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When Autism Becomes AuDHD
When I was diagnosed autistic in 2020 I felt an urgent need to share my experience through writing about it. In one of the happiest co-incidences of my life, I had also just discovered Medium. Tapping into a burgeoning community of autistic writers provided the perfect space to share and process my experience as a newly diagnosed autistic person.
I’ve written well over a hundred pieces about autism and others that are not directly about autism but written from an autistic perspective. Being autistic has become integrated into my sense of who I am and central to my identity.
Recently I was diagnosed with ADHD. While it doesn’t make me any less autistic, it has meant recalibrating my understanding of what being autistic means for me.
There’s nothing unusual about being an autistic person who has ADHD, in fact it’s estimated that up to 70% of autistic people do. I don’t think it’s fanciful to believe that one day it will be considered a combined type of autism or ADHD in much the same way people are diagnosed with combined inattentive and hyperactive ADHD now.
So it’s surprising that there hasn’t been a word for it, or at least a more succinct way of capturing this way of being. The term AuDHD…
