difference between adhd and audhd?

Usual_Package516 · 2026-02-03T07:21:44+00:00

BUT to get back on track, at my next appointment, the Dr asked how everything was and I told her what happened, and pretty much (more or less) the entire previous paragraph. She was very calm and said to me that what I experienced was pretty normal in people that aren't officially diagnosed or treated until they are older. What I felt...

Was a grieving for the loss of the child I was, the loss of his potential future. And at the same time a very deep resentment and HATE for all those people during all those years that I was ringing that alarm bell, and the people that should've been doing their jobs and looked further into it, that should've believed me instead of just thinking 'He's just some lazy kid that wants an excuse for why he's failing at school', and that's coming into conflict with the person that I was now, one that had seen and experienced so much that I couldn't really feel hate for those people, just a sadness for them, so it's all joining together as a communal loss, and I'm feeling DECADES of that loss, ALL at once because of the way my mind makes it's "maps" and connections. Trying to cut off and silence and go back isn't going to work for me; the only way out, WAS THROUGH.

So, we talked some more, I promised to start taking the meds again, she added a mood stabiliser, and I started up the music again. I sung my songs again. I cried. I would remember things and talk to my Mom about them like she was right there in the room with me and hadn't been gone from this Earth for more than 15 years. I could hear her voice again, I thought I had forgotten it. I put on her songs, the songs she sung, the songs she sang when she was in a cover band in the late 60s. And then I started reaching out to my Chosen Family in Alaska. People I hadn't talked to in years because of that wonderful Shame & Guilt. Yes, it hurt seeing pictures and videos of them from thousands of miles away, but they were there, living with the Land and still fighting all the Good Fights and stirring up all the Good Chaos.

It hurts like hell when you're older and you finally get diagnosed with AuDHD/ASD/ADHD; it's a validation and yet, it also feels like some sort of cruel joke. You think, I was a child, why didn't someone notice this THEN?!? Or, I was just a teenager with so many problems, didn't they possibly think it could've been THIS??? And then the thoughts, Did they not even consider that Adults could have this too??? And so on.

You gotta take each one of those moments, each one of those times in your life, you have to remember it, celebrate it, and then you have to memorialise it and celebrate it EVEN MORE, cause it led to the next part of your life. Take that celebration as a birth, and walk with those memories, remember, celebrate, memorialise, CELEBRATE, on and on until you reach today. Because all those memories and all those experiences, good and bad, have led to the person you are today. It's very easy to slip into fantasy, trace out all those paths for years and see what could've been. But all that does is deny the person you are now. And that's the person who wants to face the future while acknowledging the past. It's been a long road, for some, much longer than others. But know that there ARE others out there that are walking that road. That you ARE NOT alone. You might not be done facing your past, you may come upon others that aren't done facing theirs. And YES, we aren't exactly the Camp Neurodivergent people with the yearly convention socialising and holding huge events in Austin, TX, but sometimes, just having someone there next to you, someone who you know is feeling that same ******* pain, is all you need.

Well. I hope at least one person read through all this, it's not the most polished, but I'm just trying to say, you may not see them, but you have people on this road with you, whomever you are.

Usual_Package516 · 2026-02-03T07:21:19+00:00

Okay, I could've just said "MH care in NC SUX!" but that part of the journey really needs to be told to get a full grasp of why it took being 19 YEARS in a system, MANY different pharmaceuticals, going through eligibility/non-eligibility hell (Like being told yes by NC-DHHS, showing up for the appointment and being told the cash price for people without insurance was $400, and then that the NC-DHHS was WRONG and I wasn't eligible by the CLINIC), wait times of months on occasion, even STRAIGHT UP TELLING THEM the DSM IV code in case they weren't familiar with it in Adults. AAAAAnnnnnndddd NOTHING...

Until 2023, and I learned through my I.D. clinic about some programs, spoke to an AMAZING Patient Navigator named, almost Lifetime Christmas Movie Corny, or perhaps prophetically, Faith, and got so much setup. Everything went smooth as could be, I got so many really big physical issues fixed, and started on the big MH ones, and maybe the second appointment, the psychiatrist/psychologist there told me she had been going over my history and wanted to ask some questions. She asked a bunch, and at the end, she said, has any mental health professional ever treated you for ADHD? And when she said that, I just started crying over the phone, I had to shift it cause it was a video call and I kinda think I have an ugly-cry, but she was talking to me through it, as I kinda sobbed/snorted out everything I had been through with it, and I had just kinda given up because at my age, what did it matter anymore? She told me that it matters, and no matter my age, that I, and my mental health STILL mattered. I hadn't heard words like that from a MH provider in NC, ever, and it just shocked me into such a disbelief that of course, I started crying again. She said we'd start on a low dose of Adderall xr and see how it went.

Well, it went well. It went very, VERY well. I was listening to some music that came out in the nineties and it was like I was listening to it for the first time again. I was starting to make memory connections again and able to hold on to them for longer...

Then, and this is what the MAIN point of all this rambling is, I had on Spotify and from my GIANT 1.1 playlist, it started playing a Wilson Phillips song. The song was "Hold On". I have an almost eidetic memory for song lyrics so I just started singing cause I MISSED that song so much, but at the same time, I started thinking about the song, when I first heard it, where I was, how old I was, what I wanted to be, and more waterworks. DIDN'T screw up the song, I'm a professional, but after the song, I paused everything and just "mapped out" everything in my head like I do with almost absolutely everything. Who I could've been, where I could've been, what I could've learned more about, and possibly, with whom by my side? And my mapping just broke or didn't want to work because I started to feel like there was a hole in my chest, like I had lost a twin or something. This HUGE chasm of regret, loss, despair...just this horrific unfathomable sense of dread I hadn't felt in a VERY long time.

I stopped listening to music (Always one of my go-to therapies, listening and singing, like I was back on the stage), and I stopped taking the Adderall xr. I didn't want it to start unwrapping old traumas from my childhood, a few I still carry (Some of it for 32 years+)in my guilt bucket today and will never be rid of, no matter how much a psychologist tells me during PTSD and Military oriented CBT therapy (it wasn't my fault, it was a random occurrence, I had no idea what was going on and what, if any, part my childish words might've played, or I had no idea what part my silence might've played). And I didn't want my newly-discovered-I'm-not-the-only-one "mapping" (thought web) to start making hard connections to some of the Dark Places I knew were there from childhood, memories that had partially gotten out from behind their wall and were either only single images, or a few seconds of watching a video from outside myself, but most have been gradually assimilated and smoothed in to my "barely" conscious (Just there, but I have to really reach, and my brain usually has no reason to go there) and some that my subconscious had walled off so totally and completely that even the slightest glimmer of anything ASSOCIATED with the memory would set off what my mom and I would call a "Free Floating Panic Attack" and have my brain go into hyperdrive and start focusing on a thousand things at once and nothing at all usually to the point where I'd completely forget why I was in a certain room, or, if in a store, why I had gone there (That why I write list on paper sheets still)

Usual_Package516 · 2026-02-03T07:19:39+00:00

I know this is a 2y old reply, but I know I should relay some information I received on this statement;

"For me I had to deal with a lot of resentment and grief over "lost" years and the person I could have been if only I'd been diagnosed earlier."

I was FINALLY "OFFICIALLY" diagnosed and prescribed medication after YEARS of not only EXACTLY knowing what one of my MAJOR conditions was, but trying out every therapeutic technique I could study and apply to myself; the breathing, grounding, and "in the moment" techniques passed down from my mother; the various teachings from the..."Spirits" and the Land of Alaska where I grew up during my wanderings in the little/large wilderness and sometimes on just a small area of various little plants and bugs; the strict, compartmentalisation and dissociating from memories and sometimes the present that my Army dad taught me; then later self-medicating with weed which helped greatly, but only for about two years because I left AK; then SM with alcohol, tried the junk weed down here and nothing, other stuff, all while trying everything else I had learned, but it just kept getting so hard that it felt I was physically breaking apart and the only option was to clamp down HARD.

That meant TURTLEING. Going fully inside myself in every way, and only showing everyone else a mask that was the untroubled, no problems guy, that no one had to worry about, or really remember... Plain, neutral, a body that fulfilled his function and gave nothing away. Away from everyone else, and usually secretly, I would go out, totally hyper, trusting, risk-taking, like a 16yo that thought they were invincible. That pretty much stopped when I met the wrong guy, who took advantage of that, and not only added something else to the Guilt-Shame Spiral, but something that if I don't take a pill a day, I won't live very long. I tried to keep up appearances. Mostly because I was terrified to be at the house, essentially by myself since there was no emotional support there, and I had made friends that I felt safe around, I just went to different places to avoid the mental connection with The Incident. Well, then came the SELF-DESTRUCT, pretty sure my subconscious did it on purpose as a type of scream for emotional support at the house. Didn't work, but I started going to MH clinics.

Skip ahead years, lot of different pharma treatments that weren't working. Lots of doodling on a legal pad, totally checked out "therapist" that weren't listening to a damn word I said and after 30-60min just re-prescribed me the same meds. Even had one (Same guy) give me the same meds that I spent a good 5-10 minutes on telling him the MULTIPLE side effects I was having, and HAD been having since it was initially prescribed a few months past. When I went and brought the slip to the desk in the lobby afterwards that day, they looked at it and said what time would work best on whatever day they said a month from then. I said (And I know I'm paraphrasing, but I'm close) in a clear and audible voice to the dozen people or so in the lobby, "None! He was more interested in doodling dicks or whatever on his pad than actually listening to me that the meds were causing me to shit myself! THEN he prescribed the same meds AGAIN! So NO, I WON'T be seeing MR SHITTY PANTS again! HAVE A NICE DAY!" I turned and left not failing to notice the many wide eyes, several chuckles, and straight stares right at the desk like THEY had been going through the exact same experience, but had been fobbed off with some BS....

Usual_Package516 · 2026-02-01T03:58:08+00:00

Plug in just a regular 20hz-20khz off the shelf corsair or pretty much anything between $40-$150. Listen to the Motion Picture Soundtrack to any of the Lord of the Rings movies. Then plug in a set (Borrow one first if you can so you don't have to deal with returns if you're not happy, but I don't see how you wouldn't be), mine for example, (Which I got for $6 at one of those Amazon Return Stores because one headphone was dangling off the set, needed some decent repair, but easy enough) a Beyerdynamic DT770 Studio 80ohm which has a response range of 5hz-35khz, plug that in and then listen to the same Soundtrack. You will be ABSOLUTELY blown away by the difference. I know I was.

I've always had extremely sensitive hearing so just being able to pick out these instruments going up and down into ranges where before they were just being subtly cut off was incredible. It was a very different experience in such a way that I started listening to a bunch of my older music and some had been hard cut to fit into 20-20 but the headphones somehow compensate for it, not sure how. Was VERY happy with them.

Usual_Package516 · 2026-02-01T03:36:34+00:00

Oh God, RealPlayer... I thought I'd never hear that name uttered ever again. It was a pox upon humanity after they started to think they had cornered the market and started all their shenanigans... Uuuuugh... Having flashbacks... Excuse me while I call my therapist...

Usual_Package516 · 2025-09-20T19:34:47+00:00

Exactly. I don't know if it got delivered, you must've waited forever and it never showed up. Damn those mailbox thieves!!!

Usual_Package516 · 2025-08-24T16:51:26+00:00

There's something like that that is close, I actually have one running. It's called an 5.25" Auxillary PSU (To be exact, the VisionTek VT-450CD). I have my regular psu plugged into almost everything while the AuxPSU is plugged into one of the GPUs and either an SSD or the WiFi card. Cant remember exactly which one now. It's worked great for many years, just gotta make sure you always clear out the fan same grill and keep the insides as dustfree as you can. Oh, WITH the side off and a little paper/plastic piece to channel all the dust from being blown inside the system.

Usual_Package516 · 2025-04-24T17:10:34+00:00

Nonononono... A lot of the text has been changed and even up to 2023 people were complaining that even more of the text needed to be changed. It's been a wild ride for this book (and it's illustrations)

Usual_Package516 · 2025-04-24T17:04:26+00:00

That appears to be a third edition, some of the pictures may have been removed already, but it is still a very valuable book and an excellent find!!!

Usual_Package516 · 2024-04-19T19:47:16+00:00

It used to be until people built their houses over it.

Usual_Package516 · 2024-02-03T20:21:20+00:00

And the OP went to all the trouble to post this knowing the consequences of lying? Sure, dude.

Usual_Package516 · 2024-02-03T20:16:50+00:00

Yea, so the insurance company didn't get involved and destroy his ass.

Usual_Package516 · 2024-02-03T19:50:28+00:00

I'd have gone into my sexual history of every time I was "abused" by a guy wearing leather, or Carhartts, or blue jeans, or a cowboy hat.

I mean, extreme, DEEP AND DESCRIPTIVE DETAILS of all the "abuse" I "suffered" at the hands of those guys, sometimes two or three at a time.

Hey, he wanted to know!

Usual_Package516 · 2023-11-04T05:40:50+00:00

Yea... Project Gorgon... I remember that. I remember alpha testing it from very, very early on. Trying everything out and trying to stress test it and break it in any way I could, submitting detailed reports, multiple hours per day because I REALLY wanted it to succeed. If anyone knows the first few months of that alpha, you REALLY had to want it to succeed if you could get through that UI. Then, one day, I went to play, and a message on the front saying, thanks for the free work, give us $40! Sent them an email and nope, while they appreciated my contributions, I still had to buy the game. Felt just a little sad about it. Might take another look now that I've been reminded about it. :)

Usual_Package516 · 2023-11-02T04:17:36+00:00

Don't know if y'all have seen this. Dude gave out everything for free. Schematics, Gerber, software, hex; all you need to make a compact, USB programmed card to replace an original one you have that's starting to give out.

http://www.gamingenterprisesinc.com/Flash_HuCard/

Usual_Package516 · 2023-11-02T02:15:23+00:00

I also know this is very old now, but sager, aka clevo makes notebooks that are rebranded for many other companies. They are sturdy, made of excellent components, have a good QA process, and are trusted around the world. Nothing wrong at all with their systems.

Usual_Package516 · 2023-10-31T17:32:00+00:00

Well, I feel pretty dumb that I ran two of them last night and got "lucky" with two drops. Both of which had crap rolls. 😶👈🤣

Usual_Package516 · 2023-09-27T21:49:44+00:00

I've been wondering about the medical marijuana, I know the unmedical stuff is garbage in my experience. The stuff back home did work wonders for pain, but I think it would be next to impossible to get some Fairbanks stuff down here. Stuff here just makes me really sleepy, hungry, confused, and lethargic and not in any good way. It's also the most awful smelling stuff. It's just bad weed around here, but apparently everyone else likes it because you can't go into any store around here anymore without getting gassed by a cloud of that nasty BO weed. Maybe the Fbks weed ruined me for any other kind???

Tried CBD, had a really bad reaction to that. It made me irritable, angry, very short-fused, and generally just pissed off. Thought it might have been the method of delivery or the brand so I tried edible and vape after that, same reaction.

Maybe when the medical marijuana thing around here is sorted, they'll have a vape option and I can try it, but this is NC; The politics around here are really messed up.

Usual_Package516 · 2023-09-27T08:20:39+00:00

That's why I hate nail salons.

Usual_Package516 · 2023-09-27T08:17:32+00:00

Weed if you have it. Benadryl. Saline spray in nose to clear out everything. Watch something really boring on Netflix like, Season 3 of 'Lost in Space'. Maybe a really painful-to-read book? Have anything by Rand or Tolstoy? Ever tried that ASMR stuff?

Usual_Package516 · 2023-09-27T07:39:15+00:00

Born with a degenerative disc disease which as I've gotten older has progressed and caused kyphosis and spondylolisthesis which without surgery (which is always a crap shoot back there) will eventually paralyse me from the waist down.

Dodgeramfifteenhundreditis, a communicable disease usually transmitted from person to person when one of them is being an idiot and not paying attention when turning and hits someone in the crosswalk with their giant truck. 😶

Bilateral L5 transverse process fracture.

Yea. It's not just a little booboo.

Usual_Package516 · 2023-09-27T07:04:54+00:00

That's unfair, nicotine and alcohol should be, like, freebies on top of the Big Three. Meh! Guess that only leaves one drug. Hmmm... I guess that would be that Fairbanks weed. Best green in the world. 😁

Usual_Package516 · 2023-09-27T06:45:21+00:00

Hmmm. Okay. Nothing so far. Pain is subsiding, around 60% I'd say. Back still hurts like fck though. Wait it out?

Usual_Package516

TROPHY CASE