I got the diagnose of autism but I don’t know if I’m ADHD. But now I’m kind of worried because I see this relation pretty often, it feels like you must have ADHD if you have autism.
How do you know you have ADHD (except consulting a doctor)?
I got the diagnose of autism but I don’t know if I’m ADHD. But now I’m kind of worried because I see this relation pretty often, it feels like you must have ADHD if you have autism.
How do you know you have ADHD (except consulting a doctor)?
As others have mentioned, there are lots of genetic links between the two. So a lot of Autistic ppl would also have ADHD (as well as a bunch of other interesting neurodivergent traits), but it is definitely not guaranteed. I am actually such an example… I have diagnosed ASD lvl 1 & have some ADHD-esque traits, but I do not meet the diagnostic criteria & thus do not have ADHD
To add to this discussion… unfortunately there aren’t good ways to tell if one has ADHD except for consulting a psychiatrist. It’s probably a good idea to not rely on self-diagnosis too, since ADHD does have medical interventions, but a good number of them are controlled substances and probably realllly shouldn’t be taken by just about anyone
My hope is… I think most psychiatrists know the strong relations, so hopefully a good psych would have at the minimum also checked for ADHD while diagnosing for Autism…? Although to be honest, my first psych didn’t do it either. I later went for a separate comprehensive psych eval for ADHD+others, which did just about everything under the sun… (ASD, ADHD, anxiety, IQ, psychopathy, aphantasia, alexythymia, reaction speed, …)
Until recently the DSM said you couldn’t have both at the same time and that they were mutually exclusive.