My Experience
Greetings,
I am new here and I decided to look for different avenues of understanding myself and came across this website. After reading @Jenna post then I decided to join.
I am truly a rare "case study" and overall patient in this mental health "game"/battle as I have ADHD, OCD, and Asperger's (Autism Level 1/Spectrum) disorder along with it's "peers" that this brings depression, anxiety, insomnia, stress, social anxiety just to name a few as there are more.
I have been diagnosed and on medication since 2018 and I knew all of my life I was just different than everyone else. To an outside person looking in, one would assume that I am extraverted and not realize that the topic of discussion is what I am "hyper-focused" on and after that conversation I draw back into my own world. If there is a picture dictionary my face would be the epitome of highly introverted when adding labels or the need to describe me.
I never became interested in my diagnosis even after countless therapist's and psychiatrist's kept labeling me as being neurodivergent but it wasn't until I came across my new therapist who actually took the time to understand me and removed the neurodivergent title and broke each part down. I then conducted 3 heavy non-sleep days of research and found that I am basically a one of a kind extremely rare person which is why I am not the typical textbook client/patient.
What I have found (which might be helpful to you as it made logical sense to me during my research) is that ADHD, OCD, and Autism (I do not know other medical diagnosis I am just focused on what I have) are basically computer systems. How I was able to make sense of this is in technical terms: your body is the computer and these attributes are the windows program that the computer runs and operates on. Because I have all three programs my body now has to produce a mass amount of energy, time, and process data at a much greater speed, intensity, thought, etc... more than anyone else. Since my body is not using just one baseline program it is operating on all 3, oftentimes it causes the "system"/my body to crash when all 3 of the programs are pushing to be the default program.
I never got swept up in the labels anyone said to me nor have I cared what people thought of me. All I understood was that there are things I like and things that I will not tolerate at all. What I am experiencing has helped me academically but now putting all of the pieces together I do see how anything that is "boring" to my mind or not giving me any dopamine stimulation I cannot engage in.
I learned throughout my 30 plus years of life to encourage myself, build my own self-esteem up, and treat people as seasons, which means to me that no matter the length of time a person is in my life when I am ready for them to leave (due to pushed boundaries) or they walk away, I take it as their season with me as concluded.
Due to my research. I finally have the words to articulate my experience. I have the understanding of how this happened (whereby I have found that it is a birth "defect" during brain development...so whatever my birth mother was doing was not good for me while I was developing), and now I am able to properly describe even in detail to others why I am the way that I am.
Although I do not consider nor accept myself as "broken" my favorite song is by Kelly Clarkson "Broken Beautiful" as I never wanted anyone from friends, family, or medical doctors to "fix" me. All I needed was understanding as I was tired of people calling me everything I felt I was not. I do not process emotions the same way as others. I do have emotional intelligence (as it is not logical to my brain). I am socially appropriate, which can take me weeks to months to recuperate from so any event that I have to go to I have to mentally prepare for beforehand. I am not the person to call for regular chit-chat or small talk as my brain needs a topic and a problem to solve, on the flip side, I am the person everyone calls in a crisis as I am not emotional and everything I say has a reasonable logical solved problem.
Overall, I am glad to know that even though no one else has all 3 "programs", there are shared experiences across the board that can help me understand my own behaviors and to break down the stereotype that social media and the entertainment business jokes about or has completely wrong when it comes mental health.
-keys
@kckeyz
Welcome to cups 🩵 🤗
Thank you so much for sharing.
And being honest.
Feel free to pop into a sharing circle where you can find people who go through the same and can listen and support 💙
Thank you
@kckeyz
A pleasure 💜
Hello keys,
I also have ADHD, Autistic level 1, and OCD. I highly relate to your post. I feel like a computer system that is constantly manually monitoring and adjusting; it is very tiring. I struggle very much but have found certain ways to perform quite normally or in some areas even quite exceptionally given how much of a deficit there is in other areas. Sometimes I have little to no executive function and my sleep is very odd. I try my best, and I care for people very much. I have empathy and people have often told me things they would never tell anyone else, but at the same time, it's almost like I have an invisibility shield, and it's very rare to find anyone that truly sees or understands me. Thank you for posting. Glad to have you here.
moth
@memyselfandmoth
WOW. I would like to know what have you been doing to "cope" with things as I was informed that I basically was the last unicorn lol. I do not do labels but I wouldn't say I have empathy for people but I have a great understanding of what it is they are going through or what they have to say to me. So far I am just gathering information and going down memory lane I see how my reaction or lack thereof annoyed neurotypical people. But I always state that I am socially appropriate not sociable which is a big difference. Thanks for your response and sorry for the late response I am not on here like that as it is too much of a social media thing for me and I don't like social media nor am I on it.
That's okay. We share that aspect too. I'm online a lot, but mostly researching and creative stuff, not social. So wonderful to meet someone who truly gets it and I am out here rooting you on so much :)
💚
As far as coping, I have a lot that has come to me over the years. What specifically would help you the most rn, keyz
I'm just researching at this point to understand myself better so that it's easy to explain to my loved ones. Like for example I learned the language of telling them that when they present something to me my mind creates over 50 tabs concerning that 1 conversation and all of my questions are to close the tabs and stop my mind from "buffering" so now I ask the question if they are venting or wanting my opinion on the topic/issue. I'm simply here for more research and understanding so that is what I mean by "coping". What is the easier way to explain behaviors without making it a "big deal".
I think it's best to determine the best time to disclose or discuss anything you want to at a time when both you and them are able to be in a relaxed, receptive state if possible. Determine what you're truly wanting to share or explain. Maybe there's things you think you should, but if you'd feel more comfortable not doing so, it could be just the pressure from discovering so much about yourself. But if there are things you're ready to talk about, that's good and it could foster a lot of good but you have to try to know what people pre-conceptions might be. Be prepared that you may have to educate, but remember your boundaries.
Best of luck to you :)
@kckeyz
is not rare have adhd ocd autism all same time there lot people do because have neurodivergent brain makes more likely have other disorders
there is lot people here like you so probably will find people can relate to
From my research it's so uncommon and rare that there isn't a percentage of people that are categorized with it and it's outside of the textbook definition for therapist and psychiatrist. Research shows that a person can have traits but not have OCD, ADHD, and Aspergers at the same time.
@kckeyz
my brother have autism adhd ocd bipolar and got friend diagnose same things
me diagnosed chromosome syndrome autism adhd epilepsy and more
know lots people diagnose with autism adhd plus one or more other disorder
my chromosome syndrome rare is diagnose less then 1 person out of million people
Wow. That's interesting!
