I’m beginning to think I am. No…I KNOW I am. It would explain SO much about the things I have accomplished in my life and the reason I have always felt and described myself as feeling like I am two different people. One person LOVES routine..NEEDS routine..the other is very spontaneous and a go getter and does things that are so outside of my autistic brain’s comfort zone. It’s the one thing I kept feeling stumped about in my research about autism and the one thing that kept making sense every time someone with both would talk about what they feel and how they do. I started thinking about how I’ve always described myself as someone who is a little bit “country mouse” (love being in quiet places away from people and around nature..being at home) and a little bit “city mouse” (love big cities and the hum of a city and things to do and see..travel). It also explains why I have a history of spontaneous actions and accomplishments that don’t always match up with what a just autistic brain feels comfortable doing. That was the one thing that I kept coming across as not so much how autism brain works. But put the two together..autism and ADHD…and bam..that is me. That explains almost all the big spontaneous decisions I made in my life that were actually thought out and planned out (autism enters the room) but not thought out enough for “big picture” results and because I’m also autistic…the overwhelmed and over stimulated burn out thing would happen and my logical mind would kick in just in time for me to realize “wtf did I just do”. I can point to so many instances when this happened. So many crossroads where my ADHD brain took the reins and my autism brain caught up and was all “whoa whoa whoa..this is a lot and too much..must stay inside my cave and regroup.”
I’m going to talk more about this later but just wanted to begin to write it down because this is also literally what I do. Must write it down before I forget the thought and it’s gone forever. But wow…another huge realization that again makes so much sense. I mean I’ve known this more than I anything else my whole life and frequently made the comment about how I really do feel like two different people.
One part of brain (autistic) enjoys being home away from people, in solitude and quiet and thrives in her own little bubble and routine. And the other (ADHD) gets very restless and can’t sit still and needs to travel and do things that are not her normal (to a point..autism brain will not be doing anything crazy like jumping out of a plane) and feels like if I have to do the same thing another day I will explode. And I have to say…I really do think both compliment each other as much as they mess with each other. I think..I’m beginning to think…if I just had one or the other…I might not have accomplished what I have. I also might have accomplished more without either…but if this is the brain I was born having…both neurological things going on did in fact help me to a point.
Again..I don’t know what it feels like to not have either so I won’t ever sit here or even ever feel like I wish I were something else. I genuinely don’t. I like who I am and I feel very strongly about this idea that to be born anything else would mean I would lose the parts of me that I feel are my best asserts and to my advantage in this crazy world. But I do so wish I would have known sooner. I know it would of helped me navigate my life better. Avoid some very traumatic situations. But who knows. I would like to think it would of helped but I’ll never know and I am really trying to focus on what I can do now. The rest is just speculative and the past is the past. Onward. Piece by piece I’m figuring this out as I always have..on my own terms..in my own way. And I will be looking more into this ADHD thing. Too many patterns are showing up now not to.
You Had To Be There… 