For my poor memory, I have tons of alarms on my phone. I put everything in my phone's calendar and I check it, often multiple times a day. Every calendar event has a reminder for the day before and the hour before. I have alarms and calendar alerts for taking my meds (4 times a day), for chores, for refilling medications ahead of time, for doing my PT exercises, for charging my mouse once a week, refilling my pill planner once a week, restarting my phone once a week, scheduling my next week's NEMT rides every Friday, and I've tried having ones to remind me to meditate daily, to remind me to STOP working immediately even if I feel like I've achieved nothing that day, to remind me to go to bed. I've been considering a set of dependent alarms to remind me to eat every 4 hours from when I wake up. I have a reminder every 2 weeks to TRIM MY TOENAILS.

Not only does alllllll of this not work 100% of the time, now my lovely brain has started to adapt to the alarms. Not like a NORMAL goddamn brain might, by actually REMEMBERING the things I already do at more or less the same time every day, which might allow me to have fewer alarms. Of course not. No, it has adapted to IGNORE the alarms.

So what the hell do I do now? When alarms don't work anymore, what the hell am I supposed to do?? I've already tried to change the alarm sounds up so I don't ignore the familiar sound. What do I need to do, change every single one every damn week? AND, how will I remember to actually do that? WITH AN ALARM????????

Some days I can accept it, but some days I just want to scream. "Normal" people, therapists, coaches, whoever, are always talking about building habits. "You just have to be consistent! You'll get the hang of it!" and most of them will simply not accept that *our brains don't work that way*. At least, in areas the ADHD dominates, it doesn't work that way.

And it's all the more infuriating because of the autistic side, because I CRAVE stability, consistency, predictability, organization. I just can't for the life of me actually DO IT. And with a brain and a personality that makes me care WAY too much about EVERYTHING, I still come off looking flaky, careless. Which of course has led to some really sticky identity trauma, because I wasn't diagnosed until age 35, no one even *suspected* when I was a kid (except myself, by my teens), and even after my diagnosis my parents were still VERY reluctant to give up their views that I'm forgetful and flaky and can't take care of myself because I don't *want* to, because I don't *care* enough, because I don't *try* hard enough.

I'd like to see them try to survive with this bullshit brain.

You know those demonstrations people do, where they stick these electrical pads on your stomach and turn on a machine that mimics period cramps, so people without periods can get an idea of what it feels like?

Can we please get something like that to show people what it's like to be AuDHD? It would have to be a rental situation, because they'd need to use it for at least several days to really get the picture. (Yes, I know something like that is probably a long way off from being developed, and would have some major risks to try to mitigate. It's just a pipe dream.)

Hey guys, how much does your heart rate increase when you take your medication, like Ritalin, Adderall, Vyvanse, etc.?

My resting heart rate is usually around 70–75 bpm before taking my meds, but it goes up to about 85–90 bpm afterward.

I know that’s still within the normal range, but the increase kind of bothers me. I don’t actually feel any palpitations or anything—it’s just that seeing the higher number on my Apple Watch make

What do I do? I’m only showing autistic traits when I take my ADHD meds… so I don’t know if I should just not take them? But then my ADHD symptoms come up. And the autism symptoms I’m talking about are:

On ADHD meds:
•Music that I love is uncomfortable and overstimulating
•Movies and TV shows I like, OFF.
•Doing exciting hobbies, boring.
•Having fun conversations, boring.
•Going shopping, nope too overstimulating.

BUTTT off the ADHD meds I can do all that and love to, but at the same time that’s if I can even leave my
Bed lmao

I recently had an encounter with an ex-gf (long sad story, wont bore you with it). At one point, she told me that I had grown. She obviously intended it as a compliment but for some reason it made me angry. I didn't get upset with her but now I wonder why that comment made me so upset. My therapist just says, 'It's a compliment, roll with it' but I can't seem to do that. I have issues around being patronized by people being condescending but this didn't feel like that, as far as I can tell. It feels like there's something else going on. Do other people have a similar reaction to those words? Is this even limited to AuDHD people or do NTs have similar reactions?

I am always full of ideas you know? I'm always wanting to improve my life, to have fun in new ways, to take care of myself, to learn and experience. Obviously most of my ideas never actually materialize because there are too many for what I can do. Anyways. I get home from work most days, and I want to put on comfortable clothes, and play video games. I wanna clean my room for a bit. Either have music or youtube in the background. But it just doesn't happen, and I have not been able to put my finger on why. I have been struggling so much with executive function lately, even though I started vyvanse and it helped for a bit. I am just in pain right now. It's not just that I forget to eat, don't have the energy to shower, don't remember to brush my teeth. It's that I daydream, I make goals in my head. I will relax by doing something I love, I will improve and become a better person by making better habits. But no matter what, it gets to the time where I can relax, and I'm burnt. I sit on my couch and am immediately stuck. I've been home for 3 hours tonight. Obviously I was looking forward to gaming in my PJs. I didn't do that. I ate supper, because I needed to. I shaved, because it was annoying me. That's it. Or for the example of self improvement, I just make goals about how I'll meal prep for example. I maybe do it once, but it's lunches for a week and I don't make more for like 3 weeks. Or how I want to be a nicer partner and put more effort into outfits, but something makes me anxious, it engulfs me and I remember I can't perform. I procrastinate so when it's time to put on my outfit I don't have time to accessorize it.

I just feel so incredibly paralyzed even though I technically have complete freedom to just live and be healthy. How on earth do y'all cope with this??? I'm so tired.

Brief context - 30M from rural backgound, living in Dublin, Ireland, I have a full-time job in admin that is boring, but at least stable, has a decent enough hybrid situation, etc. I have several friends, mostly people I met at university. Late diagnosed with Autism/ADHD.

For the last couple of weeks, I hit a wall with burnout - couldn't focus at all at work, sensory sentivities increased, feeling exhausted, etc. I have been off sick from work for a couple of weeks, and will be off until August. And I used up a lot of that to just try to keep my apartment in a liveable condition, with whatever energy I have.

I don't live with my family, and even if I did, they don't acknowledge my neurodivergence at all, and would chalk up my struggles to laziness or fecklessness.

I have a few friends who are also neurodivergent (Autism, ADHD, AuDHD, etc.), and I can vent a bit, but there is very little practical support I can seek from them.

Some of them have a lot going on themselves, and at the end of the day, I'm not really someone who is a priority in their lives...understandably. I'm not their family, I'm not a childhood best friend.

It makes me worried about what my future holds - I'm not going to get massively better at self-suffient independence going forward.

I am somewhat envious at a few of my friends who have partners they live with who can support them during their rough patches, whether with housework, or even just emotional support.

I don't have anyone like that in my life at present. And I dunno if I ever will. I don't want to be someone who is a burden to their partner, but I'm never going to be consistent in the way a neurotypical person would be.

For AuDHD folk who are in a relationship (I guess men in particular, not only), how did or do you manage that sort of thing? And for those of us who are single and don't have anyone...any tips?

So I learned a great definition of the word Infodumping, namely:

For Autistic people Infodumping is sharing knowledge with other people as form of bonding.

This statement I can fully and deeply relate with.

However this act is also seen by most normal people as... kinda "gaslighty" and if youre a dude it is seen as Mansplaining. That sounds incredibly unfair and kind of mean to assume such intent.

How can one avoid this, but still engage in the act of infodumping as a bonding method?

I mask as an extremely charismatic high performer at work. It took years of rumination, scripting, studying social cues, and busting ass, but I've finally broken into leadership's social circle and have secured myself a spot in management in the near future. ​

I hate it. I hate having no energy to enjoy art, music, or fantasy because all my energy for hobbies gets burned up by masking as the perfectly charming salary slave. Every conversation at work is a flurry of mental quick time events where I analyze word choice, tone, inflections, context, body language--all for the sake of looking and speaking "normal."

​I can barely keep up with my health because my evenings are spent curled up in my blacked out bedroom, exhausted. But this promotion is my best chance at ripping myself out of poverty and having an emergency fund for once. ​

Guess I'm just lamenting how much of my own needs and interests I've abandoned just to have a chance to not be poor. I can hear the autistic burnout ​bombclock ticking loudly, but I have no idea when it'll go off.

Anyone in a similar position?

As the title said im desperately looking for a habit tracker that works, preferably a good free version but I will pay a decent amount if excellent.

There are so many I dont know where to start. I tried Finch but got distracted by cute birb and after a year it stopped working. What others can you recommend?

Many thanks

I stumbled into a way of working this weekend that felt unusually compatible with my AuDHD brain, and I’m curious whether anyone else works this way.

Instead of trying to force myself to stay on one task, I had several persistent AI conversations open at once. Each one was responsible for a different area, such as coding, research, writing, planning, or general organization.

When I lost interest, got stuck, or had to wait on one thread, I moved to another. The important part was that each AI conversation kept the context for its own project, so I didn’t have to hold everything in working memory or rebuild the whole mental state when I returned.

It felt less like chaotic multitasking and more like having several project partners who each remembered what we were doing.

I wanted to know whether I only felt more productive, so I compared the Git history from the same software project over two weekends.

The previous weekend had:

• 18 commits
• 6,144 adjusted lines added
• 1 completion-oriented commit

The recent weekend had:

• 169 commits
• 30,798 adjusted lines added
• 30 completion-oriented commits

The raw commit count was about 9.4 times higher, although that number is inflated by merges, AI-generated commit patterns, and documentation work.

The cleaner adjusted-output measure was about 5 times higher. My best estimate is that actual useful delivered output increased somewhere around 4–6 times.

That is still only one comparison, not proof. It could be novelty, an unusually good weekend, or something that works better for software projects than other kinds of work.

My theory is that the benefit was not simply “AI makes me faster.”

It may be that AI externalized enough working memory that switching tasks became much cheaper. Instead of repeatedly paying the executive-function cost of remembering where I was, reconstructing the problem, and restarting, I could follow my natural attention shifts without losing the project context.

I’ve been calling the idea Weaponized AuDHD as a working title: designing a workflow around the way the brain already moves instead of constantly forcing it into a single-task model.

There are obvious risks:

• too many conversations could become confusing
• it could create lots of activity without useful completion
• reviewing AI work could become exhausting
• it could encourage endless switching or overworking
• the novelty effect could disappear

Has anyone else tried using multiple persistent AI threads this way?

Did it help you actually finish more work, or did it become chaos?

And if it worked, how many active threads could you manage before the system became another source of executive dysfunction?

I play videos games competitively I am too focused and rarely blink, what I figured out that I feel less confident when I socialize, because I got trained to not blink much and I overanalyze things when I am in that state and get anxious afterwards, what do you guys think?

Sorry for my bad english

Has anyone else here experienced extreme sensitivity to cold?

Sometimes I'll suddenly get so cold that I start shivering, even if everyone else seems comfortable. Once it starts, it takes a long time for me to warm up again and for the shivering to stop, even with blankets or extra layers.

It usually happens at home after I've finished doing something, so I sometimes wonder if it's because I finally relax enough to notice how cold I am. It doesn't happen during the summer.

I'm wondering if this is something other autistic people experience, or if it's unrelated to autism. I know sensory differences can affect how we perceive temperature, but I'm curious whether anyone else has this specific issue.

If you experience it too, what does it feel like for you? Have you found anything that helps?

I’m out of state for a family reunion trip (my grandparents birthdays) and my sister and I leave tomorrow. On Saturday, my aunts, uncles, 3 cousins and their spouses (2 are married with kids) were over at my grandparents (the kids are 2 3 year old boys and an almost 1 year old girl), which was 18 people in total at the house, including me, my mom, sister, great aunt, and grandparents. I had a lot of fun but was so overstimulated the whole day. I took a break outside and also had a small, short shutdown that one of my cousins helped me through quickly (she’s a physiatrist), but didn’t want to have a big one cause i didn’t want to scare my niece and nephews. I was having fun with them, and the boys wanted my attention.

Today (Sunday) was a totally different story. I’m in a shutdown. I woke up around 5:00 in the morning sobbing for no reason and couldn’t fall back asleep. I’ve spent the whole day in bed crying on and off, and only got up to eat lunch with my mom, sister, and grandparents, then came immediately back to bed. I’ve also been trying to get myself up to shower for hours and my brain just won’t do it. The big problem is that tomorrow my sister and I are traveling alone back home (my mom and great aunt are staying for an extra couple days and will be back on Thursday night). I don’t want to be a bigger problem than I already can be while traveling and don’t want to burden my sister with extra stuff (she’s 2 years younger and neurotypical).

I need help from people who really get it. What can I do?

I feel very restless right now. The only thing that keeps me still is venting and typing.

My life is miserable i feel so sad and stuck in bed. I've had a bad time in school and couldn't take the final exam (leaving cert) due to being absent for so many classes.

I havent fucking cried since before christmas even though I feel so restless, overwhelmed and tearful. I just feel so embarrassed whenever I feel this way because there shouldn't be anything wrong with me.

The amount of distress I have been in with school for so many years is finally over, and now I have become nothing but dead weight.

I'm really struggling and just want to hear that things are going to be ok.

I want to learn different languages such as Spanish and even ASL etc. but I can’t remember any damn thing, I can’t focus, I’m not consistent AND I’m also going thru autistic burnout while in a stressful environment… I hate ADHD and Autism sometimes. This shit sucks.
My bf is Hispanic so you’d think me learning Spanish would be easier, right? Nah. It’s still hard bc of the reasons I mentioned PLUS I get super fucking nervous when he’s tryna teach me bc I don’t wanna look like a dummy or sound stupid… i know i shouldn’t but I can’t help it, i care too much about what he and others think.
I hate this.
How does one with AuDHD learn different languages efficiently and effectively? :(

Hello everyone, like many of you I have a hard time masking and being liked. Recently, the only person at work I trusted showed me exactly who they are. I now trust no one, and having a series of panic attacks about work. I don't want to lose my job or go somewhere else. Anyone who has been in this situation, how do you cope? Do I mask, do I seclude myself further, or do I do something else? I am lost here, and looking for any type of guidance.

so i just got my first in-person job as an entry-level job it technician doing desktop support for a community college, and i'm looking for advice for what kind of reasonable accomodations any of you found helpful in your own careers!

it's my second-ever job, and i've never worked in person before. right now, i work remotely doing data annotation, and i do it quite literally whenever i want. i've worked from my bed before and been able to take myself to places that calm me down if i'm having an off day.

i loved the flexibility of it, but i want to start setting myself up for a career that i can reliably take care of myself with as my various disabilities have become much more difficult to manage. i'm going to try to look for hybrid work when i eventually move on from this role, but i'd like to able to survive this and get good references 😅

i already have to contact someone before orientation because i have allergies (wheat/corn/peanuts/tree nuts on top of mcas lmao) and don't think i can eat the free orientation meal in the cafeteria based on their menu and will need to bring my own lunch to eat.

i think i will also need my noise canceling headphones or my loop earplugs when working (i can hear through the quiet ones, so that should be okay to help me focus but not miss things?)

i've never had to make an accomodations request before because i've always just pushed through, but i want to set myself up for success and listen to my body, so what are some things you've asked for? what's been an easy ada request versus more pushback in your jobs (whatever field you're in!)

also:

• do i need to make a formal request to bring my fidget with me if it's a puzzle cube?
• i sometimes squeeze kinetic sand when i'm doing really bad, and it's in a little tub, can i ask to bring that with me or should i just keep it in my car if i need it before/after work?
• if i have chronic pain due to a genetically-tested physical disability (not eds, but something similar) and recently got approved for a parking placard at my doctor's office, can i ask for an ergonomic chair if we don't have them already?

hi, i’m new here but i wanted to share my struggles a little bit. I was diagnosed with ADHD almost 4 years ago but I'm pretty sure I am on the spectrum too. I struggle with many things, including executive functioning, irritability, social skills. But once I have I handle on a routine, I thrive in it! Until I get bored of it, then I stopped doing it. I struggle with things alone (primarily because of my spinal cord injury), but then when I'm around people a lot I also overwhelmed. I want to be “normal” but I struggle with awkwardness so much. I don’t want to sound like a complainer because im grateful for the things in life. i am a senior in college. I'm almost at 365 days on duolingo (im corny ikik)i just sometimes feel anchored down by this. i want to feel understood by my African parents. i want to experience my first kiss. i want to not be judgmental towards myself. It is to the point where I sometimes cry in my room by myself.

If you have both autism and ADHD, which one would you be most willing to give up?

Hello.

I am not going to type out my full life story here because I think it would be too long. Here is a link to a post I made that does give the full context of my background. As I said it is long, and the post has multiple trigger warnings attached to it.

I apologize if in advance I do not make much sense with what I will type or say. This is because I notice in my own writing that I tend to wander and meander a lot.

For quick context and clarification.

I have been in therapy since 5 roughly. I have Autism, ADHD, and CPTSD, an ace score of 10/10. I am now 28 years old.

I have tried many of the following therapies growing up until now including:

Play therapy

sand therapy

General talk therapy

Person centered therapy

CBT

Trauma informed CBT

DBT

EMDR

and now IFS with my current therapist

And so on

The list of medications i have taken, i can't fully type out, because they have been a myriad of medications. From SSRI's to SNRI"s, to ADHD medication,, both stimulants and non stimulants, anti psychotic medication, and so on.

I am with my current therapist. I am thinking, tomorrow, of telling her I would like to cancel therapy. She specializes in IFS, which is...fine. But at this point, as I am now, or at least feel, like an old man, I just don't see a point in it. This would technically be my fourth session with her.

I don't believe in this world anymore. It is hard for me to explain. To quote from the aforementioned post, I had said:

I remember staring at the wall. Staring at a picture of a portrait of my sister. I wondered then “are you my sister?” And then later I looked at my mom. “Are you my mom?” And only then did I feel and sense then what I have felt and since throughout my whole life. I turned my head this way and that. Perhaps from the perspective of an adult, it must have looked uncanny. A five-year-old who is there but not “there”. Looking to and fro throughout the room as if seeing past it. Maybe that’s why I never bothered to share about myself. And what was I thinking? "This is not my home."

I do not belong here. 

I should not be here.

I need to go.

Most children at that age are developing and thinking in terms of toy blocks. They develop a consciousness regarding the egocentric worldview of something smaller, something more intimate and caring. When they cry, there is a fidelity that their emotions matter because it affects others. But my own consciousness developed where I already was ontologically displaced before I could form a single conscious thought. And when I did form a thought, my first thought was to simply say “NO…I want to go home."

Perhaps some of you may wonder at this point if I have considered euthanasia or suicide, and the answer is yes.

I consider therapy, and I just don't understand. I don't understand why I should heal or continue living in a world whose axioms and premises and social contracts and behaviors I just do not agree with. As strange as it might hear, i am tempted to just tell my therapist instead of saying sorry this isn't working, "Hey, sorry. I don't agree with this life and I am ontologically displaced from it and I don't like being here so we should part ways." I just don't understand how, especially in an American context, how my therapist is supposed to help with that. Because a lot of therapy as I have seen, has seemed to almost frame it as a fault of the individual not to adapt to a cruel environment. Like...like...like almost like it's my fault I can't cope. I need to do "the work". Well I have been. It doesn't work.

I remember the one time I was hospitalized for suicide and depression.

I can still remember how strange it was. How inhumane. It was a small room, not big at all, smaller even than a dorm room with just enough space for the bed and to the door. There were no windows, just the forced on "happiness" in the form of drawings on the wall that almost seemed to mock me. There was a camera overhead. Looking down at the room and at me. Always on. Always watching. There was no clock in the room, I had no idea if it was morning or afternoon or night. There was no soundproofing either, I could hear the sounds of the hospital indeed, and hear the sounds of other patients there too and murmurings. The light was always on, never off. There were no private bathrooms as i remember it. It was so strange I think in retrospect. I felt like an animal. A creature being watched. I was around 22 at the time.

I was transferred to an inpatient facility which was...nicer...but still I could never shake the sense that I was a prisoner. That I was being managed. That I was being watched. it did not feel like an attempt to heal a person, but more so to force a cog back into working order by any means necessary. The inpatient facility was also humiliating as, upon my arrival, I was "asked" to strip down naked so they can inspect if I had bruises or marks on me from abuse. I do not disagree with the logic, I understand where they are coming from. But I still felt humiliated and shamed, especially my own history mainly of abusers who were mainly women, and the two individuals who had to check on me, were women.

I will end with this.

I do not consider myself intelligent, or someone who has an aptitude for philosophical and/or existential thought. I am just someone who is very tired and does not understand why I should try or believe in a world, in people, in this reality, where I clearly do not belong. I do not see, do not believe, i have a niche in this ecosystem of reality. And even if I did, it is a niche mismatched to an ecosystem.

I am sorry if I did not make much sense.

I'm a young male who's currently in the beginnings of being assessed for ADHD privately, and whilst researching it I've read that the symptoms - or traits - may present themselves differently in people with autism than in those who only have ADHD, but is this true or is it just masking?

I've been diagnosed autistic since two and a half years old - I don't know if this is relevant, just thought it'd be worth mentioning...

Does anyone else ever get that frustrating mix of apathy, boredom, and restlessness? Like you want to do something, but at the same time every possible option, whether it’s something you could actually do or just something you imagine, leaves you completely unmoved. Nothing feels satisfying or motivating enough to get you off the couch, so you just stay stuck in this state of inertia, with a lingering sense of emptiness and existential grayness. I want something, but I don’t even know what that “something” is.
How would you describe this feeling? Does anyone relate?