Major depressive disorder, recurrent, in partial remission
Post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic
Autistic disorder
The first one I've known about and fought, to varying degrees of success, throughout most of adulthood. Sometimes I'm fine; content, motivated, unmedicated, truckin' along living my best life, and other times I need to ask for help. Luckily my depressive disorder manifests as a lack of executive function and disinterest in everything, so I haven't had any struggles with self harm or ideation.
The last few years of therapy - I thought primarily only for depression - have made me realize just how much PTSD I had from growing up. I had an awful home life as a child with two parents in way over their head, way too young, and without any good healthy coping strategies of their own. I learned to survive by:
be afraid of everything all the time
never ask for help
never indicate blame
never suggest any failings in anyone other than self
make everyone laugh as much as possible; if they think you're funny, they are less likely to hurt you when they're angry
be aware of every movement and emotion people are feeling at all times, no matter what
be afraid. don't forget that part.
oh, and it's vitally important you never, ever let people know you're afraid, because that makes them feel bad and they'll react by justifying your fear
So when I found out I was a high functioning autistic - it finally made everything I was feeling and trying to do throughout my entire life snap into place. I must have known that at some level I had to work 10x harder than someone without my challenges to read people. It was critical that I read people correctly at all times, and any failure could end in disaster. I was exhausted all the time around other people, because I had to be at the absolute top of my game, all of the time, or else. I use italics there because the reality is that was only true for a very small subset of two people, but what you know cerebrally and what you know in your lizard brain are two very different things.
I'll be untangling this mess for the foreseeable future, but I'm finally starting to extend myself grace and dabbling in some exposure therapy; simple things like "I'm sorry, this isn't what I ordered" are now possible, albeit hard.
Good on you for taking care of yourself :) I'm on my own ASD - PTSD journey too and it has been incredibly hard at times but I'm still here fighting it out :) Every small bit of progress counts.
I'm 31M with Dyspraxia/ASD. Diagnosed since I was very young, grew up with quite severe developmental delays and hypersensitivity etc. Nowadays I mostly get along fine.
I'll certainly follow this community but I must admit, perhaps controversially, that I'm not fond of the term "neurodiverse". I'm not just diverse, I have a disability. And if it were possible to cure it, I would.
I don't know if it's controversial but I struggle with the disability label too, as I masked a lot growing up. I get swayed from one side to the other as time passes.
For me there are parts of me that I don't want to be neurotypical like how NT small talk, social hierarchy, judgment, group politics etc works. I also like how I view and understand things.
There are parts like executive function deficits, hypersensitivity, difficulty understanding emotions and so on that I would like to get better at. So it's a mixed bag.
I've been here 5 days or so, but been busy.. Been away for a few days travelling, currently in Coimbra, Portugal. Anyway, I haven't been doing much union stuff since I retired, but have been boosting union content on Mastodon. I've also been writing up stuff to help explain the fediverse and the reddit stuff.
Anything in particular you want to chat about? Right now I'm traveling to Coimbra Portugal. It's very pretty, but also with very steep hills, which my aging feet and knees don't like.
I've been here 5 days or so, but been busy.. Been away for a few days travelling, currently in Coimbra, Portugal. Anyway, I just finished reading Dune for the nth time, because I want it fresh in my mind when the second half of the movie comes out. I've also been writing up stuff to help explain the fediverse and the reddit stuff.
Parent of a kindergarten aged kid on the spectrum here. Undiagnosed myself, but there are lots of parallels between what my kid is going through and what I experienced as a child, so I have a strong suspicion that I'm likely neurodivergent as well. I intend to mostly follow the community for the sake of my kid to ensure that as a parent I'm doing the best possible to allow them to thrive.
Even you being aware is a huge step forward :) My father was in the same position but he wasn't aware of ASD and leaned on me pretty hard to mask. He is great person but I've struggled with being myself as an adult.
I'm Demondice, but I'm nowhere near as demonic as the name might suggest. 40 years old, and just going through the diagnostic process now as I'm very likely autistic. It's a bit of an anxiety-inducing time as I worry that I'm just imagining the symptoms and I'm wasting everyone's time. However, pretty much everyone I speak to tells me that I'm one of the most obviously autistic people they've ever met and find the concept of me doubting it hilarious.
I felt that way for a long time too but I struggled with the opposite with people not believing I could possibly be autistic. It was a relief to finally get a diagnosis :) I don't think you'll be wasting anyone's time if you ask for an assessment. In fact you'll be saying yourself, your partner, friends and family, a lot of pain and time.
Thanks for making this post! I (30NB) was diagnosed with cPSTD a little over a year ago and just this week my therapist is referring me for ASD screening. I find Discord utterly overwhelming and I like the reddit/lemmy kind of forum stuff over twitter/mastodon.
I'm looking forward to lemmy making progress! I'm a SWE and I wish I could contribute but I'm focusing on EMDR and general trauma processing right now 😕
Hi!
Good luck with your ASD screening, I hope you get some progress with it.
When you say you prefer Lemmy over Discord… is it Discord in particular you have issues with? Or chat programmes in general? I generally have no problems with chat systems, but I find Discord overwhelming too.
Hi, thanks! I've seen occasional Slack channels that are full of animated reactions and gifs, but Discord is so, so much worse.
I love forums because it's hard to miss something. It's easy to ignore subforums or mark them as read, and there's no realtime pressure. With Discord, I feel more likely to miss than catch anything. I've had notification badges that after 30 minutes I still couldn't figure out how to make go away. There's a mode to disable animations, but you can't see them again without disabling the mode (why not a button for each gif??). I tried joining a queer Discord but everyone's pronouns are a different font in a different color in a different size, all the time, with no way for me to simply the UI on my end. It really seems to me like it's only popular because of mobile apps.
Hi! My neurodivergence is ADHD. The same goes for my wife and two kids. We participated in a little study at one point looking at children of ADHD parents.
Hello, everyone! I'm 26 years old, living in New England and was diagnosed with Asperger's Disorder at a young age. I strongly suspect inattentive ADHD as well. I really wonder about getting re-diagnosed to see whether I'd be placed in the autism bucket or stuck with PPD-NOS. In any case, I consider myself autistic. I enjoy reading, history, pretentious video games, TTRPGs (especially Mythras) and BattleTech.
This sounds bizarre but I think I was diagnosed when I was a child (I remember lots of tests and conversations with professionals before being removed from mainstream education) but put it down to being a bit messed up about my toxic parents overwrought divorce. I had parents that would hide things so I wasn't told the truth about a lot of things.
I've always known my brain works differently to others and on occasions its made me a target.
It was during the pandemic that it all came to a head. I felt an immense relief not working in the office, where it felt like a sensory overload of noises, smells and touch. I started reading online and finally took an online RAAD-R test but got some friends to also take it.
One scored 17, the other 65 but he said he had issues with the questions whereas mine was 189 and I was making an effort to temper my answers!
So I'm currently self diagnosed but its pretty obvious and when I get my full medical records, I'll find out what happened when I was a kid.
Hi friends! Im 33 with ADHD, diagnosed at age 27 and it explained so much of my childhood. I go in and out if hobbies but currently am into cross stitch, Guild Wars 2, and cozy video games.
Hi y'all, I'm socialgaff, or Liam. I'm pretty likely AuDHD, diagnosed and medicated for the ADHD side of things (if anyone has questions about what Stratera is like, I'm not a doctor but I've been on it for about a decade now). Self-diagnosed dyslexic and dyscalculic. Glad to have another community to talk brain stuff with!!
I'll jump in as well. Parent to a 10 yo boy that has ADHD. He's a great kid and while he struggles with reading, we always receive praise from his teachers for his attitude and treatment of others. We're struggling with medication right now as his previous medication, methylphenidate delay-release, wasn't working as well as it did in the past. We switched to Vivance and while it has worked well for him during the day, it seems to have really increased his mood swings in the evening. He'll get periods of...I dunno... depression? Saying things you don't want to hear your child say (he's worthless, not good at anything, no friends, etc, when its not true - he has friends and he's great at drawing and baseball). Anyway, that's my intro. Hoping this community takes off.
That sounds really though. I've struggled with finding the correct medication and often letting go of medication that worked but made essential things worse. Have you sought second option from someone else? That might be worthwhile given your son's struggle.
I was on the same for a couple of years and had the same problem. I'm on Elvanse now, which is better, I think, but I need to ask the dr if I can up my dose. Easier said than done, though...
Hey there! Mid-30s and was diagnosed level 1 ASD a few years ago, which I feel like explained a lot about myself. Besides depression/anxiety, I tend to struggle with concepts and things that aren't well defined, and with some aspects of communication. I liked math and science classes in school because there were formulas and rules and a right answer to the problem. I have a harder time with more open-ended or creative tasks, especially when there are expectations attached to the outcome.
I wanted to poke my head in, introduce myself and say hi, and I'm sure I'll visit here occasionally. But I'll admit I haven't been big on joining in on neurodivergence spaces in the past — partially because it's not personally a term I use for myself, and partially because I don't always agree with the discourse from the loudest voices (or sometimes things that it feels like everyone else agrees on), so I don't always feel like I fit in.
Hello fellow STEM fan :) I struggle with creative, non-structured things too!
Regarding the second part, it's something I've felt at times but as a community of people who struggle to fit in, we can probably do better to be more kind and learn from each other rather than form a mob. This is sort of a new start here on lemmy so I'm hopeful that it can be built into something nicer from the start.
I used rarely participate in the reddit community but decided to try my best here for the above reasons.
I have a harder time with more open-ended or creative tasks, especially when there are expectations attached to the outcome.
Hey @lunasloth@beehaw.org,
could you eleborate on this maybe, if you feel comfortable doing so?
I find that interesting and am not sure if I can identify with that
I love how many ADHD folks are in here, because the alternative is doing the work we're paid for, and the thought of that is too horrendous to contemplate.
I'm Darren, 42, and only 3 1/2 years diagnosed with ADHD, so it's been fun trying to wrap my head around the fact that I'm not just kinda useless and lazy, but I've been actively fighting my brane's impulses throughout my life.
OhSnapKracklePopped here. I’m diagnosed with ADHD, BPII, OCPD, and PTSD.
I read, write, play games, and have as many hobbies as you can imagine someone who experiences adhd addled hypomania has.
Nice to meet you all, haha.
Edit: adding, I’m thirty-four. Idk if that matters for like… fun demographic reason.
Hello, I have aspergers/adhd (although I know aspergers isn't officially recognized anymore, I feel that accurately communicates my situation)
My dream in life is to one day own a zoo with the purpose of teaching people not to fear snakes/reptiles in general, with the hope that people realize they're inquisitive, thoughtful animals, not monsters.
I'm also a free software enthusiast, and an anarchist.
Hi! I’m in my early 30s. I have ASD and ADHD, but I wasn’t officially diagnosed until I was 19. Looking forward to chatting with more people who are in the same boat.
Hi! I’m Moof, a 40-something Company Director, and Developer based out of Barcelona, Spain.
I have recently been diagnosed with Attention Deficit variant ADHD and I am currently going through the start of learning which meds work for me.
I also think I may be on the Autism spectrum though a recent screening didn’t pick up on it, I was instead told that I am just “very intelligent”, whilst at the same time telling me that my scores on the IQ test they ran on me do not fit their statistical model enough to get a meaningful result.
I enjoy a lot of streaming content, I’ve become obsessed with Jet Lag and the Layover podcast over on Nebula, and I’ve been recently catching up on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on SkyShowtime
I love Barcelona. Only been there a couple of times, very briefly while working on a cruise ship, but I have incredibly fond memories of the architecture. Never did go into la Sagrada Familia though, because I took one look at the queue and noped my way back down the street.
Hello everyone! I'm Witch and I am an ADHDer that probably has autism but hasn't really gotten around to getting diagnosed yet on account of being an adult that feels like it'll be more hassle than its worth.
I'm currently on Vynase.
My special interest is art and I am currently trying to "fix" my life. High school drop out, no job, hoping for a change.
Hey people, I'm parsnip, a person on the autism spectrum who also has dyslexia. It's fun being me, sometimes. I'm fairly good at stuff that I specialise in but have had trouble with workplaces because of the needed socializing/networking/schmoozing. I love working with children and teaching STEM.
Hi, I'm in my early 20s and am diagnosed with social + generalized anxiety and depression. Tbh I don't usually talk too openly about this stuff, but it's nice to meet you all!
Hey all. I've introduced myself elsewhere so I'll keep this fairly short, I have a lot of trouble with loosely defined social concepts like gender and romance. More tightly defined ones like social norms I tend to have an easier job with. I also have aphantasia and am generally just a very odd person, which is part of why I like to identify as a bunny.
Very much same here re: having a lot of trouble with loosely defined social concepts vs easier times with more tightly defined ones. The concept of gender, for example, is something that's clearly important and meaningful to a lot of people, but I don't know that I'll ever understand it myself (so I've just landed on a point of acceptance that it matters to others). (Apologies if I'm off topic and you meant something totally different!)
Hi everyone this is my first comment here despite being here for a few days and trying to use it more, slowly weaning myself off Reddit (no idea if I'm gonna be able to do it long term).
I was diagnosed with Asperger's as a teenager, but I was in denial for a very long time because I didn't like the psychologist diagnosing me. I don't like the term anymore because the doctor was a Nazi. Rather just saw ASD level 1.
Recently I've been realising I have ADHD and I think that causes me more problems in my life than ASD. I can't afford to get diagnosed or medicated currently however :/
Hi, I'm Os and I'm new here! I'm here because I have major depression, general anxiety, and inattentive adhd. I also love Taskmaster! I really like Minecraft and I make lots of texture packs and things for it over on planetminecraft.
Hi Os! Love meeting other Taskmaster fans! I have an unhealthy obsession with it. Greg in teacher mode is my absolute favourite. I think my favourite season was the the fifteenth. Fern Brady is a neurodivergent queen 🤩
Hello. I'm late 30s and undiagnosed, since my country has a 30 month waiting list for adult diagnoses right now. Maybe I have ASD, or maybe i'm just regular weird. Who knows. What is normal anyways?
I feel this on a deep level hahaha. I'm also undiagnosed, although I think I'm closer to inattentive ADHD from what I've read. I have a LOT of time on my hands while I wait to see a specialist to wonder if I am just super weird and there's nothing more to it 😆
We (parents, counselors, teachers etc.) are 99% certain that our eldest son is "on the spectrum". This has been quite a journey learning about all of this.
We (everyone mentioned above, including our son) are very confident that we'll be able to find the support that our son needs.
When I've asked my eldest son if he "trusts the process" (i.e. finding the support that he needs) he has responded positively.