You must log in or register to comment.
I feel more that autism and ADHD only got diagnosed if you were very disruptive or completely incapable of handling society.
Bingo. Grades were ok? No scrutiny for you whatsoever. The fact that you’re being physicallly and emotionally abused by your peers to the point of being afraid to say more than 3 words to them, or anybody else, because you don’t kbow how to interact with them is not a concern.
You only get help, or even just context, if you’re causing problems for the adults.
Spot on.
I was just thinking about my high school bullies yesterday. The school only started giving a shit when my parents started asking for meetings with my teachers and another bullied kid brought a knife to school.
“You should stop being so quiet” or “joke around with them (the bullies) they are just goofing around”
Ugh
My parents prevented me from getting tested for anything. After all what would everyone else think of them if I had needed help.
I have very few memories of childhood, but I remember probably in 2nd grade being taken out of class and into a large closet for a bunch of tests. I’m pretty sure I was diagnosed back then, but my mom, who badly needed it herself, did not believe in mental health treatment. Because of how it would make her look. I was diagnosed at age 41.
Unfortunately she’s dead so I can’t ask her what that was all about. I wonder how different things would be if I’d been allowed treatment.
If the school still exists, and you’re interested in finding out, you could contact and ask for a copy of your school records. Any school(s) you transferred to afterward should have those records as well.
The record keeping is mostly guided by FERPA (like HIPPA for public schools). How long records are kept varies by State but most of them mandate 50+ years or longer. Those that don’t also lack enforcement for destruction and people are lazy so… You’ll usually find something even if it’s not all the info you wanted.
They’re obligated by law to provide the records you’re entitled to within 45 days of the request.
You may not be that interested but I figured if you, or someone else reading this, are sufficiently interested then this info might be helpful.
My mom didn’t want to get me tested, but she brought me to the doctor because I wasn’t sleeping well or something and the doctor tried to prescribe ADHD meds (but my mom is anti-adhd meds). I was also a toddler, so not sure how much masking would be relevant then.
I was diagnosed with ADHD at six and ASD at 27. They thought I “might” be Autistic at six but back then you “couldn’t” have both according to the DSM IV. So they gave me Ritalin and when it “worked” they decided I had ADHD.
In my case late diagnosis of autism is because “girls aren’t autistic” which like. Uhhuh.
Most late diagnosis is due to the fact that back then, nobody diagnosed autism. I’ve been sent to a school psychologist as kid. From my knowledge today my behavior was clear within the spectrum, but he still did not find anything worthwhile.
46 here. They definitely diagnosed autism. But if you weren’t uncommunicative then you weren’t autistic.
Exactly. What is diagnosed today as level 1 support was just “weird kid” 20+ years ago.
Back then, nobody diagnosed ADHD, either. My mother was sent away by psychiatrists telling her to get her shit together as a parent.
Depends on what years we are talking. It was absolutely a thing in the mid 80s. Even in a pretty backwards place there was push for the inconvenient kids to try to get on Ritalin. School thought it would be a miracle solution for dealing with kids.
This, and to stop giving your kids sweets.
It me!
I learned I was not ADHD after taking my girlfriend’s Ritalin when I was 15. Went on a little speed trip and stayed awake all night.
Lol I had a girlfriend who would steal her brothers Ritalin and sell it hahahhahahha
Oh no
We were young and she was dumb. It’s also how I learned I had ADD then forgot about it for decades and got officially diagnosed at 40 lol
I guess it’s difficult to clearly separate all the disorders. I have C-PTSD and a lot of the AUDHD posts here hit the mark so hard it hurts sometimes (e.g. hyper focus vs need to find something new all the time vs high need of organization and structures).
I have ADHD and C-PTSD, but am reasonably certain I do not have autism. I have taken some online tests that seemed pretty comprehensive, and every autistic trait I got a hit on reflected social training / masking behaviors or behaviors that could also be anxiety.
Which is to say — I think perhaps C-PTSD can mirror autism in some ways.Autism and ADHD are highly layered with maladaptations. You get a domino effect occuring, with the obvious symptoms down the chain. Other conditions can function similarly, and pull in the same maladaptations.
It’s also worth noting that ADHD and autism are spectrums. It’s possible to have mild tendencies that don’t technically qualify. When other conditions cause disruptions, the symptoms can get more pronounced, or lead to additional maladaptations.
It’s more about did you have parents who were reasonably well educated and affluent tbh
They were not.
I see little real value in diagnosis or doctors in general. That stems from my personal harsh reality of experiencing first hand the real limits and incompetency of current medicine. Go start having serious spinal issues that are not strait forward, and you will watch the house of cards fall apart.
Ultimately, none of us are like flags in the register if a computer; some binary state. We are all a spectrum. That applies to all things in life. You may be shifted strongly in one direction or another, but most of us fall somewhere close to the median.
I think a lot of people fail to understand that we all have the tendencies and mechanisms present for all disorders, baring schizophrenia. Labeling anything a disorder only means that whatever behavior is causing you distress and harm in a meaningful way. Just by asking if you have this issue is itself an admission of distress and you altered your day to go to the doctor, so you’ve already had it technically qualify as a disorder.
IMO, where possible, take the meds and see if it helps you in some tangible way. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. What I’m saying is the threshold for disorder is ridiculously blurry and rather meaningless. When stigmatized, it is outright harmful. For me it is largely a choice and a comfort zone. Maybe that is just my bias. I do not test as autistic. Even as a kid, I had the Machiavellian awareness to become whatever I wanted and bend a test to my desired outcome.
I like to think of it as a large list of granular, contextual rpg stats.
“You get an average 6 for concentration while in a quiet room between 15-20 deg c. Assuming you’ve not taken more than 10 points of psychic damage in the last 3 hours and are well rested.”
They are, in theory, comparing your scores in a set of somewhat defined contexts to see if , overall, it’s causing you problems that might be helped in someway by a treatment that has worked for other people who have similar scores in the same set of criteria.
That sentence being so full of caveats is why I think diagnosis is hard for this sort of thing.
Labeling anything a disorder only means that whatever behavior is causing you distress and harm in a meaningful way.
On the other hand, recognizing that certain tendencies can be detrimental to both yourself and those around you can be key to actually getting help changing or managing them.
I do agree that we should be careful with how we label it, though. There is a difference between “this is hurting you” and “something’s wrong with you”.
To this day, I can’t stand being asked “are you ok?”
Anecdotally, I was diagnosed with both as a kid, though I suppose everyone presents differently and not everyone is even tested for such at that age.
