After being diagnosed with Autism, reconsidering previous ADHD diagnosis?

[rarie]

Okay, so a bit of a saga, hopefully this is the right place for it.
I'm kinda looking for a little perspective, especially from those of you who have both Autism and ADHD.
So I'm a girl, I got diagnosed with ADHD at age six, then later got officially diagnosed with Autism at twenty-one. (Yay! For me, at least. It was very encouraging to know I'm not just socially incompetent sometimes.

My sister also has ADHD. Once I got into late teens, I found I didn't really struggle with any of the cliche things that ADHD people struggle with, and after my autism diagnosis, my sister raised the question of whether I actually had ADHD in the first place. To be honest, I'm not really sure. Possibly an argument could be made for early intervention making a lot of difference? I was on Concerta (long acting Ritalin) for years and it did make a difference to my focus until maybe late teens.

In hindsight, I was definitely pretty hyperactive when I was little and I still tend to get lost in my own head quite a bit. Up until about mid-Year 7, I would lose stuff all the time, but then that kind of abruptly stopped and I have no clue why? On the whole, once I got past primary school, I never really struggled with deadlines or time management, I'm pretty organised (I always know where everything is, even if no one else can figure out my system), I don't tend to end up yak-shaving that often (doing something and somehow ending up doing something super different from what you were originally doing), and I'm terrible in a crisis.

I definitely do have the whole loads of hobbies thing, but I tend to like finishing what I start before moving on, it's more that I get into something heaps, finish up what I was doing, and then move on for six months and maybe come back later. When I start focussing on something I can concentrate for hours, but I don't really struggle with general focus and procrastination.
Edit: Upon further reflection, I also really tend to lose track of time when concentrating, but I don't tend to get to places late cos rushing stresses me out, so I get everywhere like half an hour early. I also frequently do that thing where you lose track of what you were thinking and need to stare inside the freezer for ten seconds to remind yourself to make a sandwich.

Any thoughts anyone wanted to contribute would be super appreciated! I mean, in practice this won't really change a lot in my life at this point, but ADHD's kind of formed a solid part of my identity for a lot of my life so it's definitely going to bug me if I don't at least think this out.

 

[Xinyta]

I am no expert myself. But one thing I do know is that ADHD as a kid comparatively to an adult, can be different in alot of ways. And you also have the unfortunate nightmare of trying to figure out what's autistic and what's ADHD. Especially since there is alot of symptom and behavioral overlap between the two.

There are plenty of folks here that will understand your situation. There are threads about it, by members who are, or have previously been, looking for insights into it.

AuDHD

 

[Misty Avich]

I have the opposite; I was diagnosed with Asperger's when I was 8 and got diagnosed with ADHD when I was 31. But I've never really had the same cliche symptoms that other autistic people commonly struggle with, and this often brings me to the question if I have ASD or not. Unless a child is notably delayed (which I wasn't), I don't think a diagnosis needs to be sought until the child reaches puberty at least. I was obviously a child with an anxiety disorder and some academic difficulties but I wish they'd just left it at that and intervened more when I got older, because children do change.

How I was during my teenage years kind of stops me questioning my ASD diagnosis though because it seemed to have peaked then and my social life then (or lack thereof) painted an image of autism. But I just seemed to be a mess during puberty, didn't seem neither here nor there and didn't try very hard.

My ADHD seems the most prominent one, and every time I look up a behaviour or thought pattern of mine into Google all the results say ADHD and autism is very seldom mentioned, so I know that if you add up all the symptoms I have between ADHD and ASD I'll probably have more clichéd ADHD symptoms, so I put most of my symptoms down to ADHD and anxiety. When I watch videos about autism on YouTube I can't really relate to most things, but when I'm watching videos about ADHD I'm almost shouting "that's me!" a lot.

 

[Outdated]

Once I got into late teens, I found I didn't really struggle with any of the cliche things that ADHD people struggle with, and after my autism diagnosis, my sister raised the question of whether I actually had ADHD in the first place.

Childhood hyperactivity is a common thing and is separate from ADHD syndrome although a lot of symptoms might be similar. My brother was hyperactive when we were kids but he was definitely not attention deficit.

Childhood hyperactivity is mostly influenced by diet and can be greatly reduced by avoiding foods with artificial colours and flavours. Perhaps that in conjunction with autism caused them to misdiagnose.