Anxiety is an common companion to many other neurodivergent conditions.

This could be neurological or genetic in some capacity; however, anxiety is often a learned coping response to barriers we experience or social consequences we face due to our neurodivergent needs

My ADHD ass: I should screenshot this so that I remember it later.

The later in question: The heat death of the universe

Breaking habits can be just as much of a struggle for ADHD'ers as starting new ones.

Changing behaviour we've deeply ingrained requires mindfulness, consistency, and executive function; all things ADHD'ers can struggle more with than non-ADHD'ers

lol true. Very true

Cognitive flexibility is a necessary part of coping with ambiguity and uncertainty, but cognitive flexibility is harder for some people than others.

Autistic people, ADHD'ers, and others who struggle with black-and-white things can often find ambiguity hard to deal with for this very reason

No one talks about how being diagnosed ADHD and/or autistic makes you realize that your parents have been rawdogging their neurodivergences like it's an olympic sport

Even though my life is very self-structured, self-initiating is still one of my AuDHD biggest challenges.

Body doubling with a partner in crime, so to speak, who starts similar tasks at the same time or works in parallel with me, has been such an lifechanging strategy to help with this

Many autistic people experience heightened perception of sensory input AND increased sensitivity.

This means we may notice sensations before other people do, AND small changes in the intensity of sensations may be more noticeable to us than they are for allistic people

Me, watching everyone else seemingly understanding what's expected of them in a social situation: …how do you do that!? O_O Teach me!

Them: …do what? why are you so weird…

Me: T-T

Processing sensory input differently is a major feature of autism and one that fundamentally changes our experience of the world around us.

Situations that are fun, safe, or soothing for allistic people may be unbearable, painful, or dangerous to us… and also vice versa

Being autistic and/or ADHD can MASSIVELY impact our decisionmaking.

Decisionmaking is a core executive function, requiring energy, concentration, working memory, and cognitive processing.

Having barriers to any of these makes decisionmaking much more taxing. Guess who has barriers for all of them?

Conversation and communication are so much more than just the words we're saying.

Yes, even in autistic communication.

Getting a point across to another person is actually a REALLY difficult task. It's okay if it requires multiple interactions sometimes to accomplish that

Speedrunning the development of an ideal routine is almost never successful.

New habits take energy and executive function; so, adding a bunch at once isn't sustainable. This is true for anyone, but ADHD'ers have fewer resources to add new habits, and are more prone to this all-or-nothing approach

Our behaviour is influenced by our environment, and doubly so for ADHD'ers.

This means that changing our environment, and the cues that exist within our environment, can be a powerful path to changing our behaviour

Them: You're gifted. Here's a bunch of extra math and science work to keep you entertained.

Me: Woohoo~ This totally makes up for my struggles with social relationships, task initiation, and time management. Thanks

Being autistic changes our relationship with routine.

Routines and predictability reduces processing demands, and this is true for everyone. When processing demands are constantly threatening to overwhelm us, as they do for many autistic people, routine are necessary to feel safe from this overload

New sensory experiences can be extremely stressful when your relationship with the sensory world exists in extremes.

This new food could be bliss and become a new hyperfixation… or it could emotionally ruin me on ever having had a tongue, but no inbetween

The way to meaningful address rejection sensitivity is to understand and internalize the fact that rejection is not fatal.

The pain it causes is real and can't be magically erased, but it also doesn't need to be. You can experience that pain and still have fulfilling life and relationships

The fact that we aren't treating the ADHD medication shortages and the miles' long waitlist for ADHD/autism assessments as the healthcare crises that they are makes me so angry.

We need to take healthcare for neurodevelopmental conditions seriously

Self-awareness and reflection are always the first step to self-improvement, and I don't mean just being aware that something went badly.

We need to have a theory as to why it went badly, so we can try differently next time, and that takes deeper, and sometimes more painful, self-exploration

Artistic recreation of sinosauropteryx, a small dinosaur with brownish red feathers down it's back and alternating bands of white and brown feathers down it's tail. Photo credit: Julius T Csotonyi/Science Photo Library

Small talk in a neurotypical world: "Hi, how are you?" "Good, and you?" "Good"

Small talk in an autistic world: "Hey~ Did you know that many dinosaurs had feathers!? Look at this cute little guy!!"

Increased awareness of ADHD, Autism, and neurodiversity is objectively a good thing, but that's only the first step. We also need normalization.

Normalization of different ways of thinking. Normalization of divergent learning styles. Normalization of accommodations and treatment

ADHD brains often like to jump from one thought to another through loose association rather than concrete linear thinking.

Recalling this information later, then, could require seemingly random association.

In my experience, this is super confusing to people who don't experience it

Getting started with tasks is such an internal process.

We can look like we're just sitting around doing nothing, but internally we can fighting an almighty fight to get the ball rolling.

This is real, actual, hard internal work, not being lazy. I promise you

Good coping strategies for ADHD, autism, or many other neurodivergent conditions are never about pretending our struggles don't exist.

Having good coping strategies requires us to acknowledge our struggles as normal aspects of our lives

Rejection sensitivity isn't just about our reactions after the fact. It also changes how we interact in the first place.

This is because there's a outsized fear that we could lose something or be emotionally hurt in otherwise non-threatening interactions. It puts us on the defensive early and often

Allistic person: [something vague and somewhat rude]

Autistic person: "I'm confused. Could you clarify what you mean?"
Allistic person: "Stop picking a fight over this?"

Autistic person: "I'm sorry, I just don't understand. I'll stop"
Allistic people watching: "Stop being so passive aggressive"

Mindfulness is such an important skill for coping with the rejection sensitivity or big, fast emotions that are so common to ADHD.

Being able to experience these emotions without them consuming us, gives us the opportunity to pause and get some space instead of responding out of raw emotion

"If you have ADHD reduce distractions." Yeah, that works… to a point.

But sometimes removing stimulation actually makes it harder to focus, not easier. Understimulation is a major risk for ADHD'ers and can just as big of a barrier as distraction can be

The difference between our ADHD being a reason for our behaviour vs an excuse is our relationship with accountability.

If we are willing to take accountability for our actions and continue to improve ourselves, we aren't making excuses, we're explaining our behaviour