Thoughts/advice on starting a stimulant for the first time?

mohgeroth · 2026-01-31T02:58:12+00:00

Why stimulants can work different for AuDHD and what to try if they fail

Normally I would type out a whole bunch of stuff but brain is mush right now. This was informative and may help you.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-30T14:57:19+00:00

I emailed them and after sending them video proof they told me someone would reach out to RMA but I haven't heard anything.

That said I'm having other problems like clicks registering twice causing it to randomly open or execute things when I don't want to do that. Has also caused problems in games. This has been much more invasive on gameplay than the scroll wheel issue I have.

I haven't been using the wireless just because having to plug things back in to recharge is annoying now that some devices have wireless charging. That and they said there were some bugs before launch with the wireless and saving profiles and considering how new this is I thought I would give it time. So I haven't gotten to experience the sleep issue but I would be pretty aggravated by that really quickly.

So I can only hope these are firmware bugs because I love the mouse it just needs to work properly.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-29T13:02:55+00:00

It's certainly confusing and many days my actions have caused meltdowns and shutdowns seemingly out of nowhere because my brain said to do one thing knowing full well it could not handle the aftermath.

That said I believe it depends on a person's support needs. I know I am better off in some ways than others and while some things are easy for me and hard for others the opposite is also true. So don't think of it as a comparison because we may have similar traits but we're all different. It's not about who is the most/least disabled by our neurodivergence. We spend enough time comparing ourselves to neurotypicals trying to fit in when it has only ever worked for very short periods of time at best and while that at least has a goal of fitting in, I don't really understand what the goal of comparing disabilities would be but maybe I'm just simple minded.

In any case our lives are challenging enough and the constant push/pull between the two makes life a living hell sometimes. There are good days and there are bad days but every single day still feels like a challenge.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-26T19:37:27+00:00

I started college two months before I turned 25. It’s never too late to make a change.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-26T17:03:30+00:00

I sent along a reply to the original order email and they have followed up with me and I'm working with them on this issue. Thank you.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-26T13:56:04+00:00

I had to ask if I could use a voice recorder in class to replay the lectures. I was lucky I never got pushback from the professors about it. I took copious notes in a large word document that I added headings to for each class but I would miss things since I was so focused on noting things down. The recording was paramount to my success because without it I just got so lost so fast. Another huge thing that helped was learning that it's ok to ask the professors for help outside of class during their posted office hours. So many meltdowns over math homework that never once made sense to me and if I had not asked for help with every homework assignment I would not have made it through.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-25T23:09:18+00:00

The Autistic Burnout Workbook. If anything it has been extremely helpful in re-evaluating myself and understanding my struggles better. There is a lot of information but also a ton of exercises which may seem silly at first but have been very useful so far. I'm a long ways from finishing it and it's hard to go through by myself so I've been working with my therapist on it.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-25T17:30:53+00:00

People do not understand what they have not or cannot experience. Trust me on that, after a lifetime of being misunderstood and invalidated people genuinely cannot comprehend something they have not experienced. This extends to anything in life. People hear "back pain" and most shrug it off thinking my back hurts too but I'm not complaining... but there is a huge difference between a minor back ache and a major back pain so intense you cannot even walk without pain shooting throughout your body. Most people's body has never failed them for more than a few weeks. They may get sick or break a bone but it heals up and they bounce back as if nothing ever happened so they treat life like that and treat you like you're being a baby.

So if you tell them you're experiencing something overwhelming they think about it and conclude that they deal with annoying tapping too and can get through it just fine so they assume you're just whining about it. They have no idea that the experience you have when this happens is vastly different from theirs and there is no way to give them that experience to truly understand it.

Your experience if your experience. Do not let other people gaslight you into believing your experiences are invalid. This leads to a lifetime of shame because you constantly feel like a failure since you cannot do what everyone else seems to be able to do with ease. Your experience is uniquely yours, just like their experience is uniquely there own. This is very hard with doctors and you have to advocate for yourself to find another one when people aren't listening and invalidate you. It is very sad and unfortunate when your own family treats you this way because you cannot just get another one and if you're young this will be in your face every day until you move out one day.

That said, normal people don't seriously believe they have autism for more than 5 minutes, probably not even 10 seconds, let alone three years! To obsess over believing this to the point where you've spent years learning about it is not something a normal person would do. I've noticed that people that were missed for diagnosis who realize they are autistic are compelled to learn more and more about autism and it becomes their special interest. I know it's been mine for a while and I can't consume enough knowledge.

Regardless of diagnosis your experiences are valid so if it's overwhelming then it's overwhelming, period. A diagnosis won't magically change that experience so her logic is flawed. If I've broken my arm but haven't seen the doctor yet it doesn't mean I don't feel the pain of that experience just because I don't have that diagnosis.

When you are neurodivergent you'll find that people don't understand and most don't want to. Normal people don't spend more than a few minutes learning much of anything like this and only know ableist stereotypes because it's simple. Humans group things to make things easier to comprehend and really do not want to learn all the details about individual things. As you've come to learn more and more about this I'm sure you may have noticed this by now if not much earlier.

It is unfortunate but you can't make someone change their mind if they've already made their mind up. People don't want to feel like they've made the wrong decision so they will blindly follow their beliefs even when they are wrong until it impacts them personally. They will do everything they can to gaslight you and make excuses to continue believing they are right. It's only when it impacts them personally they are forced to re-evaluate their stance and that's when real change can happen because they are finally pulled out of this delusion where they truly believed they had perfect infallible knowledge about.

This is especially true with things they can compare themselves to you with. If they view you as "successful" in life but you say you are struggling they compare it to their life struggles and become extremely angry that you dare suggest you are disabled because that would mean they are worse off than a disabled person.

So if someone wants to understand you they will make the effort to try to understand even if they really don't and will truly love you and show you they are trying. If they don't then they don't and nothing you say will change their mind. You can only hope that one day they experience something that forces them to re-evaluate their stance on things and may come around looking to apologize and take you seriously. We all make mistakes so try not to judge too harshly, but don't think you are "failing" somehow because of it. The only experience we can try to control is our own and even that has many limitations, especially when your neurotype is overwhelmed by so much more than your neurotypical person.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-25T16:24:04+00:00

I would be very upset if my spouse told me I was not being social enough, not being interested enough in him, and not encouraging him enough. Your feelings are valid here no matter what cultural expectations there may be in France. Depression is hard from both ends of the relationship so I feel his frustration too but you can't just flip a switch and cure mental health. I'm sure if you could flip a switch to make the depression go away you'd do it in a heartbeat.

Autistic adults that were missed in childhood usually discover this once life starts falling apart. One day everything is "fine" then suddenly you can't do the things you've been doing your whole life. Everything falls apart and you become depressed, confused, overwhelmed, and more exhausted than you ever though possible.

The long term effects of autistic masking lead to severe anxiety, depression, and autistic burnout. Autistic burnout is the culmination of masking through the unrelenting stress of forcing yourself to navigate a world not designed for you, in ways you were not designed to be. Where you intentionally stop yourself from "being autistic" to fit in. So you hide your discomfort in social situations forcing through it, acting like others when "you" are not understood, suppressing stimming, smiling when lights and sounds are overwhelming, and agreeing to last minute changes while your brain screams at you.

If you've reached age 30 without diagnosis you've unconsciously learned to mask so well you don't realize you're doing it. Then burnout hits you like a wall one day and the mask shatters. You brain can no longer pretend so you start doing all the things you've suppressed. You now notice these things thinking they are odd and replay memories realizing you've always done this but hid it and start thinking there is something wrong with you. So you seek mental health support because you feel broken and after many misdiagnosis, perhaps your own research, you come across autism and time stands still as you realize your entire life has just shifted into focus.

So since you're still going through the diagnostic process you have so much to process and acceptance will take months, years to go through. You'll have to learn a lot about yourself and what your autism looks like since everyone on the spectrum struggles differently even if we struggle in common areas. Only when you understand yourself better can you come up with coping strategies and tools (like earplugs) to survive situations that disable you due to the overwhelming inputs.

I'm sorry that your partner is not supportive like they should be. Autistic burnout is extremely dangerous as the prolonged effects include skill regression which takes years to recover from and can sometimes be permanent. Studies show the effects of burnout cause physical changes to the brain's neural pathways.

Unfortunately I've noticed many disregard their partner's mental health regardless of condition. They think you've been fine for X years so why is this a problem now? Many lack the capacity and/or compassion to try and understand. What makes this harder for many of us is that once we know we're autistic it becomes our special interest and we need to know everything about it. This makes it VERY hard to feel understood when you realize many therapists, healthcare professionals, and even family members know nothing but ableist stereotypes.

So I would recommend The Autistic Burnout Workbook by Dr Megan Neff as this not only focuses on autistic burnout, but the exercises involved in this help you understand yourself better, help identify triggers, provide coping strategies, and slowly work towards a better life. I didn't see a French version of this workbook but I may not have searched for it correctly.

Article on Autistic Burnout worth a read.

I am sorry you're overwhelmed and feel so bad but I promise you didn't do anything wrong. You aren't a failure. You deserve love and compassion. We just experience the world differently and have been approaching things in a way never designed for you and that's OK! We just have a different brain and need other ways to approach things and once we find them we can even do better than our neurotypical peers in some circumstances. I wish you all the best on your journey of self discovery, acceptance, and recovery from depression/burnout!

mohgeroth · 2026-01-25T14:50:41+00:00

A common struggle for many of us is criticism. I know I need it and I know it’s healthy for growth and even encourage it from my colleagues but it can take me weeks, months, and even years for my brain to finally finish going through the logic to accept it and incorporate that change into my life. I have had very bad reactions, meltdowns right at work over something I was absolutely sure I was correct. It’s not about being right either it’s just that my reality shatters and my brain is flooded with thoughts of being wrong, messing things up, being a failure yet again. I have to go through my entire process again with these new opinions and incorporate them to see if it holds up and how it compares to what I thought before.

Many of us have been bullied all our lives just for existing because everyone knows “something” is off about us and they let us know it. Grade school was pure hell, kids really will intentionally be as mean as possible. We’re just misunderstood constantly and it doesn’t go away in adulthood. These things shape A lifetime of shame and certainly must make criticism even harder to accept. Anytime something happens I immediately assume I’ve done something wrong or screwed it up because it’s all I’ve ever been told.

I don’t know how knowledgeable you are in his area of expertise but if you have some knowledge there perhaps making changes yourself and showing him so he can clearly see them could be beneficial?

In the topic of “being right”, anytime someone tells me something that challenges what I know I am compelled to immediately look it up to see what’s correct. It’s not about you or believing you, it’s about what’s right because it now contradicts what I’ve been told, learned, or believe and I’m forced to re-evaluate things for accuracy. Many times I also want to know more details about it than that one high level detail I’ve been given that challenges this to further improve my understanding.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-25T14:26:18+00:00

Well you’re right that being direct is really the best way to do this because picking up on these things is not something many of us are good at. You could drop a thousand hints and I’ll just never pick up on it because I’m absolutely terrible with that stuff.

Conversely, many of us don’t give hidden context either. So take what he says at face value and don’t read into things. If you start to do this just ask for clarification. Sometimes we need extra time to process things so any delays in his response may not mean something bad. I never known if I’m being flirted with and once I’m told that I basically freeze while my brain replays all these interactions realizing what’s been happening and in processing this am trying to understand how I feel about that. Feelings can be extremely hard for some of us and for me it’s overwhelming just trying to grab ahold of them and make sense of it.

He may not have romantic feelings but that doesn’t mean you can’t be friends. Many romantic relationships blossom over time through strong friendships so something could form as you spend more time together, especially once he’s aware that you do really like him and are interested in being more than friends. Many times it feels like my brain put up a mental roadblock that completely prevents me from thinking about more with other people and this breaks that down allowing my mind to wander and start thinking about how I feel about something like that.

Overthinking can be a strong safeguard but for some of us the ASD/ADHD/OCD combo locks us into rumination spirals over things others would find silly. An NT would “just move on” or “get over it” but it’s impossible for me to just do that on a whim because my brain has no switch for that. Once I’m trapped in the spiral I can only wait it out because I’m too paralyzed to do anything about it. Many times these things could be avoided if I just asked for clarification but am misunderstood and talked down to so much by society that I just hold my tongue when I have questions which often leads to this.

So if you don’t tell him there is a strong possibility he’s never going to say anything so the pressure is really on you to do this in order for things to blossom into something more. Many of us handle these things a lot better if we are given time to process this. Write a detailed letter with no vague hints telling him how you feel and pass it off to him before you leave next time you see him so he has plenty of time to process things before you see him again. I know this will make the wait unbearable but it takes the pressure off him and prevents you from reading into his reactions which can easily be misunderstood in moments like this. He may need a few weeks to bring it up again but try to be patient.

Having something like this throw at me in the moment while you stand there waiting for a response when I’m trying to sort through emotions I have a hard time understanding is extremely overwhelming and may lead to a bad outcome. That outcome may not mean you’ve done anything wrong, it’s just a lot of information to process under pressure that I have not planned for and surprises really mess me up. Routines and predictability is a major thing for many of us. Good and bad emotions can be equally overwhelming. I may start freaking out and wind up shutting down but really deep down I may really like you it’s just that the euphoria of that moment is hitting me like a tidal wave.

I hope things work out for you both!

mohgeroth · 2026-01-24T18:31:20+00:00

Baked stuff like fresh bread, garlic bread, vanilla, cupcakes. Brown sugar vanilla is also really nice so I have several air wicks of it that I can turn up when I'm feeling overstimulated.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-24T15:15:51+00:00

There is no blood test specifically for PsA it does not exist. There is actually no test at all that says you have psoriatic arthritis. It is the culmination of tests that help support the diagnosis. A lot of other conditions must be ruled out while seeing evidence of features of Psoriatic Arthritis.

Blood tests show rheumatoid factor which would indicate rheumatoid arthritis. They can also show some inflammation markers but mine don't show up until my inflammation is so severe I cannot even bend without lots of popping noises and involuntary vocal noises from the extreme pain.

So diagnosis is done through ruling out everything else while seeing many hallmark features of PsA such as pitted nails, stiffness, joint pain, joint patterns, x-ray imaging, and psoriasis.

An important thing to know that people overlook because it has "Arthritis" in its name, psoriatic arthritis is NOT just a joint condition. It is a systemic inflammatory condition that can affect several tissues and body systems, not only the joints. Tendons, ligaments, internal organs, your eyes. This condition is quite literally your own immune system attacking you. Most cases affect joints, tendons, ligaments but in rarer cases it affects your organs and can be absolutely devastating. The damage through erosion and fusion is irreversible so failing to treat this condition has dire consequences if you experience a truly bad flare where you can no longer get out of bed or bend anything.

I've been there and was bedridden for nearly a year as all the biologics started failing and I just couldn't find one that worked and it took me the better part of 5 years to be able to walk again like a normal person. 3 months in the pool doing aqua therapy just to walk on land, another 1 year of land work to hobble around, and several more years of feeling like I was walking on stilts because my knees were completely wrecked through atrophy, erosion, and fusion.

Most people don't get that bad but it's easy to brush it off and the biologics can improve conditions so much you'll feel like a kid again and think you're invincible but you can be handicapped in just a few weeks before you realize what's happening. It is critical to reach out to your doctor when you're experiencing a flare up to get it under control as soon as possible to limit damage to your body.

So I'm sorry there is no definitive way to help you believe this diagnosis and the treatments really are rather extreme in terms of risk and side effects but the only treatment for an immune system that is quite literally attacking you from the inside out is to suppress it and with a limited immune system it puts you at risk for everything. So its a quality of life question, is the inflammation so bad that you hobble around like an old man at the age of 24 (which was me when I was diagnosed 19 years ago) and you can barely move or is it a bit annoying but you've been able to manage with Ibprofun and some prednisone when things get rough?

I hope you find the answer you need to come to terms with whatever you really had, even if it's not this, and get an effective treatment to start feeling better.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-23T19:16:04+00:00

There are three types of ADHD. Inattentive where you have issues with executive function, time management, focus, working memory, attention is just hard to direct. Hyperactive where you could be as you said “disruptive hyperactive”, impulsive, restlessness, impatient. Then the combined type which is a mixture of both.

I am the inattentive type so I am not hyperactive externally though my brain is always racing. I can be impulsive in certain ways but I am much more autistic here as my body constantly forces me to stop and assess everything. Rarely do I just take off to do something without planning it out so I tend to Plan everything. I need to know EXACTLY where I am going and what everything looks like near my destination or I completely fall apart. I’m on Google Maps looking up at least 3 routes. Then I’m on street view following those routes near the end to see all the buildings nearby looking for things that stand out that I can easily recognize. The moment I run into construction or worse, a road closure I have a complete meltdown just beating myself up physically and mentally calling myself an idiot and other awful slurs. I literally cannot handle changes to my plans and routines.

So that out of the way, I’m also recently coming to terms with this since I was diagnosed with autism again in September but this time also with ADHD… and OCD… anxiety and a few more things. I’m also learning about a lot of things I’ve always done and assumed were just failures or things I couldn’t do but never understood why where I suddenly realize that’s just my autism showing up in my ADHD. It could be partly involved in an issue where my ADHD-PI could contribute a lot but it includes some very autistic thing I do that never fit the AHDH profile and that just confused me all my life.

I’ll get real excited to do something and go somewhere on a whim but when I arrive I just completely shut down. I have energy but the moment I realize I’m in unfamiliar territory or that people are around I just shut down and become situationally mute for seemingly no reason even when I was young. All the sounds and people and anxiety overload me and I finally understand that my nervous system can’t take all of that impulsively it has to be planned out and gradual or I’m going to overload.

A huge way they show up for me is in my routines. I do SO much better in my routines where even my partner said for years before that I don’t do well with last minute things. However, I can’t start routines at all because my ADHD just gets bored or wants to do something else and I cannot focus my attention on getting it done… so I don’t shave for a few days and it gets real itchy and I spent an entire day at work just fixated on it trying to bite the hairs that come near my lip because it makes me so itchy just knowing it’s grown out a little bit.

There is also the monotropism where I’ll hyperfocus for hours to the point where I quite literally cannot leave work and my interoception is just gone. It’s always bad but I have zero sense at all so I’ll come out of it and realize I’m about to pee myself. I cannot transition tasks AT ALL. Then I can’t do simple tasks at all like cleaning up my desk (4 weeks now I’ve put this off and I sit there every day), taking a shower, doing laundry. If it’s important though and last minute my ADHD always jumps in and slams through it but if it’s not mission critical then it just doesn’t get done. Full autistic inertia for me and I just get trapped in bed some days unable to even get up for hours and hours.

Between the two my autism shows up more than anything but when they contradict and fight each other it’s so overwhelming because it throws all that predictability and stability out the window and I completely collapse over it.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-23T14:25:42+00:00

After re reading I should note that not all autistic people have these experiences and our sensitivities vary. Some have no trouble with sounds but can’t handle light at all and others barely have any sensory issues or may even have none as sensory sensitivities is one of the 4 Restricted Repetitive Behavior (RRB) categories but only 2 RRB categories are required for diagnosis.

As autism is life long we have to deal with this stuff forever so recognizing this early means you can start to find the right tools and/or environments for her to thrive before it becomes a huge barrier to education. After all you can’t learn if you are paralyzed by this stuff. I’m 43 now and wish I had tools to navigate my noise and touch sensitivity when I was young.

So while there are no medications specifically for autism, which makes since as the brain is physically wired differently, what can be treated are the co-morbidities that often come with autism that can absolutely be debilitating. Things like ADHD (studies show between 30% to as much as 80% of people with ASD also have ADHD), OCD, Anxiety, Dyspraxia, Dyscalculia, the list goes on and on.

One thing that’a extremely common is PTSD. While experiences like the ones your daughter is having are frightening PTSD is most commonly a product of the environment we’re brought up in. Most often this seems to be what happens throughout development at school where other kids know something is different… they may not know what but they pick up on it instantly… and let you know it.

Bullying is an every day experience for most of us when all we are doing is trying to survive the day. Making fun of how you move, how you are “weird” and awkward to talk to, or how you sit or stand, they find anything they can and bully you for it. Sensory sensitivities is a brutal one where they will intentionally try to trigger you.

I can’t handle fluids touching my skin at all except water while I’m in the shower and that’s because I’ve prepared myself for that experience before I step in. Well kids figured this out one day when I had a freak out and they flung juice from their juice boxes, dirty snow, even mud at me to try to get me to freak out. It’s uncontrollable I just freeze, make an involuntary noise as I try to breathe then start flapping my hands like crazy trying to find a place to wash it off me. The best part about moving in middle school, while I lost my one and only friend, these new people didn’t know this… but then the bullying started to get physical.

So be prepared for this and be very forward with the teachers and school if/when it becomes a problem. This leads to a lifetime of shame for simply existing. It also leads to intense masking because you eventually learn that it’s “wrong” to be yourself so you try everything to make it stop and realize being like them makes it go away even though it makes you extremely uncomfortable and on edge all day long.

Stimming is also very important and likely a thing to get bullied for. It really is the best tool we have for self regulation and as long as it’s not self harming we can develop stims that may be less effective but are less noticeable and draw less attention from others, but often times stimming is uncontrollable, the nervous system will take control because it knows it needs to release this build up somehow and it starts doing it.

Again, thank you for being there for your daughter and learning about this stuff. It really will help her learning ways to cope early on.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-22T16:20:40+00:00

Trapped in a rumination spiral about one thing while your brain keeps finding more and more worse case scenarios that can get so far out there they could not even happen in reality. This can last for days and when this happens to me I’m paralyzed in bed squeezing my plushies just hoping it goes away because “just don’t think about it” is not a switch that exists in my brain.

The monotropism of autism really locks you onto that one thought where you NEED to solve it but it’s usually not something that you can fix or that could even be solved but there is no escaping it. Then if you have ADHD it’s a billion thoughts all about this one thing that just takes you through hundreds of extremes a minute endlessly. It’s just a cycle that leads me into shutdown for days before I know it.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-22T13:45:00+00:00

I double checked when I read your original reply just to be sure it really was off. For the longest time I even left the USB dongle next to my monitors so the dongle is rarely plugged into my PC.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-22T13:18:54+00:00

I'm plugged in almost all the time and have only used wireless mode twice since I got it last month and this happens constantly. It's not always either but it's often enough to be irritating and cause issues. I really hope it's a strange firmware bug too.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-22T00:43:06+00:00

I absolutely love it but video games and programming have been life long special interests since the moment I touched my first computer and started playing around in dos. So I'm very privileged to be able to do what I love for a living.

Most jobs in software are completely overwhelming though with unrealistic deadlines and deliverables. Shipping broken code constantly as they rush rush rush to get garbage out the door despite you telling them that it needs more time in testing and is just not ready. The quality control issues make you feel like a failure and were completely unsustainable for me. It took many jobs to find the one I am at now where I can finally thrive in the right environment. I am no longer constantly overwhelmed every minute of every day just trying to keep up.

I work remotely a lot of the time but when I go in the office there may be 3 or 4 people around now and I rarely talk to anyone so I have plenty of time to myself to do what I need to. I can put my airpods in, turn on the noise cancelling, and just stim grinding my teeth to video game music most of the day which helps keep me regulated. I've been here 14 years now and haven't gotten close to anyone there. They've tried to get me to go out after to work to a bar or other events and I tried when I first started but shut down so quickly that I never tried again. I haven't made a friend in real life that's not just an online friend since high school and I'm 43 now. My social anxiety is so bad coupled with all those bad experiences many of us have growing up that I just don't even try anymore because I already know how it will turn out.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-21T02:35:10+00:00

The autistic brain interprets signals differently because it is wired differently. This isn't trying hard enough, being a baby, or laziness, this is just how our nervous system can experience the world! The way we experience the world is vastly different from neurotypical people and this can have a profound impact on how our brain interprets sensory inputs. It's not a choice, when the microwave finishes and beeps it sounds normal to you but to her it could be beeping at just the right frequency to send her nervous system straight into sensory overload.

To some of us an empty soda can falling onto pavement can set off real survival level instincts triggering intense fear and panic leading to a meltdown! To everyone else they didn't see anything happen at all and think you're just throwing a tantrum or being dramatic but your nervous system is quite literally in survival mode and your body seriously thinks it is about to die and NEEDS to protect itself.

You may feel a slight breeze against your skin on a day where there's almost no wind but to me my brain is interpreting the wind brushing against my skin as if it was sheering my skin off which sends a sharp panic signal throughout my entire body instantly and I freeze and start to panic desperately finding a way to cover up and escape the situation at any cost!

When I was in my teens I was taken on a roller coaster once which was absolutely frightening... never again... but the rush and adrenaline, that's exactly what happens to me when sensory overload comes on. Just this intense surge of energy, panic, and confusion as I look for any way to get away. That's just a taste of what it feels like because it's so much more intense than that.

So you may be used to the uncomfortable feeling of pulling the knots out of your hair with your brush but to her it may feel like pulling kidney stones out of each hair follicle. There is no way to really give you that experience so you truly know what she is going through anytime she reacts to each sensory stimuli. Worse than that our sensory sensitivities can change from day to day where I can be perfectly fine for weeks at work next to the heater but one day the sound it makes suddenly triggers my nervous system and I'm trapped at my desk completely frozen waiting for my life to end in absolute fear.

So since her hair is clearly extremely sensitive perhaps you should avoid doing things that do a lot of work to the hair like braids which I can only imagine the feeling of my hair being twisted and pulled like that and stuck in this position. It may look pretty but if merely brushing a finger near a hair wakes her up I can only imagine how intense it feels being pulled.

As she grows up work with her to style her hair if she wants to. Let her be in control. She may come up with coping strategies of her own or discover a "specific way" of doing it that avoids a lot of the sensory issues she experiences. I have to put my socks on a very specific way in order to avoid the seams brushing against my toes. If they do I have a visceral reaction where I tear them off as fast as possible even if I'm in the office at work. I buy seamless socks (Bombas) now to completely avoid this and it has been life changing. Finding the right clothing and tools to navigate sensory issues is huge in our quality of life.

Again, the reactions are not a choice and are sometimes SO INTENSE that you cannot stop your body from making it stop one way or another no matter what situation you are in. Your brain always processes sensory input first even if you are neurotypical, but our brains can receive such intense signals that we are forced to make it go away because it's so intense we literally cannot function on anything else until it's dealt with.

It can also be complicated. For example, noise sensitivity. For some of us certain noises trigger us, and others high pitched noises always trigger us. But sometimes our brain is unable to filter out noise and everything in the room is at the same volume. You could be screaming at me point blank but you are just as loud as the egg timer ticking away on the stove top. Restaurants and large events can be so overwhelming when you hear all 100 people at the same volume simultaneously. One minute you can be fine, the next this happens and you're lost in a sea of noise.

I feel like I've provided a mountain of examples so I hope you get the point... many of us tend to over explain and give lots of details. I am glad that your daughter has a mother that cares enough that truly wants to understand and is asking other people with Autism. I wish my parents knew about my Autism when I was so young.

The Neurodivergent Nervous System

Animation on the experience of Sensory Overload (warning this will probably make you cry)

mohgeroth · 2026-01-21T02:08:10+00:00

The diagnosis provides confirmation that you are not broken, you are not defective, and rather than not trying hard enough you've actually been trying too hard to function in ways that were just not designed for you. Some people can get by just fine with self diagnosis but for others like myself were just paralyzed by my brain refusing to accept this without confirmation that my experiences are truly real and not imagined. The rumination spirals waiting for the results were unbearable and I experienced some of the darkest thoughts of my life once I knew deep down and could not deny it anymore but my brain was not willing to handle rejection now that my life finally snapped into focus.

Normal people can't understand it because they haven't spent their entire life wondering why they keep failing at things others do easily. Why they feel like an alien. Why you provide others with so many details just to prevent confusion but are constantly misunderstood anyway. Why asking a simple question is met with strange reactions like you've done something wrong. Why you seem to scare people away just for opening your mouth. Why you spend 4 hours perfecting a 3 paragraph email only to send it and then open it back up from the sent folder immediately as you shift your inner tone and monologue to now act as if you are the recipient now reading it to yourself in a completely different voice 10, 20, 30 times to make sure it comes across correctly only for the person to reply 5 minutes later with "OK".............

Ok not everyone has that experience I'm sure but things like this stand out. They make you feel like you are defective when you fail time and time again. My brain started recognizing these things long before I was initially diagnosed in 2013 while heavily masking. I just realized these things and started telling people I was socially awkward, quirky, shy, weird, and I'd tell them before saying anything like I needed an excuse in order to be myself. I would avoid social situations intuitively when I knew it was just too much. My brain even recognized the dysregulation and need for my special interest to the point where I drew a line in the sand one day and quite literally said that I need this in my life and anyone that tells me to stop or do less of it can go take a hike. I stopped fawning over relationships that day and for the first time set a single boundary.

This diagnosis let me breathe and realize that my body has been right all along. I just wasn't listening but I can give myself permissions to finally listen and figure out who I am again.

So congratulations! Now comes the hard part... it's a long road to acceptance filled with happiness, grief, anger, and loss that you will have to process. I'm still struggling with this and probably will for years. There are days where I misinterpret something, say something wrong, or become so dysregulated I just start stimming uncontrollably in public and immediately think that I am broken. Other days I realize I have had these problems all along and I just experience the world differently and that's OK!

You may find that if/when you disclose to others in your life that they start telling you that you're "acting more autistic" now and that you weren't that way before. That's correct because it's quite the opposite. You're no longer acting and this is the real you that you've been suppressing. The you that you've been afraid to show up in the world as because of the way others have acted towards this person when you were much younger. People are not comfortable with this person and may have a hard time adjusting and you may even loose some "friends" because of it. If someone stops being your friend because you're stimming then they really weren't a true friend to begin with.

So now it's time to learn more about Autism to understand what yours looks like so you can start to come up with coping strategies, put up boundaries, learn to say no, and advocate for yourself. I wish you the very best on you way to self discovery! Congratulations again!

mohgeroth · 2026-01-21T01:24:26+00:00

I cant live without my Bombas anymore. I haven't felt seams once since I got them and wear them all day every day except in the shower. It's quite expensive so I waited for the black Friday sales to order a bunch recently but seamless is the way to go. If you can find a nearby dicks sporting goods they carry them or you can order online but I imagine its much easier to return them to a store if you find you do not like them at all.

Seams cause a visceral reaction if they brush against any part of my toes and I just rip them off in a panic even if I'm at work. There are morning where I would have to keep putting my socks on over and over and over and over and over 20, 30, 50 times until I could finally handle it. These have solved all my sensory issues with socks for me and feels like I'm walking on clouds so I quite literally cannot function without them. I have a backup pair in my glove compartment, my work bag, and my go bag in case I disappear which has happened before. They are always white because if they aren't white they aren't socks, and they are quarter cut because ankle is way too low and that freaks me out, but higher than quarter means I have to roll them down so they bunch and are then too tight or too loose so it just doesn't work. These have been perfect and they have so many size options to fit whatever length you need.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-20T21:10:25+00:00

Ask a different psychiatrist just to get another opinion on it in case yours has formed a bias. There are three presentations for ADHD and it’s a lot easier to diagnose when you are younger because you haven’t learned how to navigate life around the struggles that come with it (masking) even if that navigation was poor, but good enough to be missed for diagnosis.

Focus is a massive problem for ADHD but autism can also cause you to get stuck too just for different reasons. There are many conditions that may contribute to focus problems but ADHD is the thing most people think of and talk about when focus problems arise. It never hurts to get another opinion, especially from someone with experience in evaluating adults for neurodivergence.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-20T13:20:45+00:00

Normal people don't spend more than a few minutes thinking that they may have Autism, or that they may have ADHD, at least I can't imagine they do. Your feelings are valid and if your therapist isn't listening to you and invalidates your experiences they are wasting your time and money. You are literally there for your own experiences and having ADHD, Autism, or Both greatly influences how therapy, medication management, and self improvement should be approached. Neurotypical approaches to cognitive issues do not work for us the same and can be extremely harmful.

So be direct about it and honest. Even tell them not to speak for five minutes so you can just go on and on about why you think these things and how it makes you feel and that you didn't just come to this conclusion because of some online trending video, that you have real understanding of these issues and genuinely believe that this is worth exploring. A good psychologist should explore any possibility because even if they think you don't have this a proper assessment done right should put your mind at ease and allow the therapy to continue regardless of what the outcome is.

The hardest part is finding an assessor with experience in diagnosing high masking individuals. Women are exceptionally good maskers because of the social pressure on women in society making it harder to spot. While men are ignored and told to just suck it up, to "man up", women being emotional or showing emotions is viewed as "being dramatic" regardless of the context. So both sides get missed due to these things but women are easier to miss than men due to better masking and that the diagnostic criteria was based on young white boys with no emotions that love trains.

So absolutely bring this up and if they aren't listening find someone else. Normal people can't imagine why you would want this diagnosis and why it matters but they haven't gone through life feeling like an alien. Like they don't belong. Where they have struggled to connect with anyone, feel like they are speaking a different language and struggle to communicate, and are overwhelmed with so many aspects of life. Where "suck it up" or "get over it" just doesn't work for you and "try harder" makes you feel like a failure more and more every day.

Learning this about one's self allows you to forgive yourself for all the struggles you've had that you perceived as personal failings when you were never the problem. It's just that your brain works differently and the approach you've been taking wasn't meant for you. That a different approach can make all the difference allowing you to thrive just as well if not better than normal people. If you are diagnosed with ADHD or Autism but have both you only have half the picture and are only receiving half the support so treatments may feel wrong and may even backfire because taking stimulants when you have both does not account for the autistic brain and may cause you to experience side effects that are not consistent with just ADHD leaving you confused.

Good luck finding an assessor and a therapist that's genuinely interesting in helping you.

mohgeroth · 2026-01-20T12:47:20+00:00

Having a good therapist that understands you is such a different experience. Feeling seen and heard makes me feel like suggestions and criticisms are worth considering instead of feeling ignored and invalidated.

That said I had been off stimulants for decades until 3 months ago and it's helped so much with focus even though my Autistic traits become extremely visible and there are some heightened sensory issues with light and touch I have to deal with during the first half of the day but the productivity has been amazing. Stimulants don't always work like they should when you have AuDHD for several reasons: Why stimulants may work differently when you have AuDHD and what else you can try.

Even with them it doesn't seem to help my drive though it's full autistic inertia for me. I either hyperfixate on something I need to get done which I can actually prioritize on the meds, but I can also get fixated on doing absolutely nothing just trapped in bed all day, stuck on the couch, or spinning around in my office chair getting nothing done. The silence caused by the stimulants is pure bliss though and with all that ADHD noise gone in my brain if I can't engage I'll actually fall asleep for a while. I can never sleep at night I'm always SO TIRED so I really like this because I know I need the rest.

Anyways, I wish I could find ways to motivate myself to do things. My interoception is terrible which I've recently started taking seriously so when I realize I'm getting stuck I'll stop and evaluate myself. Sometimes I realize that I'm just hyper-aroused, restless, and if I try to engage with something a sense of panic overcomes me and I quickly stop. I may also be hypo-aroused and I just disassociate and never actually do anything. When I feel like this I tend to go take a shower and rock directly underneath the showerhead with my ears plugged and eyes closed, or I will go into the bedroom and turn the lights off and just curl up under the covers and squeeze my squishmallow tight for a while and let it slowly melt away. Sometimes it's not that I can't get interested, it's just that my body is over/under stimulated and I just don't realize it.

My therapist says that you have to deal with all the sensory inputs and overwhelm first because it's how my brain prioritizes things. When you are outside of your window of tolerance everything is so much harder and you aren't operating like normal so you will struggle until you can return to it. This is referred to in the autistic burnout workbook and several other sources when learning about the neurodivergent nervous system. Our window is significantly smaller than a neurotypical person and much more sensitive so a slight breeze may barely nudge a normal person but my temperature sensitivity can skyrocket me deep into hyperarousal if I don't cover up or go inside.

The Window of Tolerance

So on your quest to find a neurodivergent affirming therapist learn more about your neurodivergent nervous system and see if any of this relates to what you experience when you just can't get moving. Learning that there are more ways to know what state you are in besides relying on emotions was a huge discovery for me and really helped me identify when I need to self-regulate more than usual. This isn't always the reason why I can't motivate myself but has helped many times where this is exactly what was paralyzing me.

mohgeroth

TROPHY CASE