Feb 5, 2025

It occurred to me recently that my difficulty in decision-making plagues me quite often. I saw a reel last night on the Top Five Qualities of ADHD. I deeply related to many of those things. In an instant I had an epiphany. I realized just like a drinking alcoholic that is still in denial, I was comparing and not relating to ADHD. Through this whole neurodivergent journey which I’m only about ten months into, I could not see my actions as ADHD. Once again, just as in my autism, I was stuck on these stereotypes. I couldn’t see myself inside the descriptions. I couldn’t see myself inside the diagnoses.

When the original poster spoke about decision fatigue, it was like thunder struck me. I realized I have been controlling the rhetoric around my neurodivergent diagnosis. I made some estimations because I did not believe that I was ADHD. Honestly, I find attention deficit to be a condition of distraction. I am a fixated, if not obsessed, hyper-focused person who always finishes my task and meets goals. I find ADHD to carry negative connotation, particularly about work ethic. It would indicate I can’t stay on task. I realize now my close-mindedness rejected the idea that I could be distracted or have attention deficit. How could a hypervigilant, people-pleaser have attention deficit? That would negate my ability to prove myself, to show my value and my innate worth. Something I have struggled with my whole life. To my very core I have abandonment wounds that suggest I am of no value at all.

Subconsciously I believe I ignored many glaring factors. These would indicate that I am ADHD. Maybe I did this because that label is one I am uncomfortable with. Not to mention the subject that this blog is about, which is the under-diagnosed highly masked middle aged neurodivergent women. I did not have enough information throughout my life to understand my own ADHD tendencies.

Ironically enough, I have embraced my new autistic identity as my truth even though it’s been a really difficult. I write a lot about how difficult it is. But I love being autistic and knowing that I’m autistic. I have always loved the way my mind works. It is the challenging parts that I need help and support with. Everything makes sense in my life now. However, I still struggle with the internal battle of decision making. What I now understand is called decision fatigue: Making the decision to go to yoga or not go to yoga. Making a decision would plague me days before and after an event, no matter what decision I made. I am haunted by the decision that I chose, before and after. It’s fucking exhausting. It is literally fatiguing.

Other things that occurred to me: I regularly do 11 things at once all the time. But the reason that I thought I was disqualified for ADHD is because I do them all effectively. Or maybe I just think I do, and maybe I don’t. Damn. Anyway, I am able to finish tasks. I am able to keep track of things. I actually have an internal clock that is like a German Time Machine. So I don’t have time blindness and didn’t think that I had this ADHD thing. I thought ADHD was what other people had, but not me.

Projecting My Inner Turmoil Onto Others

I have known and currently know many people that are ADHD and I didn’t consider myself to be like them. But now as I write this in this very moment (Feb 4th, 2025), I’m having an epiphany. I tend to hate the people that I am most similar to. I struggle with this until I can relate to them by understanding my own circumstances. It is not until a measure of my own healing is done, can I see myself in others. The mirror that they are. I believe this to be true for anyone, not just me. Particularly what bothers me is when people cannot mask. Even before I knew what masking was. It also bothers me when people choose not to mask in the ways that I felt I had to mask. Meaning of the ways that I have yet to acknowledge to myself. The masks that I am still in denial for are the ones that I cannot stand other people. And I didn’t see it until now.

For example, people who are kind of spastic, can’t sit still, need fidget spinners…make me insane. I mean, I hate them internally. Bear with me, I know this sounds unkind but I am realizing something here. They used to make me crazy. I am realizing it’s because internally I’m saying: “motherfucker, I have done everything to fit into this pretty, polite box. I mask the things that you’re just flipping out and jerking off to the world”. Their ability to be so open angered me deep down inside. Their ability to be without masks and not hide their stimming, something I still mostly hide. They seek stimulation and they get the release. I have never been able to ask for these things, and they internally eat me up. The caged part of me is saying, shut up and play nice so nobody notices us! This visceral reaction is an indication in itself, right? It is not that I am better than them, it is that I AM them. Lots to unpack here, and growth to be had.

Overlapping Spectrums

The truth is these spectrums are not cookie cutter. It’s really so true that each one of us who is neurocomplex is beautifully unique. It could bring tears to my eyes at this very moment. That I have ADHD qualities that I have somehow managed to live with, albeit destructively over the years. I have my autistic qualities. I have also learned to live with and work with them unaided for over forty years. All of these realizations so new. But now I am presented with possessing qualities of both these disorders. I suppose I’ll accept the label of disorder at this moment. The intersection of ADHD + Autism (AuDHD) has been detrimental to my mental, emotional and physical well-being. But there are many times, more frequently now, that I view my neurodivergence as a unique gift.

This identity for me will always be important. I don’t pretend that other people or particularly neurotypical people will understand the impact diagnosis has had on me. I have seen on social media people question “why it has changed your life so much?” or “why has this become your whole identity?” The reality is this always was my entire identity I was just starved of that knowledge. Lacking the truth about myself I sought answers and remedies in all the wrong places. I felt othered. I felt I didn’t belong. I was in pain. More than anything, I had no solutions to how to live with these complicated feelings, sensations, processing disorders, physical stressors and intrusive thoughts.

My neurodivergence is always going to be important because being undiagnosed is what led me to a life of addiction. It’s what led me to unknowingly requiring the substance solution. To try to run from myself. I have been undiagnosed my entire life and I have taken self-medicating into my own hands. I am still shocked how again and again I’ve been able to find the solutions that worked for me. Obviously, alcohol and pills became detrimental after addiction took hold. In sobriety, I’ve also found solutions that were exactly what I needed. Mindfulness and Meditation helped me. I found assistance in yoga and group work. This as all prior to understanding neurodivergence. I will humbly thank Divine Spirit for always guiding the way, if I can show up and listen.

So like most people in addiction, the substance use started as a solution. But then ultimately it ended up masking the underlying conditions that were troublesome in the first place. I believe how I went undiagnosed for so long. My neurocomplexity was hidden by the disease of alcoholism.

Recovery Rigidity as a Mask

In the last four years of recovery, I have gone further undiagnosed. This happened because I was adhering to such a strict recovery life. For 3.5 years I had an incredibly rigid and routine life. Because they told me my life depended on it. So there was a lack of decision fatigue. I didn’t have to think too deeply because recovery programs were dictating my life for me. There were no decisions to be made. I did what I was told to stay sober. But that started to lose its appeal 3.5 years away from a drink with a solid foundation.

When all of this started to fall apart truthfully was when I got so tired, burnt out actually. I wondered if a human being needs to meditate every single day. Do we really have to go to meetings daily just to avoid feeling suicidal? There must be some wiggle room in this life. I was starting to sense that something more was amiss. So I started to lessen up on some of these things and it all fell apart.

The turning point was when I recognized that the mindfulness hacks are an absolute requirement. It suddenly seemed abnormal to me. I must always be mindful and grateful. I put 100% of my effort and energy into regulating my nervous system. Rather, control my inner experience. I came to find out later, that is because I am so dysregulated naturally that I needed the hacks. Living my life unknowingly masked in an attempt to survive this world keeps my nervous system in overdrive. I was in Autistic Burnout and didn’t know it. I was out of energy. When I stopped meditating daily, and I loosened up on some of the daily recovery rigidity. That’s when everything started to come unhinged. Without the spiritual bypassing, Mindfulness bypassing, Recovery bypassing the true nature of my disabilities started to emerge.’

I Asked the Questions

I asked a dear friend to be frank with me. He was diagnosed with ADHD long ago. I wanted to know what he thought of my singular autism diagnosis. This person who knows me well suggested that I am autistic. He believes I also have ADHD and CPTSD from childhood, that presents now as Dissociative Disorder. That was not an easy conversation. But I agreed with him completely. Sometimes we need other neurodivergent people to help us reflect. Those beautiful mirrors that we are for one another.

It was through these continued revelations that I decided to get assessed again. At that time I was OK with however it was going to transpire. The shock waves of my autism diagnosis are waning and now I am on the road to unmasking and healing. I believe everything happens on time and in the way that it’s meant to. Not sooner than it should. I have sought more help in the way of therapy. So it’s all good. I’m right where I belong. I am continuously in awe with how this life unfolds and reveals itself when we are open. Ready or not, if the ground is fertile, the seeds of growth will be planted. 

Remain inquisitive

Since this last reflective paragraph I’ve been officially diagnosed with ADHD – hyper-focused – inattentive blend. Combined with autism is referred to as AuDHD, an at times perplexing combination. This diagnosis interestingly has landed so much differently. First of all, it makes so much sense. I apparently didn’t know anything about ADHD. I realize once again that we know only a little, particularly the more and more we seek. What’s coming up for me now is how imperative it is to remain inquisitive. To continue asking questions, particularly towards the medical industry. Particularly if you’re a woman, minority or marginalized. Especially if you are in addiction recovery. Little is known about how our addiction masks neurodivergence. Seek the questions to understand your neural wiring and own neurodivergence. I’m getting my own education on neurocomplexity. There is nothing clearer to me now than that I am AuDHD. I just can’t believe that I flew under the radar for so many years.

The Entire Point

So what is the whole entire point of sharing at all? The point of writing what I have inside me? I know these things need to come out. Vocalizing my experience and naming what has happened, it is a kind of release. It is also for trauma processing. Ultimately, it is for my healing. But the real point is that I have to share my story. I now believe that many alcoholics are neurodivergent. They suffer the way I was suffering. I have to share my experience with what I’ve been through. The detrimental effects of self-medicating and going undiagnosed for so long nearly ended my life. It was not just because of addiction. The alcohol actually helped me at first. It was the unaided, unsupported neurodivergence that I was suffering from in silence, in solitude. Someone with these disabilities can still do all the things I did. You cannot see the pain I endured on the inside. This includes the disabilities I acquired, like drug addiction and alcoholism. I want to tell my story so that I can be the mirror for someone else. To share that there is hope. That’s the whole point.

With Love,

Vanessa