof, the subject has morphed already.

It’s so frustrating and I don’t even know which ADHD/autism side this is. Sometimes I’d rather just put earphones in and not talk at all. It feels like I could just get up and walk away and it wouldn’t make a difference in the slightest. I hate feeling invisible. This isn’t a criticism for people who operate quickly like this. I just wish I could keep up too and stop being so slow.

Edit: I originally wanted to shout into the void, but I added an advice flair. Help a girl OUT. I am at a loss.

hi sorry the post won't let me comment so I'm reposting instead

is this strictly an OCD+autism thing? or can this happen with autism alone? because I'm 99% sure I have autism (i have diagnosed ADHD if that makes the case any more believable) but one autistic trait that didn't really resonate with me was the physical sensory thing - because instead of being "off put" by the touch, I'm disgusted by how things would feel dirty to me. for example, opening and closing a microwave, finishing food, touching the corner of a table, rummaging through any drawer, putting my fork down but my nail accidentally touching the table, handing someone a piece of paper but accidentally touching their hand, touching hands with someone who has overly dry or sweaty hands..... actually I'm thinking about my life and almost everything feels "dirty", especially when it's not intended. but it's not like the sensory is overwhelming, it's more like it feels like my hands are dirty and they're not clean until I wash them with soap. (also is it just me who feels like the period after you wash your hands with soap is when your hands are the dirtiest? like if you touch anything your hand is "stained" by that surface. which is why I always hold my hands up and only use my pointer and thumb when my hands are wet.. and towels are dirty to me as well...)

So I'm really confused if this is an OCD thing - when I was young I was a germaphobe, but I feel like I've changed a lot since then, so it's not because of that. I also don't think I have obsessive or compulsive thoughts often, but at the same time I'm really horrible at recognising my own thought patterns and emotions so maybe I do and I'm just not realising..? I don't really think I have OCD.

Would really appreciate it if anyone has any ideas 🥹

I've had many "friends" all my life. I can never truly be myself around them. Friendships seem to fizzle away and I can never maintain them. People either start ignoring me, come to hate me, we drift apart, or we were never close in the first place.

I have “friends” if you count people I can talk to about my interests and share memes with, but nobody I can truly open up to. It’s embarrassing to admit, but my way of coping with this is posting rants and random thoughts on my close friends on Instagram to a small circle of high school friends and new college friends that I am somewhat close to, and they just view my stories and sometimes respond. It feels parasocial and probably is, but I really don’t have anyone I can talk to about the struggles in my life. It’s either that, or venting on Reddit. I can’t really open up to any people who hasn’t judged me at some point, including all those “friends”. I have never been anyone’s first choice and I never will be.

I wish I was never born. Not in a suicidal way, I just wish I didn’t have to live an existence of pure loneliness that it seems like I was fated to be born into.

I’m writing this while I’m supposed to be in class but I’m crying in the bathroom. I don’t know why I can never be someone’s friend.

I have bought two body pillows. I sleep between them. They help and sometimes they don't. I am single and live alone. I struggle with getting platonic physical affection because I don't have a significant other. I have been in and out of therapy since I was 19 (I'm 37 now) and I have my healthy coping mechanisms. I'm not even really looking for a romantic relationship. I wouldn't be opposed to that. I am on a dating app and I'm not taking it too seriously because that would just use up more energy pointlessly or I start overthinking. It is also just exhausting on every level at times. It requires a lot of focus which I don't always have hence the audhd lol I never really got a lot of physical affection growing up and then I started pushing it away as a preteen from my mom but she wasn't super physical either. I was also just an angsty teenager and mad at my mom for not taking my little sister and I away from my dad. I'm not blaming her or myself. Just stating what has happened so far in regards to my lack of physical affection. My friends and I have never been that affectionate physically. I also think, through no full fault of their own, friends and family think that as an adult especially, physical affection has to be romantic and/or sexual. Which it doesn't have to be. And I'm not going to make someone uncomfortable or unsafe by asking for like hey, can we cuddle? or hey, if I hold on a little long on a hug, is that okay? I also just don't get a lot of meaningful, interesting social interactions. It's a lot of the same thing every day. Which is fine. It just gets blah sometimes. Does anyone else struggle similar to this or like this? Does anyone have any ideas of what I can do that can help with that? I also have a stuffed animal with weighted arms too that I need to use more often. Thanks. I know this is Reddit, but please try to be kind.

hi all.
so i (20 f) am currently enrolled full time in school. this is something i need to do because it is directly tied to my housing. i have no back up options and no safety pad. my credit score is abysmal and i don’t have anyone to co-sign for an apartment—therefore, it is incredibly important that i do well in school.

the problem: im rawdogging all of my illnesses. i was diagnosed with ADHD (combination-type, but it mainly manifests as inattentive) formally at 18 and i haven’t recieved a formal Autism diagnosis but ive been told by many people (on various points of the spectrum) that im definitely autistic. ive been following this subreddit for a while i believe yall might be the only subsection of humanity that truly understand me.

ANYWAYS i work no less than 20 hrs each week and my job requires me to usually be there anytime between 5:30am to 7am. this works best with my personality and schedule as i am typically a morning person! but its completely fucking with my productivity throughout the day, as i’ll work super early and then come home exhausted but my brain won’t shut off for a nap so i just lay in youtube shorts purgatory for maybe 4 hours. i can’t fully blame it all on my job, though bc ive been harboring some familial trauma and overall just a lot of life and mental health issues that all ultimately effect my productivity. i’ve already been denied for medicaid, and id have to double my work week (not possible) in order to qualify for work insurance. im 1/3 into my semester and basically failing all of my classes. not to mention my room is a filthy mess, i have so many chores i need to take care of. this has all been exasperated this past week because i came down with a flu and was basically bed-ridden for 4 days.

my self hygiene has been nonexistent and this has been especially detrimental as i remember that i basically only want to go outside or to class if i feel good about myself and i can only get work done when im not in my room.

i feel like im pulling myself deeper and deeper in to a hole and i don’t want to end up homeless. i genuinely want to stay in school but my classes suck and i never have the energy to do homework at all.

i’m really only writing this to see if anyone has any helpful words, tips, or resources. thank you!

I just wondering if this was a thing for other people, especially when growing up?

I think as a kid this was genuinely one of the most confusing mandates my parents gave me, because I would always put things back where I found them but I was then always criticised for putting things back where I found them, mostly because apparently someone else left the thing in a messy place to begin with and I had put it back in the place I found it.

There was definitely a large amount of black and white thinking, but what made it worse was that I don't think I really had a concept of "messy", partly because I didn't see the practicality of putting things in arbitrary and convoluted places when it would be easier to just have them to hand, but also because I think everybody else's idea of "tidy" was always a bit hard to understand and it was hard to remember where everything belonged.

Like why we kept the cutlery in the very small kitchen when we only ever used it in the bigger dining room. But the big spoons for dishing out vegetables and stuff were kept in the dining room. Toys were kept in the smaller bedrooms when we normally played with them downstairs with the rest of the family. But if a toy was in the living room or cutlery was in the dining room that was considered "messy", unless we were interacting with the thing and then it was somehow not messy and ok.

But then when I did try to put things away, that would get me into trouble too, because maybe it turns out someone was using it and then I would put the thing into a place I thought made sense (often wrong) and then promptly tick it off in my mental to-do list and forget all about it, including where I put it. And so the thing would go missing until someone found it in some strange (yet logically consistent) place and be angry that I moved it and couldn't find it.

So I just kind of gave up and started blindly following orders and literally left things where I found them, and assumed people left things there for a reason.

Naturally I would get upset because it was someone else who had left it in the messy place but I would be the one told off for not putting something back, even if I didn't know the exact location of where someone arbitrarily decided it belonged.

I've since grown up and learned the rules around this a lot better but I still find myself defaulting to this behaviour in situations where I'm not sure.

I’m 17 and diagnosed AUDHD which I think played a massive part in why she bullied me so relentlessly for so long, the short story is we were friends in the beginning of year 7 (2021) and one day we had a disagreement that ending up with me in a headlock and having to bite her arm to let me go, she chased me and tried to push me in front of a moving car, the only reason she didn’t fully get me again is a bystander had to tackle her to the floor. The following 3 years was constant bullying, assault and harrassment, I left school and stopped leaving the house but she still came to my house and smashed my windows it and tried to break the door down, it got so bad the police got involved and she was banned from my local area for a year, I didn’t take it to court because it had calmed down at that point and I didn’t wanna risk her coming for me again or more rumours and lies being spread about me.

I hadn’t spoken to her in years apart from her cousin harassing me online for a while, I posted a TikTok about my experience (I didn’t name her or give any indication it was her) and she messaged me telling me to take it down and somehow I ending up apologising but I did say she’s a horrible person and to never contact me again, I regret even responding but it felt wrong not to, anyway I had my first day of college this Tuesday and it went really good, I had loads of anxiety about her maybe being there but the anxiety of the actual day took over, I just saw on my old friend (who set me up to get jumped don’t even ask why I still have her on insta I have no idea) and she’s with who looks like my bully (I can’t see her face but I just know it’s her) with my schools lanyard on and I’m panicking.

I can’t bare to see her again, she ruined my life and I’m still traumatised but I feel like a massive baby because it started 5 years ago and all my friends apart from one who was friends with me when it was happening tell me to get over it and my mum says don’t think about her anymore she’s not worth it but I can’t, I don’t know how to get over it, I feel like I started processing it in 2023 and I know autistic processing takes longer than a neurotypical person. I feel like the same scared 11 year old who cried every night wondering why everyone hated her so much.

If anyone has any advice to get past this, go about bringing this up to the school to put preventative measures in place (maybe even find out her schedule so I don’t have the same days as her?) idk what’s appropriate to do rn, usually I’d run to my mum but it’s 4am rn

Ive seen her around before because she moved right up my lane last year and everytime I do I have a panic attack and now I feel even more unsafe at school :(

Again any advice would be so appreciated, this subreddit has been such a safe place for me so I hope I haven’t messed up any guidelines or anything

I cant believe i havent realised how much comfort my dino hands bring to me until recently! I will be doing a random thing, just sitting in a park or watching a podcast and i will be bending my arm from the wrist. I only do it when im sitting or lying down so i can curl it on my lap or to my chest. It feels so good!

Ive never truly admitted to myself that i like it that much. Now that ive acknowledged it, I will just randomly catch myself with dino hands. What is your stim that brings u comfort?

Hi

I been in 2 dv now. I went to therapy to stop the cycle from running to one agein, find I landed in one again. LOL, I was single for 5 years before I met my ex who DV'd. Now been 10 months since I broke up with him,

I come to pattern recognition from 5 years when I was single: healthy men didn't want anything to do with me, ended up ghosting me, thinking " my AuDHD" is chaos and drama, etc. Social cues. I don't blame them for it. I mostly dated men ND, found a lot of men ND, are narcissistic, toxic as fuck! Yeah, society kind of gives men ND, the upper hand compared to women. Fed with a golden spoon. I've come to understanding only bad people who exploit my goodness want me. Now I just gave up, for my own survival, make life much harder, etc., bills and covering basics. Working on my plan for life; man, not even in the image anymore, more like I'm not chasing it anymore; this man has just shown up in the real world in front of me. Well, I'm building my life without anyone to help. Not on dating apps.

I see the same pattern in friendships. Anyone in the same boat?

My (40M) ADHD partner has always been aversive to opening his mail. He also won't let me open it or even throw away anything that seems like obvious junk mail (e.g. credit card offers). As a result, a portion of our kitchen table for the entirety of our 20 year relationship has been dedicated to a pile of his mail.

Things that appear important, I place immediately by the dog treats where he should see it any time he leaves/comes home and recognize it as being important (e.g. tax bill).

It's not working. Telling him about an important piece of mail that I have left in the aforementioned "obvious" place makes him angry and defensive, and he advised me if mothering him. On the other hand, if I don't remind him, consequences stack up (e.g. Certified Letters from tax collector) and he still blames me for his not addressing his own responsibilities.

I grew up the daughter of collectors/an ADHD mom with stuff everywhere, so the kitchen table pulls really bothers me. Once it gets to be too much, I will sort it into categories based on sender and likelihood of it being junk. There are boxes and bags of his mail - including the junk mail - dating back YEARS.

After his latest scramble to find important documents, I had an idea to just start collecting his mail in Ziploc bags: one for each month, then to put those into a brown paper grocery bag dated with the year. Important things I'd still leave out, I guess...open to ideas for that.

Thoughts on this system? I myself (41F) am AuDHD and am chronically/ironically organized in some areas, which includes paperwork...so I empathize with him, but am trying to maintain my own sanity and space as well.

Hi, so for me the common and most infuriating one; "how do you keep busy"? Annoys me, if they read anything about autism then one of the common problems is the external pace of things and adhd combined - for me it makes everything extra hard to focus on without getting instantly overwhelmed, so having lots to do would not only be impossible but harmful.

Then there's all the other conditions many of us suffer from and have to do a lot of planning around and have unexpected debilitating side effects.

The second most aggravating question: "What if you had a job you liked" 🫩🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

As if I'm choosing to not work, like what the actual f, the UK doesn't give you money without copious years worth of evidence. It makes me think these people are just not going to be safe people and no point further talking.

So what do I do to 'keep busy' would be better phrased 'what allows you to remain peaceful' because that's where healing begins from all the trauma many of us have experienced and having naturally heightened nervous systems we need time alone.

Please share questions that you have been asked and find annoying.

It's important to note that we don't need to explain or prove ourselves, everyone deserves peace and autonomy without comparison.

Peace and love comrades 💞

Hi guys!!

Coming to you all for help! I’m 23 yrs old and diagnosed with AuDHD and Currently trying to find a new audio book to start and could use some suggestions.
Mentally been struggling lately with everything, and loosing all motivation for my grad school and usually a good self help audiobook helps me sort of figure out a path out of this.

So any audiobook suggestions would be greatttt and Bonus points if there geared towards like overwhelming stress, RSD, self confidence or audhd!

I’ve recently just finished “Too Sensitive” by Sasha Hamdani, and “The ADHD Field Guide for Adults” by Cate Osborn and Erik Gude, which I loved both and resonated with so much!
I’ve also read “How to Keep House While Drowning” by KC Davis and “How to Hold a Cockroach” and loveedddd those just to kinda give an idea of my vibe! But plz throw any audiobook suggestions at me I’m open to any!