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0 pointsdemosthanos1y ago0 comments

> If I may ask on this point, how would you distinguish ADHD from possibly being on the spectrum?

There's a lot of overlap there and my personal feeling is that they likely share similar causes—there's too much similarity and too many people with both to be a coincidence. But in the case of my family, most of us do just fine in reading social cues... when we're paying attention. Where we struggle is maintaining attention on things that don't interest us for long enough to meet employer or school expectations.

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ruthmarx1y ago

> Where we struggle is maintaining attention on things that don't interest us for long enough to meet employer or school expectations.

Yes, this is something I deal with as well.

It's interesting because as a kid I got diagnosed with ADD, and my sibling who was more physically hyperactive got diagnosed with ADHD. My parents thought, and thus I did also for a long time that the 'h' difference was due to his physical energy, but it seems unrelated.

I've wondered if I am on the spectrum also but I don't match a lot of the base/core traits, although I feel ADHD or ADD alone doesn't explain some of my, ahem, quirks either.

I want to again stress there was no malice behind my question, just interest in trying to relate through my own experiences. Thank you again for answering.

demosthanosOP1y ago

> It's interesting because as a kid I got diagnosed with ADD, and my sibling who was more physically hyperactive got diagnosed with ADHD. My parents thought, and thus I did also for a long time that the 'h' difference was due to his physical energy, but it seems unrelated.

These days they don't draw a distinction any more. There are different presentations of ADHD, but it's all the same disorder.

> I want to again stress there was no malice behind my question, just interest in trying to relate through my own experiences. Thank you again for answering.

No worries, sorry for reacting negatively! I've had a lot of people assume that ADHD is not a thing at all, and it gets exhausting having to explain it. I pattern matched on your comment too aggressively.

cootsnuck1y ago

Look into AuDHD, PDA, and monotropism. See if any of it resonates. Definitely feels like our current diagnosis paradigm is in dire need of changes.

elcritch1y ago

> There's a lot of overlap there and my personal feeling is that they likely share similar causes

Autism and adhd definitely appear to share traits, and I suspect there's a shared cluster of genes affecting certain aspects of neural linking between regions of the brain. Even without shared genes it makes sense that a "networked system" of core brain functions would share similar behaviors if the parameters were tweaked in similar ways.

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