I have a dual diagnosis and I know a lot about my weaknesses. I read a lot about autistic strengths but I feel most of those either don’t apply to me or they are negated by my ADHD.
For example I love making todo lists but following them needs extreme amounts of willpower. I’m good at analytical thinking but my lack of working memory and my distractability make it hard to do anything with that…
Are there any non obvious strengths I could look for?
Let autism be your executive function. Let ADHD, your executive dysfunction, go hog wild and move a million miles an hour creating plans and ideas and doing it’s thing. But let autism, who loves executive function, drive the bus.
So yeah ADHD goes fast, but autism reigns it in by telling you “okay, great set of ideas you just came up with bud. Now let’s immediately birth them into the world, or make peace with possibly never birthing them into the world” this allows you to go at ADHD speed, but it is reigned in by the structure and rigidity of autism. Autism helps gives you tangible results.
For example, I have 3 ideas pop into my head. I deem them all good and correct things that would be worth my time to do. So thing 1 gets written down on a sticky note and put on my keys for tomorrow so I remember my lunch and some papers I need. Thing 2 gets written in a list on my phone for further research later, maybe I’m writing a list of good decoration ideas for an upcoming party. Thing 3 gets done immediately. I immediately go take my laundry out of the dryer, for example.
I know this is a lot of words, but letting autism drive the bus/train of thought has changed my life. Letting him create systems to overcome executive dysfunction that work for us has been massively impactful and I now get so much done.
Do you have any suggestions on getting autism behind the wheel?
Several things all clicked into place within 30 days of each other. Here they are:
- Correct cocktail of medication. Antidepressant focusing on norepinephrine/noradrenaline activation to help with executive function. Vyvanse instead of Adderall for my ADHD. Vitamin D. Magnesium Glycinate. Fish oil.
- Bought a home. Live by myself. Now I have a world of constants of my own creation. I keep it clean, it serves me, I couldn’t do it without having this constant that lives or dies exclusively on my actions. I can build systems that work for me here now.
- Began working from home. I also love this job, finally. This was huge.
- Began seeing the external version of myself line up with who I am internally. Love of self is still hard but we’re making progress.
- Finally started mostly competing projects that give me reasons to wake up in the morning. Not always, but it’s progress.
These all happened very quickly and all at the same time. Things just “clicked” and I went from slightly leaning towards executive dysfunction to slightly leaning towards executive function. Then I kept the snowball rolling and accumulating and now it gets easier with each passing day. I can explain more, I hope this helps.
I completely agree with this. Getting my ADHD under control with Dexedrine and Wellbutrin along with guanfacine to take the edge off of the irritability has been a life changer. I’m still very much AuDHD, but at a manageable level.
Working from home means no longer having to battle sensory sensitivity. I created and set up my own custom lighting setup (read: a couple of motor controllers and AliExpress LED strips). I normally work under very low lighting, but it’s trivial to adjust it when I have to be on camera. That’s rare because I luckily work on a team in which it’s socially acceptable not to have it on. At work, ADHD drives the flashes of insight and willingness to try ridiculous ideas; autism keeps track of the todo list and forces me to think about edge cases.
It’s the autism that drives me to clean up things that I spill and isolate and regularly get rid of trash, for example. It’s also why I am generally well prepared while traveling. I have dedicated cases for electronics, toiletries, cutlery and condiments, even bookmarks and writing utensils, and I always have a little cash, some of it in quarters, just in case I have to do laundry. Incidentally, those are some of the things that drive me batty about my boyfriend, who’s allistic and inattentive ADHD. But I know he can’t help it, plus he has to deal with my rigidity and hyperactivity.
Anyway…my analytical and hyperactive nature are what drive me to exercise regularly and to see it as a lifelong habit; given the vast body of data about its benefits and the dangers of being sedentary, it would be illogical if I didn’t do it.
The ability to hyper focus on one of my (many) special interests. For example, I’m currently working on two christmas quilts at the same time, one uses a pattern and one is a crazy crumb quilt. I sew pieces from one and then chain piece both one after another. For those outside the quilt world, chain piecing is sewing multiple pieces, one after another, in a production line.
Passion. For me its being passionate for thinks i really love: My Friends, Family Sometimes and most of all current projects aka current Hyperfixations. And a big one: my Job, it’s a real saver when you found the thing you can work at every day and still being hyper passionate about, even after many years. Hope that gives a perspective.