*Edit: I checked some of the stuff more out in detail. While some concepts on this are valid and backed up by sience, others like RSD are not. Use this as a springboard for learning, not as a valid source in itself. Yes it says so in the corner already. But spelling it out might help.

People are more complicated then a diagram from the internet. Never forget that.

    • janNatan@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      30
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      These are all spectrums. Experiencing all of these symptoms is normal. Experiencing these symptoms frequently and with such high degree that it impacts your daily life - that is a disorder.

      I am not a doctor. This is not medical advice.

      • Agamemnon@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        1 year ago

        For me (who has all 3) the items on that chart aren’t symptoms. They’re personality traits.

    • readthemessage@lemmy.eco.br
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      1 year ago

      I had suspected being gifted could have helped mask autism and ADHD (a psychiatrist even said “you have a PhD, you do not have ADHD”), but I had never seen it like this and it makes me even more suspicious.

      • MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        1 year ago

        See a different doctor and have them examine you with a spotlight on ADHD symptoms. There’s remarkably few doctors that are good at diagnosing ADHD, especially in certain presentations.

        There’s a lot of common misconceptions about ADHD and it’s signs/symptoms, and those misconceptions are not exclusive to people without a PhD. So get a second or third opinion.

        I’m on the gifted side, with an more inward presentation of ADHD, it wasn’t until I was 39 that I even spoke to a medical professional about it. I was mediocre in school (often without trying, because I couldn’t focus or sit long enough to do homework or study), and as I’ve gotten older and into my career in a highly technical field, job demands have made it much harder to mask my ADHD symptoms. I started treatment by medication and I’ve been able to sit and focus and do my job better and easier than before. I still have challenges, medication isn’t a cure; medication has simply given me better control over where my focus lies, if I’m not working to direct my energy and focus into the right work, then I’m no better off.

        Diagnosis is the first step, so if your doctor isn’t up to speed enough to know the signs and symptoms, find one who is.

        Until recently, adult ADHD was not considered to be a thing but evidence has shown that to be very wrong. A lot of people were told that people just grew out of being ADHD, and some do, but not everyone.

        Your achievements do not and should not have any bearing on whether you are affected. You can have ADHD and be very well decorated in your achievements, even if you’ve never been properly diagnosed or treated for it.

        The main factor here should be whether you think that you may have it, and whether or not having it may be holding you back. Make a choice whether that’s something you believe, and go from there.

  • jasondj@ttrpg.network
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    15
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    My 6yo was watching Avatar 2 for the first time and the scene where the humans are burning down the forests, and he immediately asks me “how can there so much fire if people have to wear masks to breathe?”

    Last year we saw a pickup merging on the highway with a balloon arch in the back and he immediately realized what was about to happen.

    He’s very empathetic (he is vegetarian and can’t fathom eating meat. He literally cries over the meat section of a supermarket, though he’s a bit dramatic). And he’s always asking me about complex things like black holes and gravity and inertia and tectonics.

    Is he…gifted? How do we find out?

    • turbodrooler@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      1 year ago

      In Ontario, Canada, if they still do it the same way as they did in the 80s/90s, they do a test in grade 3 which can determine giftedness. After the test I was sent to do a psycho-educational assessment, then sent off to another school with a gifted program. I was in gifted classes until the end of grade 10. I definitely made some great friends in that program, but I think I would have been better off being taught how to survive in the real world, compared to the experience of having your own special class. There is no “special class” in the workplace. Or, you can probably just go directly to a psychologist for a psycho-educational assessment, but there is usually a cost involved.

        • turbodrooler@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          1 year ago

          I mean instead of the effort spent on a gifted program, they could have put effort into helping neurodivergent kids to develop strategies to exist and thrive within a class (world) designed for neurotypicals.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        1 year ago

        If you made friends, it taught you social skills.

        The problem with gifted students is that they can struggle connecting with those who don’t enjoy abstract thinking, theory, etc, but at the same time it was one period of your school day, you had all the others including recess and lunch to learn that.

        • turbodrooler@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Not talking about social skills, and when I went to school, gifted classes were full time, from grades 4-8.

  • Agamemnon@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    ·
    1 year ago

    Posted this a couple weeks ago in /AuDHD. I was wondering how long it would take to circulate and be reposted here. 😄

  • zarmanto@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    1 year ago

    This chart hits me hard, in so many ways.

    There are certain traits common to neurotypicals which I have always considered to be detrimental to not only that person in whom I’ve observed the trait, but to society as a whole – but because I’m the one who is considered “different” I usually find that it’s easier to just keep my trap shut, rather than be browbeaten by NTs for my strong opinions.

    As a very obvious example: “Highly developed morals” is tucked away in the corner of the Autism/Giftedness sub-quadrant. I’m going to make the obvious assumption that Ms. Higgins Lee clearly did not intend to imply that only neurodivergents hold that trait… but, anecdotally, I have nonetheless on more than one occasion observed that far too many people who are considered by the larger populace to be “normal” not only appear to lack that trait, but actively despise anyone who holds such high morals.

    NTs so often derisively label us as “autistic” or “neurodivergent” or (my personal favorite) “nerds”… like these are all somehow bad things – but maybe society as a whole needs to reevaluate the entire notion of what constitutes “good” and “bad”.

    Sorry… am I being too divergent? Should I shut my trap… yet again?

    • CaptFeather@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      My best friend is ND (she thinks she’s autistic but hasn’t been diagnosed), I think I’m ND too since I’ve noticed I have a much higher capacity for empathy than basically anyone I know, but we often talk about sense of morality. She has a very strong moral compass and sense of justice. I don’t think it’s so much that NT people lack this sense of justice/morality (obviously there are exceptions but I don’t consider psychopaths that lack morals as NT), so much as it’s much easier for them to ignore to not upset the status quo. This comes out mainly at work. She would burn bridges because she would see major moral issues come up that her coworkers just kind of ignored but it ate at her until she finally said something, often being dismissed as a result unfortunately. It’s a really interesting topic though

  • puddlexplorer@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    ADHD here, and I think level 1 ASD (psych appointment few weeks).

    ADHD – “Ability to respond quickly in crisis situations/emergencies”? What?

  • MiddleWeigh@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    1 year ago

    This is quite revealing. I’m hyper focused on some of my past and present behavior now and feel like a damn hypochondriac at this point.

    • dreadgoat@kbin.social
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 year ago

      Everybody’s a little ADHD, and everybody’s a little crazy. You have to reach a particular threshold before you qualify as “clinical.”

      If you are able to function independently, then you probably won’t be clinically diagnosed even if you have some struggles here and there.

      Consider the difference between a person with OCD who feels really uncomfortable when they aren’t able to perform their compulsions vs. a person who suffers a complete mental breakdown and loses all ability to self-regulate for hours or days.

      • AtomicPurple@kbin.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        I have an autism diagnosis, and I’m pretty sure I have ADHD as well. Literally almost everything on that chart applies to me in a substantial capacity. I’ve never sought a clinical diagnosis as an adult, but if I were to I’m fairly certain I would get one.

        The ADHD assessments I had in school were all the stare at a screen and hit a button when a dot appears kind. I think they were expecting me to get bored and mess up, but that’s the kind of task I’m good a hyper-focusing on short periods of time. One time the assessor told me I couldn’t have ADHD because my average reaction time was one of the best she’d ever seen. I think that type of assessment is fundamentally flawed.

      • trafguy@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        If you are able to function independently, then you probably won’t be clinically diagnosed even if you have some struggles here and there.

        I disagree. I have official diagnoses for both ADHD and ASD and am mostly functional most of the time. If I earned enough, I’d be living on my own. I was diagnosed as an adult within the past few years while working nearly full time and I made it on time to each of the several appointments that went into getting that diagnosis. If what you say is true, I doubt the assessor would have been willing to give a diagnosis.

  • FarceMultiplier@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    I was diagnosed autistic last year at age 52. I’ve also usually been the socially awkward brains of whatever group I’m in.

    Seems pretty accurate to me. Autistic + gifted.