This my response to the above article. I think it is so important to not take this to heart…. Learning of my ADHD, led me to improve so much of my life, as I stopped trying to change who I was and to put all that wasted energy into working with it, and knowing when to stop fighting it.

For me to accept myself as ok was huge, this is real, and I. Am not a fad.

yes I need to manage it, to be successful in This world, but not 100% all the time, cause most of the time ADHD is fricken fun as hell.

So here’s my response …..

I don’t care how smart you are, how much education you have, clinical experience you have, you have no right to make this absolute statement.

Just because you have not seen it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. Nothing is an absolute, and for you to put this out there as some kind of Truth?

To some, I have had a successful life, but to say this dooms all that suffer with ADHD to NEVER be successful?????

To tell someone that because they were successful you never had the thing that made it so hard to succeed?

WHAT THE HOLY HELL.

I have struggled my entire life, I have had to fight myself every day and still do.

But to the outside I have been successful. This smacks of old school thinking. I am a girl, and your article screams of your bias as your examples are of he… him… then at some point you switch to they and them.

No I was not diagnosed as a child. Because in the 60’s and 70’s girls couldn’t have this brain type. But I had it, still have it, I was not successful in my peer relationships, I struggled in school, I didn’t learn to read until I was in 2nd grade, and only because a teacher took individual time to get me there .

I could list a thousand examples from my childhood and adulthood that match up with your outdated criteria, but I would never had been diagnosed. But I have been successful based on a standard of our society. Both my boys are diagnosed. One is truly struggling , the other is still young, but struggled to graduate high school.

This article is super Argh.

Doing the research to understand High Masking — Female Autistic Brains and how they are a structural difference has been a AH HA — moment in changing the way I communicate with my Partner of 20 years.

(This is my first post, go easy on me)

My husband would be on the opposite side of me on the bell curve when it comes to “analyzing” and “emoting”.

We recently had a breakthrough last month. I finally figured out I was Autistic (about 1 year ago, and just recently started diving into the research). There were now FACTS for why I reacted this way or that. (Got to love that black and white thinking)

I started to look at things differently…

I began to realize that some of the things I weakly asked for from my husband (in the previous years) in the way of communication, or reassurance- was not just a want, but a need, and I had every right to ask for them. (when I didn’t get them, I would just drop it, and try to “suck it up”)

He did have the right to deny those requests, but I had to give him enough information as to the level of need, for him to make an informed decision to try and meet those needs, or explain why he would not, instead of just assuming he didn’t care.

I needed to be firm with him in “this part of our communication style has to change”.

We are just beginning to start to discuss how we want the next 20 years to go. He is seeming to be open to it. What I had to learn was that I needed to be OK with demanding (and I mean demanding, but in a nice way) I NEED THIS (because my brain needs it).

From childhood I was taught that I didn’t deserve to ask for things and when I did, it was made crystal clear I should feel guilty for “wanting”, “asking” and thereby “making” my mother do things for me or give me things I needed.

I was brought up by a narcisstic mother, who taught me that to be happy I had to make the other people in my life happy. My needs were always last on the list. This bled into all my relationships, so I let him walk all over my needs, as I thought I was just being “sensitive” or “needy”.

Yes I am aware that my lack of lizard brain knowledge that I have needs that should be met regardless of being ND or not is a serious issue, that is for another discussion and dissection. (Baby steps. folks)

Now I know that I need certain things, or need to avoid certain things, because they actually make me “dysfunctional”, and it is ok to ask that my husband give me the grace and understanding to help me by not teasing me on certain things, not take it personal when I don’t want to do things he enjoys, and how to not make a stressful situation worse. (I am still trying to figure out all the things that cause A or B, or C….). So it is going to be my responsibility to communicate clearly what I have learned.

I also had to give him Grace and understanding for his brain wiring, and that he is most likely never going to start a conversation when we are having an issue. I will have to be the one that says, “something is wrong”, and try not to respond with a REJECTION AVOIDANCE response when he tells me something he is not happy with me about. And remind my brain that him not bringing it up doesn’t mean he doesn’t care.

I was waiting for him to start the conversation that he was unhappy with the relationship and wanted to work on making it better. That would prove he loved me. (goofy brain thought)

I held out for a year.

Never happened.

Finally I asked “what the heck is up?”

Scariest thing I have ever done. I had mourned our relationship for years, thinking it was over, That we were ok to just be friends, I pulled back, I retreated. He retreated more, I took that as rejection, and retreated more… and so on.

and when I finally asked, he said,

“Oh I thought we were going to have to talk about this at some point, with our youngest graduating, that we needed to figure out, negotiate how we wanted to be a couple if we were going to stay together or decide to split.”

I wont go into the long talk details, but we agreed we needed to start communicating again, and worked on some ground rules, and I was informed that he still wanted to be with me, and loved me. (YEAH my brain did not think that was even on the menu)

So I have been doing a lot of reading on this site and others, and tons of thinking and if I am going to ask him to make accommodations for my ND brain going forward, that I need to also make accommodations for him, in regards to his brain (be it ND or NT…who knows? He doesn’t seem to feel the need to figure that out). He is good at certain things, and I am good at others. we are really very opposite, but have very aligned core values.

Bringing up tough emotional subjects is not one of his skills. If I can get over my fear of rejection, then I am the risk taker on the emotional side…. (thank you ADHD).

I had to re-write the script in my brain “him not bringing up how he feels about me doesn’t mean he doesn’t love me” and change it to this is the thing I can bring to the table. “asking the hard questions, and being brave”.

It is OK for me to bring it up, and I need to be firm on what I need. His part will be to honor those needs, if he can, and tell me why he can’t.

I realize now I will most likely need to be the one to force him to tell me what he ACTUALLY needs as well, cause damn I can’t guess,

I don’t even really know who I am right now, so I need concrete information from him.

I have a hard enough time figuring out my constantly changing feelings and needs, trying to guess his with little or no feedback from him, has not gone well in the past. ( I will always guess the worst possible)

I have complained numerous times that I was so tired of being the one responsible for Pulling information out of him and Pushing information at him. If he loved me he would tell me.

He is starting to be better about responding that he received communication, so he is trying. I am learning to be brave and push him to be be more clear, clarify what he meant, etc,

The biggest “ping” moment of finding out I am autistic, is that — IT is the right and correct thing to continue to PUSH for clarification, because now I KNOW I need to have that or my brain will “go to the dark side” (as he describes it) and fill in any blanks with the worst possible conclusion.

He needs to be patient and answer my questions as detailed as possible without “jokes”. I need to be brave enough to ask them.

I think things are going to get better, we are at 20 years, and heading into the empty nest stage, but we have agreed to a re-negotiation of the ground rules going forward in the next stage of our life.