#self-diagnosed

One super unique and amazing aspect of this survey is that it does NOT require you to be formally diagnosed! (and you will not be asked to provide documentation) If anything, Ben really REALLY wants self-diagnosed people to participate as well, as a big part of his research is to better understand how much of our understanding of autism might be skewed by metrics outside of the science - such as accessibility to healthcare and autism screenings, financial coverage, etc. (all of which are very prevalent factors in whether or not someone is able to get diagnosed, especially in adulthood).

While this survey is being conducted by a Canadian UNB (University of New Brunswick) PhD student, you do NOT have to be Canadian to participate! The only qualifiers are:

You must be at least 19 years of age or older

You must identify as autistic (formal diagnosis NOT required and you will not be asked to provide documentation if you have one)

You don't have a co-occurring intellectual disability (ex. Down's Syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Delay, and other developmental delay disorders that are typically diagnosed prior to age 18; this is simply to keep the survey focused on autism so as to not skew the results!)

There's quite a bit of ground to cover in this survey, so if you plan on participating, expect it to take 20-30 minutes to complete! (that said it should also save your progress for you if you can't do it all at once, so long as you access the link from the same browser!)

In continuation to my vent from the other day about my parents' reaction to the SEN department at my school saying that I might have AuDHD and that I should consider getting a diagnosis, in the conversation.that followed between my parents and I, they also started listing 'personal failings' and personality traits that I need to work on, including not isolating myself from people (which I usually do because of overstimulation as a result of AuDHD), being more sociable (again, I'm autistic, what do you expect?) and having more patience (ADHD, babes, go die in a ditch).

Coming back to more recent times and conversations, on Tuesday, my parents said that we would first go on a walk, have lunch and then return to the hotel where we are currently staying at (presumably at around 1 or 1:30 pm). However, due to the original walk being shorter than expected, we then ended up having lunch and having an additional 2 hour walk afterwards, even though my brother and I were both really tired and bored.

It feels really dumb to type out, but that whole change of plans, as well as the fact that we had to continue walking and could not return to the hotel yet, somehow led to me having a meltdown (I think), though I tried my best not to let it show. Ultimately, this failed and I was still really irritable towards my parents, though I did actually try my best to control it (I ended up just leaving and going to cry in the bathroom).

Anyway, afterwards, my father basically tried to start a whole entire new conversation with me (as in, he started lecturing me again and completely disregarding the fact that I'm neurodivergent, because clearly I'm just making that up in order to be interesting) and he essentially said that I need to learn how to relax (which I honestly find really difficult due to my ADHD) and that I need to have proportionate reactions to things such as plans changing (I think I was literally having a meltdown and I was really struggling to regulate my emotions).

The first option I got was Autism Speaks.

Not sending a message/thought in a group chat until someone else does first because I don’t know what the “appropriate” amount of time to wait to switch topics is (especially if the previous topic was sad/heavy or celebratory).

Full-on copying wording and movement from employers/people of authority because anything they did without being judged for got added to the “socially acceptable in this context” list.

Waiting until I was alone to jump up and down, shake, or squeal.

An infinite amount of other things I will continue to notice and recognize.

I'm not sure if your comment about this hat was rhetorical but I did find it for you none the less.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Undiagnosed%2C+But+I%27m+Pretty+Sure+Hat&crid=3LTAZ2QXD8JI1&sprefix=undiagnosed%2C+but+i%27m+pretty+sure+hat%2Caps%2C227&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

And if you don't mind me asking, I'm a bit curious and would love to know what you're undiagnosed but pretty sure about? Only if you wish to share of course.

If it was only a rhetorical comment then pretend I was never here! ;)

And Thank You for blessing us all with your wonderful stories and art. :)

Lol thank you!

And to answer your question: I’m pretty sure I have ADHD. I’ve been pretty sure since I was 16, after watching a video where this Youtuber described their symptoms. And at first I was like “Wow he and I do a lot of the same stuff, but I know better than to just trust a random video online about my mental status!” And then he said “Oh yeah also when I eat sugar or drink caffeine it actually has the opposite effect and makes me really sleepy” and that was when I knew I was screwed. I’d been telling people about this crazy phenomenon since I was seven years old. That was when I first suspected that I had ADHD.

Years later while I was in college, I had to do a study on a mental disorder/disability/illness for my psychology class, and I chose ADHD because it had always fascinated me regardless. So my professor gave me a site that listed pretty much 100 symptoms and side effects of ADHD for me to look over…. And I had all of them. Every. Single. One.

So… yeah, I’m not clinically/officially diagnosed, but I’ve been pretty dang sure for a while now!

I also wonder if I might be autistic as well, but I’d want to study that further before I make an undiagnosis since ADHD and autism share a lot of similarities and symptoms.

And also because the class was in an art school, we had to make an art piece based off of what we chose so here was what I did (under cut)