AuDHD and Balance

When autism and ADHD combine, balance is key.

Viral image in the AuDHD community, credit unknown/anonymous.

If you only knew basic stereotypes about autistic people and folks with ADHD, you’d probably describe two very different people — one who’s hyper particular and pretty buttoned-up, the other impulsive and kind of a hot mess. You might think the two couldn’t even occur in the same person. The medical community did until 2013, when The American Psychiatric Association (APA) changed its stance, now saying the two neurotypes can co-occur.

And they co-occur with a high frequency too. Estimates range, but according to the National Health Institute 50 to 70% of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) also present with comorbid attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Another study found 20–50% of test subjects with ADHD met criteria for ASD and 30–80% of autistic test subjects met criteria for ADHD. So, as far as neurodivergence goes, it’s pretty darn common to be AuDHD.

The thing is, there are very different needs for each of these neurotypes — a big one being autism is all about routine, and ADHD screams for novelty. Since these needs are so different, many of us AuDHDr’s wind up letting one or the other rule our behavior, winding up in autistic burnout from lack of routine and overstimulation, or struggling with executive dysfunction and depression from doing the same stuff…