Latest / Aspergers & Autism Podcast [The Aspie World] AuDHD / Autism and ADHD Together - The Lazy Guide To Understanding
Transcript
- 0:00You have arrived. Welcome to the Aspy world.
- 0:04Here's where we talk about anything and everything ASD in
- 0:07an upbeat and informative way. And now here's your man on the
- 0:11spectrum, your autism ambassador, Daniel Morgan Jones.
- 0:19So autism and ADHD together combined.
- 0:22This is kind of like the lazy guide to understanding all of
- 0:26that, and we're covering it all right now, so don't go anywhere.
- 0:28So what is autism in ADHD? Why is it related?
- 0:31Well, you know, The funny thing is these two are kind of like
- 0:35these intertwining neurological conditions.
- 0:38So my name is Dan and I have autism and ADHD together.
- 0:41So this is coming from my background of like understanding
- 0:43it, from how I see it, how I experience it, and what it feels
- 0:46like to have this kind of ADHD versus autism kind of polarity,
- 0:51right? Because they're two kind of
- 0:53diagnosed separately conditions, but also they're Co morbid or Co
- 0:56occurring conditions, which means that they can be present
- 1:00in somebody together or separately.
- 1:02Now in terms of ADHD, it sells for attention deficit
- 1:06hyperactivity disorder right? Now a lot of people think that
- 1:09that means you must be like hyperactive all the time.
- 1:12OK, so let's just dial it back a little bit.
- 1:15So I am hyperactive most of the time.
- 1:18I would love for you to leave a review for this video slash
- 1:20podcast if you have anything to add because it would really help
- 1:24me out on this channel and also help me learn and grow from your
- 1:27comments. And I am a very kind of
- 1:31switching from this task to that task type of person.
- 1:33I think it's kind of like within my nature.
- 1:35It's within my you know who I am and you know, part of that is
- 1:39due to the fact I have ADHD. Now I was diagnosed with ADHD
- 1:42and Asperger syndrome, which is not just autism spectrum
- 1:45disorder together the same day at the same time.
- 1:47They look, Oh yeah, this is blatantly obvious.
- 1:49You have both of these conditions, but it's not always
- 1:51obvious in different types of people.
- 1:53I'm going to get into why that is right now, but if you're
- 1:56interested in this type of content, I make weekly videos
- 1:58just like this. So remember to hit the subscribe
- 1:59button down below if you want to help support and follow on with
- 2:02more videos like this. So in terms of ADHD, a lot of
- 2:07girls on the autism spectrum are first diagnosed with ADHD.
- 2:12And this is because a lot of the people who are assessing the
- 2:16autism, you know, assessments, they are looking at a lot of
- 2:20literature and research that was originally done by like Khans
- 2:25Asperger and Leil Kenner, that was all to do with males or, you
- 2:29know, the males on the spectrum. And so a lot of that doesn't
- 2:32really apply to females. So they kind of they sit there
- 2:35and they're like, oh, miss blah, blah, we're going to go through
- 2:38this now and have a look. Oh yes, it looks like, you know,
- 2:41if you have some traits that look autistic, but they're
- 2:44behaving in a different way, it must be ADHD.
- 2:46Now that happens quite often. Or the other one, which is kind
- 2:49of like the more common 1. And I find this so much.
- 2:52I think it's rare that I find somebody who's an autistic
- 2:55female who hasn't been pre diagnosed with bicolar disorder.
- 2:58And I, I find this just this fascinates the heck out of me
- 3:02because it's not bipolar, it's just emotional deregulation
- 3:05because of autism. But because of the lack of data
- 3:07on women, this was kind of missed out, right?
- 3:10So ADHD is almost like a, an urge for your body, your brain,
- 3:16your, your mind to, to switch tasks constantly.
- 3:20And this means that you could be hyperactive like myself, because
- 3:23I talk really fast. And by the way, guys, I'm really
- 3:25sorry if I'm talking really fast.
- 3:27It's just something that happens.
- 3:28I, I doctor read this in my book.
- 3:29I talk about it quite a bit. And if you haven't seen my book,
- 3:32it's called Autism for Adults. You can get it on Amazon or
- 3:34anywhere, or you can go to autismforadults.com right now.
- 3:38And I talk about how I have hyperactivity and it makes my
- 3:42voice, you know, like my speech really fast.
- 3:45And it's partly to do with the fact that I have ADHD and partly
- 3:48to do with the fact that my brain is going a very fast pace
- 3:52because I'm autistic. Then I'm trying to process
- 3:54things at a rapid rate, right? This is what autistic
- 3:56individuals do, FYI. If you are relating to this and
- 3:59your brain goes really really fast and you speak fast gives
- 4:02you your thumbs up. I'd love to know who's and who's
- 4:04listening in to figure out what's going on.
- 4:06Not everybody will have hyperactivity and fast speech
- 4:10with ADHD. A lot of the time it will be
- 4:13more of like an internal kind of hyperactivity where your brain's
- 4:17switching between different tasks all the time.
- 4:18So you're finding it extremely difficult to concentrate on a
- 4:21specific single task. Not because you're kind of
- 4:25getting up and walking around, typically that's what I did, but
- 4:29it's because your brain is also jumping from thing to thing.
- 4:31Now this happens, I mean, I'd say it's like 5050.
- 4:35You'll get people with ADHD and then, you know, who will want
- 4:38to, you know, jump around like me, I can't sit down, you know,
- 4:41still for a long time. I have to get up and move
- 4:43around. And then you'll get people who
- 4:44have ADHD who are just kind of like really bad at focusing on
- 4:47the tasks and they can't really get the tasks even though
- 4:49they're sitting still and they're trying their best to sit
- 4:51down and do this focused task. It's just not happening.
- 4:53And it's really funny because a lot of people think that because
- 4:56you don't have that hyperactivity, like of getting
- 4:58up and walking around and being kind of like impulsive, then you
- 5:01don't really have ADHD. Now what's really funny about
- 5:03ADHD is that years ago, there used to be two forms used to
- 5:06have ADD and then ADHD and ADD tension deficit disorder.
- 5:10They just dropped the hyperactivity because they
- 5:11thought, well, these people aren't displaying hyperactive
- 5:14tendencies or hyperactive traits.
- 5:16Like I just said, like me getting up and seeing, you know,
- 5:18I can't sit down, I have to move around.
- 5:19And then people were like, well, no, no, no, no, it's, it's, it's
- 5:22still, they're still hyperactive people, but it's just the way
- 5:25their brain is going with it. It's like they're switching from
- 5:28task to task to task, which I find just absolutely
- 5:30fascinating. So if you are struggling and
- 5:32you're looking for a therapist, we actually have on hand
- 5:36autistic and neurodivergent therapist here at The Aspy
- 5:38World. Now, if you're looking for
- 5:39coaching and therapy combined together with a therapist, Carla
- 5:44who works here at The Aspy World, who is ADHD and is
- 5:47registered therapist, will do online sessions with you.
- 5:49All you have to do is follow the link down below.
- 5:51I'll go to the aspyworld.com/carla with AK and
- 5:56book an appointment with Carla. All right guys.
- 5:58That being said, I do also recognise that autism and ADHD
- 6:03get diagnosed quite often together because they kind of
- 6:06play off each other a little bit.
- 6:07And, and this is what I mean. So I have, I have this, I'll let
- 6:10me give you an example. OK, So I am a, an author.
- 6:15Like I told you, I've got a book out called Autism for Adults.
- 6:18You can get it now for autismforadults.com.
- 6:21And this book to me was kind of a really interesting moment in
- 6:25the way that my autistic brain and my ADHD brain kind of like
- 6:27fused together and was like trying to battle it out.
- 6:30And it was kind of like Superman versus Batman kind of thing
- 6:34because they're both superior in the way that they control, like,
- 6:37my thoughts and mind and all that kind of stuff.
- 6:39But also they were kind of like just counselling each other out
- 6:42constantly. So my publisher said, damn, sit
- 6:45down and write a book with a new book.
- 6:46I said, yeah, great. You know, doing a book is great
- 6:48because it, it brings, you know, a lot more education to the
- 6:51world. More people have access to
- 6:52information to help change lives because we're all about changing
- 6:54lives here. You know, my motto is, you know,
- 6:57making autism life less lonely, right?
- 7:00Because like autistic people are lonely.
- 7:01So I thought if I make a book and I get people together and
- 7:03they can talk and it covers. And so I was like, OK, I'll sit
- 7:06down and write a book. So my artistic brain is like, I
- 7:08want to really sit down and hyper focus on this task.
- 7:11And this task is writing a book. So I sit down at my desk and
- 7:15then everybody was like, how will you sit still for longer
- 7:17than a few minutes? I want to get it up and I want
- 7:19to kind of like doom scroll on Facebook or I'm going to walk
- 7:22around or do something, you know, ridiculous.
- 7:23And then it's like, oh damn, you know, I, I can't do this.
- 7:27So I was like, well, how am I supposed to write a book?
- 7:31And then I realized something really interesting because of
- 7:33the way my brain works because it's hyperactive, but it's also
- 7:36wanting to hyper focus on things.
- 7:37I had a little work around. So I like running.
- 7:40So I run quite often. So I run, I try to run every
- 7:42day, but I run probably like about four times a week.
- 7:46And when I'm running, I'm listening to audio books because
- 7:49I love books. But I find reading really
- 7:52difficult because I'm also dyslexic.
- 7:53So the only way that I can actually, you know, digest a
- 7:57book and actually get that information into my body is by
- 8:01running because of two things. One, it's audibly being fed into
- 8:04my system. And the second thing is that
- 8:06because I hate in the floor and I'm getting tactile feedback,
- 8:09I'm kind of remembering those things.
- 8:11So then I was like, this is really interesting.
- 8:12I wonder if it would work the other way around.
- 8:14What if I could write a book this way, you know, like
- 8:16running, but writing a book. But I, you know, I couldn't
- 8:18physically like, OK, let let's go.
- 8:20I'm going to write a book now. Like, you know, running with my
- 8:22notepad was never going to happen.
- 8:24So then I was like, how am I going to do this?
- 8:26So really simple. I got my iPhone and then I was
- 8:28like talking to my iPhone whilst I was running outside.
- 8:31But it was the middle of November and it was raining and
- 8:34windy and it wasn't, it wasn't happening, right?
- 8:35So I was like, Dang it. So then I transposed that I came
- 8:38inside and I got a treadmill in my garage because we turned the
- 8:41garage into a gym. So I realized that I could run
- 8:44on the treadmill and talk to my phone.
- 8:45So I did 8 sessions of running for one hour, talking to my
- 8:48phone for eight days in a row, and the entire book was written.
- 8:52So that was a way in which I needed to create hyper focus
- 8:57through creating the book, like thinking about doing the book,
- 9:00but also keeping my ADHD mind actively occupied because my
- 9:05ADHD brain wanted me to run and be scatty and all over the
- 9:08place. And it didn't want me to sit
- 9:09down. It wanted me to be running, be
- 9:12active, be stood up, do something other than sit down
- 9:14and write a book, right. But I needed to kind of like
- 9:16calm it. Now this is another way which I
- 9:19kind of I help do this. You're wanting to learn
- 9:21something. You need to sit down and watch a
- 9:22documentary or you need to sit down and watch a lecture.
- 9:24Having like fidget toys to play with keeps your kind of ADHD
- 9:28brain activated and and engaged. Or you have like an under the
- 9:31desk cycle thing where you can cycle your legs underneath your
- 9:33desk. That works really, really well.
- 9:35And I helped a lot of people during the COVID times of, you
- 9:37know, distance learning, figure that out and have those types of
- 9:41things implemented. But autism and ADHD, they
- 9:44somehow do work together in an interesting way where you can
- 9:47hyper focus on something, but then you can also obsess on a
- 9:50special interest. And that interest then can
- 9:52become something like your career or something where you
- 9:55are so taken by it that you can, you just have like the best
- 10:00joyous time in the world because like you, you surround yourself
- 10:03with the things that you enjoy and that you love and you can
- 10:05learn from, which I think is absolutely amazing.
- 10:07But ADHD and autism most often are comorbidly Co occurring
- 10:11diagnosed together. And I do truly believe ADHD and
- 10:16autism are kind of part and parcel.
- 10:18I think they come together and that's just my personal opinion.
- 10:20I'm going to do a video just all about that and my theory on it.
- 10:23But for this video specifically I just wanted to do a bit more
- 10:26of a guide. Now ADHD, the hyperactivity, the
- 10:29attention issues and lack of focus is what really impacts the
- 10:33brain with with an ADHD person. Autism on the other hand is more
- 10:36of a communication issue and a hyper focus, hyper fixation, and
- 10:40rigid structure for routine. Now those two things are
- 10:43separate and they sound really interesting but you can see how
- 10:46they can clash in butt hedge right?
- 10:47Like I said about the whole Superman versus Batman thing
- 10:49because they both have their individual tendencies but they
- 10:53don't work well together. And I think this causes the
- 10:55biggest pain in my life, especially when I Chuck OCD into
- 10:59the mix because I also have OCD and it's just probably one of
- 11:03the most ability things ever. And actually if I don't ask me
- 11:06like what's the biggest issue you find with autism?
- 11:08I have to say it's OCD. Hey guys, I just want to quickly
- 11:11ingest here that if you're looking at to super up your
- 11:14autistic traits and use them to your advantage, I actually have
- 11:16a specific program online course that's really easy to digest,
- 11:19super simple to get. And you can get it right now.
- 11:22The link is in the description of this video and in my bio that
- 11:25you can just go to www.learnautism.net/super and
- 11:30you can learn how you can supercharge and make those
- 11:32traits into superpowers right now.
- 11:34So go check it out. It's really, really good.
- 11:36Hey guys, thank you so much for checking out this podcast.
- 11:38Make sure you are subscribed because there are people
- 11:40listening right now who not subscribe to this podcast.
- 11:42I can see you. Make sure you subscribe.
- 11:45Okay guys, see you in the next one.
- 11:46Peace.