So some friends are doing an ADHD bingo card, and well...um, I'll let mine answer all the questions ever about that. Including the blank for anyone that wants to look it over and do it for themselves. And yes, self diagnosis is valid. #AutismAwareness #Neurokin

Now for some cool facts about autism and ADHD both.

There's three versions identifiable in the DSM5; to date, this is still being researched so info may change as new break thrus arise.
Inattentive - often referred to as ADD.
Hyperactive-impulsive - referred to as ADHD.
Combined - combined ADHD demonstrate symptoms from both inattentive and hyperactive-impulsive ADHD equally. 1/2

There are positives of ADD/ADHD. Hyperfocus, resilience, creativity, hightened empathic nature, compassionate, versatile if spontaneous learners, and at times very high energy sort of people to be around. These are often referred to as our "superpowers", but these do come at an unequal cost to our health and well being. 2/2

The negatives are quite unequal, as for some of us we do suffer from social anxiety, or generalized anxiety, and a number of other comorbidity issues that exist from lack of supports and treatment when first diagnosed.

Now for some further hard facts: Truth is ADHD and ADD both were not fully understood in the early days of the internet, and for a long time what research was done, wasn't done in a way that could reflect male and female developmental stages with the disorder, so many of the missed signals over the years resulted in well...a lot of us going undiagnosed until our early 30's to our 60's and older. The unfortunate fact is, going undiagnosed and without treatment cuts off 14 years from our lifespan.

However, there is hope. Finding methods to manage the disorders quirks and barriers, as well as ways to visibly and audibly track notifications and newer technology used today has made workarounds significantly easier for many of us and improved our lives in ways that, in the past 30-40 years, were practically unimaginable.

One thing that seems to be a fairly common trait that appears to be widely shared among the ADD/ADHD community is body dysphoria and heightened empathy. For many of us we tend to mask in public spaces to appear "normal" or behavior within expected manners around people we do not know or trust. But stimming can display in ways that most would give us weird looks over, with recent stimulation toys, popit keyfobs and such, we can mask it better and keep it under better control.

@PaganMother Masking was natural to me. I've had to do it for so many reasons over time.

Honestly, it didn't occur to me, born with neurotypicality, to do anything else for a long time, other than to fit in.

It feels quite good to come home and not wear masks.

@AskTheDevil @PaganMother Same experience here with masking. While my reasons and experiences are probably different than either of yours, or other's, they are somewhat comparable. At best it's exhausting, at worst you slip and have to deal with the mess that comes after.

@glassramen @PaganMother I think, several times, one of my little "slips" has thrown me into the uncanny valley for the people I was interacting with.

I could see the change - people who'd been perfectly pleasant with me would slowly just start acting like there was a werewolf hiding somewhere in their midst.

Eventually, they'd start looking for things to accuse me of, I presume to give reason to whatever discomfort they could not put their fingers on

@AskTheDevil @PaganMother I feel that. I have a theory that this sort of thing is why a few times throughout my life (supposed) friends would suddenly turn on me. I got better at the masking over time, but eventually you get tired ya know? Slips still happen, but a bit more rarely nowadays. Stay strong friends. Maybe someday we'll all get some good friends who we don't have to mask around.

@glassramen @PaganMother I mostly had this problem with colleagues and coworkers. I pick my friends from the subset of people who are okay with "weird".

@AskTheDevil @PaganMother That's a valid way of handling it. I tended to go the other route of just withdrawing and maintaining like two friends. Luckily one is a carbon copy of myself so we've been friends since high school.

@glassramen @PaganMother I love people in general, but I'm choosy about who I like and accept as a friend.

I'd rather have few, or no friends than a bunch of pretend-friends. That would not be fair to me, and certainly not to them.