this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2023
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Autism
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Yeah I'm still moving forward with my search for a specialist in adult late diagnosed high masking twice exceptional AuDHD in women... ** Laughs sardonically **
(This turned into a bit of a wall of text, so I hid the longer paragraphs in spoiler tags with a "TL;DR" as the label)
Definitely sounds like a tough one to find, unfortunately. The one I found was willing to assess me as an adult white man for AuDHD, and I believe he had some adult women as patients, but I don't know if he would know how to approach an adult diagnosis for a high masking woman.
TL;DR: if you can find anyone who diagnoses adults, consider checking them out and bringing thorough cross-sectional notes with yours/others experiences and the DSM-V.
All I can offer in suggestion is from my own experience, which will hopefully be close enough to yours to be of use. See if you can find anyone at all who has experience with adult diagnosis and seems credible, and if you do, consider bringing thorough notes. Comparisons between your experience and the DSM-V criteria. Comparisons between your experience and other AuDHD women. Comparisons other AuDHD women share between their experience and the diagnostic criteria. If you're prepared enough, even if it's outside of their explicit area of expertise, they'll hopefully be open to seeing your perspective and broaden their understanding of presentations of autism and ADHD. It sucks that you'd have to do that, but if anyone is equipped to accurately describe their own psychological profile.TL;DR: I didn't bring many notes but did mention comparisons to others' experiences. Bringing more notes would have been authentic. Authenticity theoretically improves assessment results, and thorough notes gives more to go on.
I didn't bring notes for all of this (I did for comparison between my experience and the DSM-V though), but IIRC I did talk about comparisons between my experience and those of autistic/ADHD individuals who shared their stories. I mentioned that I associate with other neurodivergent folks and other indirect clues towards neurodivergence. I think I was concerned that bringing too much in the way of preparation could affect their assessment, but in retrospect, it's one of those situations where you just sort of have to trust they'll take your fully authentic self seriously, even if that means bringing a stack of reference material thicker than a doctoral candidate's thesis.On a related note, if you haven't seen this list of resources linked in the sidebar yet, there's some interesting stuff in there. I know that Yo Samdy Sam, the last YouTube channel linked there, is an adult-diagnosed AuDHD woman. Her experience might be relatable/a useful reference point.
For what it's worth, you seem genuine to me. And from my understanding, the vast majority of people who seek a diagnosis in good faith and put forth the effort to understand the condition well enough to tentatively self-diagnose are correct in their assessment. With or without diagnosis, if you have done the legwork and feel it's a strong possibility, you're welcome to consider yourself included.
Thanks! I love a good wall of text from a genuine person. I go back and forth on whether a diagnosis is the right choice for me. I'm concerned about the ADHD diagnosis bc I do rely on my medication and worry that might be at risk without it. I'm really not concerned about if I do or don't have the conditions - it's clear and obvious to me now that I know about them both and I live my life as such, in the sense that I provide myself accommodations where I can. I'm not convinced it's safe to be "out" at work, although I imagine a large percentage of my coworkers are likely spectrumed themselves being in engineering. I drop my little hints about "my brain prefers" this or that by way of explaining my quirks and especially now that I work remotely I am easily able to mask sufficiently for the corporate environment as just a quirky independent thinker.
Learning about ADHD and autism is definitely one of my main special interests so I spend a huge amount of time thinking about this and will definitely bring notes. I like your suggestions about relating to others and mentioning all my friends are ND as well haha.
I had not found Sam yet, so thanks for that suggestion. Ultimately I'm going to try being very choosey at finding providers bc being able to trust someone enough to be vulnerable is really freaking hard and if they don't understand these Neuro types well enough they aren't going to be able to help me anyway, even if they are well meaning. My last therapist was a really great lady who I liked a lot but she kept sending me worksheets meant for 9 year olds and had suggestions like using a planner so ┐(‘～`;)┌
I've found more help and perspective listening to lectures on YouTube and even freaking therapy Instagram than any of my real therapy experiences and I'm a huge proponent of therapy for all. It's just hard to find someone in my small state.
Anyway thanks for the comment! Have a great day