Tag: neurodiverse person

October 4, 2025 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

Earlier this year, I saw a post on Bsky complaining about someone with ADHD ‘treating them badly,’ by not contacting them for months. To me, a person with ADHD, that’s like criticising a blind person for being vision impaired. The post suggested that maybe that person should not be in a relationship with someone who has ADHD. Because they have zero understanding of how ADHD impacts that person, and they don’t know what they signed up for by being in that relationship. In this blog, I’d like to note some of my major ADHD traits and how they can impact my relationships. I hope this helps increase awareness among neurotypical people in relationships with ADHDers. And I hope it helps provide clarity for fellow ADHDers, for ADHD Awareness Month and beyond.

Time Blindness, To When I Last Saw You

The reason I said criticising a person with ADHD for not contacting you for say six months (which is not super long time for someone with ADHD), is because of time blindness. I can feel like I saw that person recently. It was a few weeks ago, or a couple of months, or three, or something like that. I don’t actually know how long it was. I’d have to almost literally get out a calendar and count weeks/ months. And yes, it WILL be longer than I thought, possibly double or even triple the time. I often simply do not perceive how much time has passed.

The other half of time blindness is when I work out that I haven’t called one of my parents for two or three months and have been meaning to. “I must call them,” I think. Then I get busy, distracted. Again, I think, “I must call them.” Its only a week I’ve been meaning to call them? Or was it two? Three? Oh dear, it might have been more like six!

Time Blindness, To Me

Its not that time doesn’t exist. To me its more like anything beyond a week is abstract and increasing vagueness. I can perceive the passage of two weeks, three, a month as if they are exactly the same passage of time. They feel it and I recall them the same way as each other. I can go weeks, even months without properly perceiving time.

So it may be that I’ve no idea if it was weeks or months since I saw you last. I feel like it was four weeks, but it could have been four months. Its not that I don’t care about you. Its that to me it hasn’t been much time at all. So I don’t miss you yet and I’m not rushing to my phone to contact you.

How Can You Perceive Months as Weeks?

Hyper Focus

I can only focus on and do one big thing properly at a time. I can teach students that day, or I can work on my novel that day. It doesn’t matter that I have three hours where I’m not teaching or running errands. I cannot hold all the teaching and student knowledge, and all my characters, world building and plot knowledge in my head on the same day. Or any of five working days of the week, when I was teaching full time. When its the working week; I am thinking about work. I barely give a thought to people I don’t live with, who aren’t relevant to work. There is very little space in my head for them too; my head is stuffed full.

ADHD Sensory Overload & Not Thinking of You

Another thing to be aware of for people with ADHD, is that we, as the psychologist who diagnosed me explained it; do not filter out excess information properly; ever. The extent to which we notice EVERYTHING, every moment, all day long, varies between people with ADHD (and energy levels etc). But in my kitchen, if I look at the floor, I perceive every single crumb, or tiny drip of whatever. All of them, all at once. When I’m in a room full of people, I hear every single voice. All at once. If people are standing close enough to me, I can partly listen to two conversations simultaneously. Sometimes its hard not to.

So as a primary school teacher, I spend my whole day aware of every child and their every movement. And the placement of chairs not pushed in, of objects not put away… around there I hit sensory overload. Sometimes students leave the room and THEN I notice they left rubbish on the floor. And that’s just the visual overload. Again, I can hear them all talking. I notice that child seems unwell. That one is tired and that one is upset. That one needs social support to work with their group, that one is too loud, that one is unfocused.
(Yes, I also have autism and it can be hard to tell the difference between ‘ADHD sensory and information overload’ and ‘autistic sensory overload,’ if such a distinction exists.)

ADHD, Cognitive Overload & Not Thinking of You

My entire day at work is an endless stream of excessive sensory information. And that doesn’t account for conversations. I hear everything that child said about why they struggled with the task, or to work in a group. And I notice their body language, and their word choices, and what they didn’t say. Then I inferred and I reasoned. I drew conclusions. And I might do this for at least one student, possibly three or four, every hour of all five hours I teach a day. (No, this is not the core focus of what I’m teaching or checking the learning of all twenty something students on, this is on top of that.)

By the end of my work day, especially if I didn’t take my ADHD medication, hell on a busy day, even if I did; I am at sensory input overload. I am at cognitive processing of information overload. All I want is to come home, sit on the couch, or go for a walk and zone out. I need to rest and recharge. The last thing I am thinking about is that friend or family member I haven’t called, for I don’t know how long.

Object (& Concept) Permanence

Now you’ve got a clearer understanding of how overloaded I am when I come home from work, imagine how I’d react if the first thing you ask me is, “Did you do thing?” At this point I am so overloaded that I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t even remember that we own a bicycle. Why on Earth would I have thought to pump up its tyres?

People with ADHD often joke that we forget things exist, or that concepts, or social practices, even practical solutions for physical or digital problems exist. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I figured out the hard way to solve a problem. A big part of it is being so overloaded that all the sensory and cognitive information starts to overflow from my brain. I cannot hold onto it, I cannot be aware of it.

Worst case scenario, I’m so overloaded that I don’t even recall which strategies I already tried to solve the problem. I can alternate between attempting multiple already failed strategies, multiple times, and continue not solving the problem over and over. As you may imagine, the latter is overwhelming, stressful, FRUSTRATING and tends to lead me to autistic meltdowns.

Regular Overload =Regular Forgetfulness

When I am writing my novel at home, the sense of everything I need to recall about characters, and world building and plot is too much and is flowing out of my brain, which cannot hold it all, is my cue to take a lunch break. Or to go for a walk/ or exercise to clear my head. I hit this point regularly on writing days my twenties, and often in my thirties. It was part of my standard writing routine. I would write until I forgot who was where, doing what, why or what I intended to come next. I would write myself into a state of total cognitive overload, on a daily basis, on school holidays.

At that stage I cannot properly recall or think about anything. I’m in a state of increasingly worse ADHD brain fog and executive dysfunction. A state of extreme forgetfulness. Now is not the time to talk to you about anything that matters. I may not even make sense when I talk to you. And I definitely cannot meaningfully, let alone accurately, process what you are saying.

For me exercise works at this point because I allow myself to totally and utterly forget everything. Its like freeing up space on an overcrowded hard drive, lightening the cognitive load so my brain can function again. (At this point my autistic desire to stick to the plan, which is to finish the one big project for that day, kicks in, and I am still not picking up the phone and calling you. I attempting to write again. After that; I need rest because I have cognitively exhausted myself, again).

Overload, Stress & Cognitive Inability

Imagine you didn’t know all the above me. I’m so overloaded I can’t tell you half of anything I know about literally anything. I can barely think straight. And you make a demand of me. I might burst into tears, throw my hands up in the air, tell you to leave me alone or otherwise snap back at you. It may seem like an emotional outburst that comes out of nowhere. It isn’t (though it does resemble my autistic meltdowns, which are also usually caused by cognitive overload and me being unable to do something I REALLY want done, hours ago, because of it).

As a blunt autistic person I might tell you some of the above. I may straight out tell you, “I cannot talk about this thing now because my brain is not working properly.” It isn’t that you don’t matter. Nor is it that I don’t value you or the thing. It is that I cognitively cannot right now.

I would like to note at this point that I have been told by many people that I’m very articulate. I’m very able to say how things are for me and I have a very clear understanding of myself. Its likely that the ADHD (or autistic) person in your life, or you yourself, if its you! are not (yet/ ever) so clear. So I say all this to raise possibilities and make you aware of what could be going on, in your interactions with/ as an ADHD person.

Distraction & Routine -Still Haven’t Called You

Honestly, the only reason I don’t regularly go a year or more without contacting friends and family I genuinely like/ love/ want to spend time with, is because I’m a primary school teacher. Luckily in Australia, that means my working year is divided into quarters, with at least two week breaks between each. That means I have two weeks of not hitting sensory and info overload every work day. And I’m not spending every evening and most of my weekends recharging. So I can stop and think; who did I last see when? Who do I need to contact?

(This is also when I do personal chores that are not day to day, and periodic jobs like spring cleaning.) If my parents don’t contact me or organise something with me, and its left for me to initiate; I would see them four times a year.

Another factor in this is routine. Somewhere along the way (the habit was damaged by several years of chronic illness after long covid), my routine became contact and catch up every school holidays. Try and keep an eye on time and not go more than two months without seeing, or at least calling my parents. When those routines/ habits are disrupted, ADHD distractibility keeps me busy.

Distractibility -Its not That You Don’t Matter

I can’t tell you how many times said I would do something for someone, and then did it hours or days later than I said. And that’s possibly with reminders from them because I totally forgot (multiple times).

In-the-moment things other people want of me, that I cannot immediately do, are a CHALLENGE to recall the existence of, let alone actually do. (Yes, even if I did take my ADHD meds that day.) For example, the little request a child took five seconds to make of me immediately gets pushed aside by five other students needing things I take thirty minutes to provide them with. The five second request doesn’t even enter my short term memory (unless I write it down). I ‘recalled’ it no longer than it took the student to say it, and me to think, “I must do that thing.”

For bigger, more important things, it could be that I fully intended to help plan that holiday with you. But I was busy, and sensory and information overloaded during my working week. There wasn’t enough time away from that, to exercise and clear my head. To dump out the work stuff and properly think about and help you plan that holiday. Yes, including on the weekend. You matter, the holiday matters; so I want to plan it properly; when I’m focused. Not when overloaded and with my brain split in multiple directions to meet other deadlines.

Responsibility and Realistic Expectations

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying, “I didn’t do this because ADHD, therefore its fine and nothing more is required of me.” I am saying how hard it is. How much energy, effort and discipline, and ultimately sheer stubbornness it takes to work around sensory overload, around cognitive overload, and time blindness, to stop hyper focusing on the big important thing I really need to get done… to pick up the phone and call you. Its a ‘small, simple thing’ and the straw that broke the camel’s back. Or I manage to set aside my cognitive load and make that call, but it takes A LOT of effort. It takes time to meet my deadlines, finish other big things and give you/ the thing you want done my full attention, as I wish to. It will happen, with me organising us catching up, but less often than you may anticipate or want. Guaranteed.

If that doesn’t work for you, if you cannot accept that, then you cannot except me the way I am. And I do not think it is constructive for us to be in a relationship. It will only hurt you, or frustrate you, and strain our relationship. And I will feel bad, and frustrated at myself for letting you down, or frustrated at you for expecting me to wave a magic wand to instantly meet your expectations. Or mad because you think its fine to expect me to push myself to my limits to overcome all of the above obstacles, to ensure I call you fortnightly (hold your breath waiting for that and you will die!) Especially when it appears I’m putting in triple the effort to what you are, and you feel entitled to my two thirds of extra effort.

Final Note On Feelings & Positive Relationships

I’m lucky; I’m stubborn. And pig headed. I know exactly what I will and will not stand for. But a lot of neurodiverse people can be the opposite. Autistic and or ADHD people can very be sensitive to how our cations impact others. A lot of ADHD people can anxious about if they stuffed something up, or put the other person out. Both my GP and psychiatrist paused during my diagnostic appointment to note how unusual it is that I don’t struggle with anxiety. That is very much the norm for people with ADHD.

And while I have calmly, and perhaps bluntly and articulately told you how many of aspects of my ADHD can impact me in my relationships; other ADHD (and autistic) people will feel differently. Many are likely to behave differently. Anxiety and stress are common responses to living with ADHD, particularly when overload hits, and or when you forgot that a super important thing you didn’t do yet exists.

My big point here is what you see of an ADHD person in your life/ of yourself, especially if, like me, you diagnosed late in life; may be the tip of the iceberg. Assume there is more going on than you can see (in your relationship with all humans, period!) There may be more going on than the ADHD (or autistic) person in your life is aware of themself, or is able to articulate, including how they feel about it. If you value them, and your relationship with them; be prepared to navigate that, to some extent, together. Be prepared to ask questions, to get answers, or not. And for God’s sake, check in on each other’s feelings!

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Sensory Challenges

Road Works, Construction & Obstructions

As navigator and driver, for me navigating unknown roads with roadworks is like navigating with one eye blindfolded and someone poking me repeatedly in the arm. My brain processes a row of cones, construction workers in their fluro clothes, trucks and other equipment as ‘big mass of stuff.’ I don’t want to look at ‘big mass of stuff’ because its overstimulating. So if the entrance to the venue, or my turn is next to or beside, behind or otherwise close to ‘big mass of stuff’… I struggle to process said venue/ turn’s existence.

I will miss the turn, because I’m so busy juggling not being overstimulated with not crashing into traffic moving at a different speed and direction, that I have zero processing power to perceive the second road. I’ll walk right past the entrance because I don’t see an entrance, just ‘shit ton of visual info, brain is jamming, look away!’

Obstruction Management Tip 1: Reduce Stimulation & Pressure

To locate the venue when roadworks, construction sites or other obstructions are present, I suggest navigating as near as you can by car. Then park the car. Now you don’t have to worry about crashing, so you can consult your phone and compare it to reality under less pressure. If you have to turn back into traffic and drive further; that’s fine. Its better than crashing. Its also better than a verbal argument with your navigator because you’re visually overstimulated and stressed.

Obstruction Management Tip 2: Reduce Stimulation & Pressure With Help

If your brain is already jammed with sensory overload, or fogged by covid, fibromyalgia or other condition, and you can’t connect your phone’s navigation directions to geographical reality… ask someone on the street. Or a customer service person in a shop.

Sometimes our brains fail us (I’ve navigated with moderate brain fog, moderate fatigue and severe ADHD and could barely navigate a supermarket, let alone New Zealand.) Don’t be hard on yourself, don’t persevere if your brain will not co-operate or is otherwise being an arse. Just ask someone else when its clear reality, your map and brain are not co-operating. This will save time, frustration and spare you the exhaustion of doing something very draining, because you’re attempting it while cognitively and or physically impaired.

For advice on minimising visual overstimulation at home, see this post.

Do You Have the Right Travel Companion?

To the able bodied, neurotypycal reader, if you’re travelling with someone who struggles with navigation/ overtimulation, and you struggle to be patient with that; I suggest don’t travel together. There are too many factors with the potential to cause tension, stress and frustration on both sides. If you don’t understand and or can’t be patient with the other person’s struggles; you’re likely making a challenging situation worse.

To the neurodivergent/ disabled reader, if you suspect your travel companion(s) do not understand why navigation is so difficult/ frustrating/ stressful for you; can you manage better on your own? I often travel solo, so I KNOW its more work. But depending how much strain travelling with a companion puts on you, is it ultimately less stressful/ less exhausting to travel solo? (You could just meet them at your destination.)

Navigation Communication Challenge: Noise

If you’re travelling with an autistic person, please bear in mind that we can hear you, and the conversation next to and behind us, and birds chirping and traffic and car horns and- If you are travelling with an ADHD person, they may be listening to you, then that song they love pumping out the window of a passing car, or something funny the person behind them said.

Communication Tip: Seek Quiet

For autism, be prepared to step into a quiet laneway, shop or somewhere less noisy, so the autistic person you’re speaking to is processing what you, and no one else is saying. We can’t receive the message ‘lets go into that museum’ when its competing with ‘(insert lyrics),’ ‘Mum I want an icecream!’, ‘Hi Steve!’ Bang, thud thud, DRILLL! from the construction site.

So to give an autistic (or ADHD) person the best chance to hear what you’re saying about where to go next; say it somewhere quiet. Turn off the radio. Ask the back seat passengers to stop speaking when a passenger is giving the driver directions.

Minimising noise makes audio directions or suggestions easier to access and respond to. It also saves you having to repeat yourself umpteen times every time you want to say, ‘I need to go to the toilet first.’

Sensory Overload

City’s are fun. They have buildings from many eras, and people from all over the world moving through their streets. They’re also busy, noisy and jam packed with visual information. I love walking city streets, listening to foreign accents, and taking photos of historic buildings. But as an AuDHD person; I NEED balance in my site seeing. I DO NOT WANT to site see in a busy, crowded, noisy city multiple days in a row. There comes a point where every hour I get tireder, more overloaded and more easily frustrated. Where city site seeing has become a tiring struggle to process ‘big wall of sound and visual info overload’.

Site Seeing V.S. Sensory Need Balance Tip

My favourite way to let my overstimulated brain and tense body relax, is to punctuate loud, crowded city site seeing with quieter, peaceful breaks. For example, spend 30 mins or more wandering a state library. Spend an afternoon at the zoo, or a morning wandering the city’s botanic gardens. I love gardens and animals, and tend to visit at least either in every city. I find it makes for calmer, more relaxed, more enjoyable travel.

View through grubby windscreen of a bend lined with protective metal fence, right pointing arrows, pretty gum trees and green slopes down to pale blue and cloudy horizon.

Avoiding ADHD Time-Fail Tax

Last year I navigated New Zealand’s North Island with moderate brain fog, moderate fatigue and severe (undiagnosed and unmedicated) ADHD. My biggest learning was; do NOT book morning anything unless staying within a 15 minute drive of that activity. I was one hours drive away from one activity, gave myself two hours to get there and still missed it. My ADHD got distracted, and missed a turn. Then I lost track of time, and drove 20 minutes beyond the turn before realising I’d missed it.

ADHD Booking & Time Tips

Use a Physical Calendar, with days of the week and dates labelled to write bookings on manually. (Days and dates DO NOT correlate in my brain and a device offers too many distractions. So I have an A4 weekly calendar notepad and its a huge help to my school holiday and travel planning.)

2. Dates: double check the month, year and 24 hour timing when you book. (Yes, I did drag my family to the air port 12 hours early to see me off the first time I flew to England. Better 12 hours early than 12 hours late!)

3. Timezones: check your device for local time before you plan your next step. Especially before you go buy food at an airport. (Yes, they may refer to flight number but not destination when changing your gate just before boarding. And not page you to the new gate when you don’t board on time).

Tours and Accomodation Tips

Morning Activities: Only book a morning anything, which doesn’t allow for mis-navigating the countryside, if you’re staying a SHORT distance from the morning activity.

Extra Time: If your drive is theoretically 30 minutes, give yourself AT LEAST one hour to get there. (To allow for factors you forgot to consider that could delay you, like traffic, road works, finding a car park etc.)

If there’s one thing you really want to do/ see, plan your trip so if there doesn’t end up being time for it today; you’ve got time tomorrow. Flexibility was essential to my last solo, unmedicated ADHD trip!

Low Spoons Travel (Pain/ Fatigue/ Chronic Illness)

I’ve just come back from a road trip with my mum. I put my back out on day one, just before we got in the car. Constant back pain quickly became fatigue. It mean difficulty getting in and out of the car and difficulty walking. It meant I burnt through energy quickly, and got tired and frustrated swiftly. These latter are things I have to be aware of all the time, because I have fibromyalgia, and that (permanently) predisposes me to brain fog, fatigue and chronic pain.

Low Energy Management; Snacks

Normally we try to cut back on snacks because we’re eating too much period, or too many calories. This DOES NOT apply to me when I travel. On my recent 9 day road trip, I didn’t just need breakfast, lunch and dinner. I either needed a substantial breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner, or breakfast, morning tea, lunch and dinner. Any one big physical activity, like an hour long walk, needed to be followed by eating and drinking. I might not notice I was hungry, but a meal made me feel better. Food and drink as fuel run out faster for me when I travel.

Low Energy; Pace Yourself

Even when my back recovered on my road trip, I still had to pace myself. If the slope was steep, or there were too many stairs, or I walked for longer than an hour, a flare of burning back pain and or fatigue (due to fibro) were likely. (When I say fatigue, my feet/ legs/ lower back feel A LOT heavier than usual, like I have to peel my feet off the ground and actively fight gravity to take each step).

Low Energy; Rest Breaks

What if I wanted to spend two hours walking around the botanic gardens/ nature trail/ city centre? This happened in Adelaide recently. I was able to walk for several hours; mostly because in the middle we sat at a cafe for a good forty minutes. I sat in a chair with proper back support and sunk into it, letting my body recharge. (And used this as the snack and drink recharge mentioned above). After that sit down; I could keep walking.

Another option when travelling solo for me is that with my seat adjusted to support my back sufficiently, sitting in the car driving helps me physically recharge.

Low Energy; Mobility Aids

The thing about invisible illnesses is you can’t see the bastards. Vision impaired people can get glasses, and hearing impaired people can get hearing aids. But do people with fatigue or chronic pain need mobility aids?

This is a conversation I didn’t have with my doctor, not when diagnosed with long covid, or fibromyalgia. But with back pain from putting my back out, my mother, having her own back issues, knew I wasn’t able to walk. So she did some research, and found that walking polls can provide physical support, while also helping a person build their core body muscles. (This article is aimed at hikers, but consider how more even distribution of your weight and the strain of making it walk can aid low energy movement.)

My mum bought me walking polls in Adelaide, which I used on nature trails. I found them especially helpful to reduce the strain on my body and my proneness to pain and fatigue when walking uphill, and up or downstairs. They were also great for longer walks, where I wanted to go further, but was tired and or fatigued.

So if you’re prone to chronic pain or fatigue, I suggest discussing mobility aids with your GP.

Value People For Who They Are

Some neurotypical person: You have to look people in the eye when you speak to them.

Me: why?

Them: because people will think you’re not listening, or your suspicious or maybe unstrustworthy.

Me: And that’s my problem? People making utterly unfounded assumptions about me, that have nothing to do with me personally? People not bothering to get to know me or bothering to judge me for who I am?

I wouldn’t do that to someone else. As an autistic person, I tend to miss cues in real time social situations (and my ADHD gets distracted), and I need to process in peace and quiet on my own. So the only thing I assume about other people is; there’s loads of things I don’t know or understand about them. I think that’s the golden rule to understanding people, yes, even someone you’ve been close to for years. If you don’t get their behaviour; assume you’re missing something.

Learn Before You Judge Someone

As an autistic person, whether I’m looking at students to judge their needs and how to support them, or at a fictional character, I don’t think anything until I’ve noticed and connected multiple things about that person/ character. If someone is upset, and another person is not expressing concern for them or doing anything to help, but is standing still, anxiously fidgeting and avoiding eye contact with the upset person; I’ll conclude they care. They just don’t know how to help or respond. Whereas another person might only see them not responding and assume they don’t care. One cue isn’t enough to go on, even if you ARE neurotypical.

So my first autistic lesson on people is; don’t make assumptions. Seek more information. Give people the benefit of the doubt. And instead of only looking for what you expect to see, notice what’s actually there. Don’t disregard someone because they didn’t do the thing you expected. Credit them for the helpful/ constructive thing they did do. (Unless they’re a politician, in which case I advise a healthy dose of skepticism for every side of politics, and trust what they actually do ten times more than anything any politician ‘claims’ they will do.)

Communicate When Your Expectations Aren’t Met

While we’re on expectations, if you aren’t happy with someone’s response, don’t expect them to just know you want them to respond a certain way, regardless of the context of the situation. None of of us grew up in the same house or have identical lived experiences, even if we did grow up with the same era/ culture/ religion.

Your neurotypical style of communication is DIFFERENT to my autistic, ADHD style communication. Making assumptions based on your experience is the fast lane to misunderstanding me, and anyone who differs from you in ways you didn’t realise. So be straight and honest with people, to ensure everyone in the conversation IS on the same page.

Value Logic and Questions

Autistic people can get ourselves into trouble for not respecting social hierarchies or for ‘answering back.’ There’s a very good reason for this; I don’t respect social hierarchies because I don’t see the point of them. I ask questions because I don’t understand and I want to understand. Or because I’m challenging someone who didn’t bother asking any questions, who just accepted something, which is why I think what they think is bullshit.

Age & Rank Alone Don’t Matter to Me

An example of both is ‘respect your elders.’ Problems with this include; age does not necessarily equal wisdom, life experience or knowledge. Age certainly doesn’t make anyone right by default. There are times as a teacher when a child says something that challenges my thinking. Where they change my mind about how we as a class or their group will do something. Because they asked a question, gave a good reason for their request, and I hadn’t thought of that and respected their reason.

I don’t care how old or rich you are, how many degrees you have or any privilege you claim. I don’t care for rank, whether its big boss in a workplace or Prime Minister. Its the knowledge and understanding you bring to any given situation that I value. Its your wisdom. Whether you’re treating people decently and resources appropriately. Its whether or not yours is the best solution to the problem, on the basis of evidence, reason and logic.

When the far right are on the rise, and having a field day in America, I don’t think I need to explain why the above is SO important.
If you’re an adult who feels threatened when kids ask you questions, or when they argue and give superior reasons to yours; this isn’t about your ego. Its not about your authority. Its about having the humility, the good grace and the sense to make use of the best logic, reasons and evidence in the room, to make the best decision for all parties effected.

So I urge you, don’t just make decisions based on what you feel. Evaluate the logic and all the reasons of the situation, like an autistic person. Seek the biggest, fullest picture, to best decide what to do with it.

There is No ‘Normal or ‘Abnormal’ Person

A lot of autistic people get bullied as kids/ teens for being different. A lot of neurotypical people approach communication assuming neurotypical norms are THE communication norm, thinking everyone should; make eye contact, greet people by name, ask how people are and so on. None of those communication styles is ‘normal’ to me. Just because you and lots of people you know do it that way doesn’t mean everyone else does. There are cultures where for certain people to make eye contact with others is disrespectful and rude. But we were assuming ‘white’ culture is the ‘norm’, weren’t we?

And when you assume your white, neurotypical, able bodied, cis gender, heterosexual ways are the norm, some people assume anything that doesn’t meet those expectations, anything ‘unfamiliar’ or ‘different’ is necessarily bad and wrong.

The Downside of Calling Humans ‘Normal’

‘They are not like me, and I am normal, therefore they are a freak/ bad/ wrong’ seems to underly every form of discrimination there is. It covers racism and sexism to homophobia, transphobia and ableism. When we get to white supremacy and ableism, the narrative becomes ‘my culture/ race/ body is better than yours, therefore I have value and you do not. My life matters. Your’s doesn’t.’

So I think that for any ally of any marginalised group, a great thing to take from autistic attitudes is not viewing yourself as ‘normal.’ And not viewing anyone unlike you as ‘abnormal.’

I was raised the way I was, you were raised the way you were. My brain is wired in certain ways, your brain is wired differently. There is no ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’. There’s how we were taught we are supposed to live, ways we were taught some people live, and ways of living we weren’t taught about. All that means is there are different ways of living.

If we think of it as ‘people live differently’ as opposed to, ‘some people are normal and others are freaks,’ its becomes harder to alienate any human from their rights.

You Don’t Need Permission To Speak

A thing I often forgot to do as both a young autistic person who is inclined to do what they think makes sense, and as ADHD distraction prone, is to ask people how they are. You’re ‘supposed’ to do this. Its ‘good manners’. But the thing that really gets me about this is when I’m over half an hour into a conversation before I think to ask ‘how are you?’, and the person responds with something they really wanted to tell me. And I think, ‘Why did you wait 30 minutes for me to invite you to share that? If it matters to you; it matters to me. Why not just tell me?’

Somewhere along the way, I think many neuropytical people fell into the habit of only sharing their special news or saying how they’re going when someone asks them first. I suspect this is why there’s ‘never a good time’ to tell people bad news. Because people never ask, ‘What’s terribly wrong with you today?’ And they don’t expect or hint its ok to say shitty stuff. And with people feeling they don’t have ‘permission’ or an ‘invitation,’ or a ‘right time,’ I wonder if a lot of crap that needs saying doesn’t get said, or gets said late, by which point the relationship is falling apart.

Just Tell Us Your News!

I think that when people meet or catch up, it should go more like autistic or ADHD conversations. Where it may begin with ‘hi’, and the next point is, ‘I really wanted to tell you about x, because its so interesting/ exiting/ it matters to me and you matter to me, so I want you to know.’ We don’t literally say all this of course, but the ‘info dump’ of many of things neurodiverse people rattle off to each other when they haven’t seen each other for a while, like me and my mum when we catch up, is often this.

I think its a good thing. With neither party feeling the need for ‘permission,’ or ‘invitations;’ everyone shares what matters to them. Then we can ask for more details if we want them. No one feels unheard. No one feels ignored or like they don’t matter. There’s no room for misunderstandings, because everything either party wanted to say has been said.

True, it can still be tricky to broach for example potential sources of tension in relationships, but like all the good stuff, that still comes under ‘it matters to me so I told you.’ There’s no waiting for ‘right times’ that don’t come. No letting it sit on your chest and fester. I suggest; get everything said, communicated and know what’s going on with each other.

Make Personal Connections With What the Other Person Said

I know, controversial! Because when autistic people do this, some neurotypical people cry, “You made it about you! It was supposed to be about them! You’re supposed to give them their moment!”

So I’m supposed to let them stand on a pedestal saying some great or terrible thing that happened to them and say merely, ‘That’s great’ or, ‘O no. That’s terrible.’ That sounds like their ‘moment’ means being the centre of attention, while everyone else superficially engages with what they have to say. I don’t see the point of that. Superficial responses don’t signal ‘you are not alone.’ They don’t signal, ‘I get you.’ They have no capacity to deepen a relationship.

The Value of Sharing Personal Connections

If I’m sharing something important to me with you; its probably because I want to connect with you. I want to see that you understand.

If you’re sharing something bad with me, and I can make a deep personal connection to what you said; I am showing you that I get it. When my connection doesn’t quite fit; I’m showing you I don’t quite get it. If all I say is, ‘I’m sorry that happened to you,’ all I’m displaying is a very basic grasp of what you’re saying. And I’m leaving you standing on your own, little better off than you were before you opened your mouth.

Sometimes there’s isn’t anything we can constructively do to help people with their problems. But we can do more than just be there for them. We can show them; ‘not only am I here, I have stood where you stand and I get it. You are not alone.’ It matters for people to know that. So I say, go ahead and connect to the time when you think felt that way, or had to make a similar choice.

Abolish Taboo Conversation Topics

Suicide & The Need to Talk

According to Suicide Prevention Australia, Suicide is the leading cause of death among 15 to 25yos in my country, but we’re ‘not supposed to talk about it.’ Taboos like that seem to be part of neurotypilcal social expectations. The idea that some things are ‘too dark,’ or ‘not nice enough’ to discuss.

Suicide Australia also say 7 million Australians (roughly one quarter of our population) have been impacted by suicide. That’s 7 million people who would be left feeling isolated, with no one to talk to about their feelings or experiences, if we don’t talk about it because ‘its not nice’. In this case silence threatens people’s wellbeing.

There are things that NEED saying. Things people need to get off their chests and to inform their loved ones about. Then you can deepen your relationships by working through it together, or get the help or support you need etc. For the sake of our health, our wellbeing and our planet; we NEED to talk, directly, about unpleasant shit. Sure, maybe everyone can’t do it as bluntly and logically as some of us autistic people, but when it matters; give it a shot!

How Can We Deal With It, If We Won’t Even Discus it?

The other big reason we NEED to talk about unpleasant shit is things like; I think RFK Junior is a eugenicist (there’s a good explanation of how his antivaxxer stance promotes ‘soft eugenics’ from Science Based Medicine in this article). If we don’t admit what he is, or what he’s trying to do; we won’t stop him doing it. If we don’t call it ‘climate catastrophe,’ we’ll sit and watch the world burn.

And if we aren’t supposed to say ‘not nice things’ like ‘that person sexually abused me,’ if everyone in unused to hearing that, despite that according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 26.1% of Australian women have been sexually abused… we get a culture where people don’t talk about sexual abuse. They don’t hear it.

Then they don’t know how to respond. They don’t know how to accept that something like that happened to someone they know. They don’t know how to respond to the fact that they, like 20% of those women, know the offender. And they sure as hell don’t know how to support victims of sexual or family violence.

The direct statements of an autistic person calling out something as immoral, with no neurotypical filtering to sound ‘nice,’ might make some people uncomfortable. But our lack of giving a shit about what we ‘can’ or ‘can’t,’ say, or whatever makes neurotypical people squeamish about calling out reality; that positions autistic people like Gretna Thunberg to tackle climate change.

We need more non-autistic people standing up and saying how and why something is wrong and that it SHOULD NOT BE HAPPENING.

Get Comfortable With Your Own Discomfort

Austistic people are used to not being comfortable. Many of us frequently feel like we ‘don’t fit’ and like we blunder through social situations. We’re used to being in environments like classrooms or shopping centres where the amount of STUFF on shelves, walls, the NOISE of so many PEOPLE screams at us, and is TOO MUCH. (Minimisation tips in this post.)

Discomfort is normal to autistic people. Its not pleasant, but it does have an advantage. Sometimes I feel like neurotypical expectations have raised people to be fragile. To have sensitive ears that hurt when you say things like ‘genocide’ or ‘rape’. But anyone who struggles to even listen to those words is completely useless when it comes to stopping the horror that’s the actuality of genocide and rape culture. Raising people to ‘dance on egg shells’, ‘beat round bushes’, and ‘don’t say that, it’s not nice,’ is raising a generation of people too gutless to confront abuse, exploitation, corruption or genocide.

Cut The Minimising Platitudes

Here we come across a plethora of sayings that aim to silence dissent and preserve the status quo. ‘Don’t rock the boat,’ ‘don’t make waves,’ ‘don’t upset the apple cart.’ Never mind that the ‘boat’ allowed white supremacy, sexism, misogyny, ableism, homophobia and transphobia to thrive for centuries. That its still deeply tainted.

And then we’re onto other sayings, ‘calm down,’ ‘chill,’ ‘it can’t be that bad.’ These allow people to disconnect from reality and deny how bad any given situation is. They seem aimed at ensuring people feel comfortable, even as the world burns around us, because we were too complacent to do enough about climate change, soon enough.

Speak Up & Protest!

When it comes to what’s wrong with the world, autistic people like Gretna Thunberg may be the voice you don’t want to listen to. You’re conscience sayng ‘this is wrong and we have to act.’ Again, this is not about YOU. Its about Palestinians being starved to death in Gaza by a regime that’s come full circle, from fleeing fascism to embracing it to annihilate Palestinians. Its about all the disabled people RFK Junior wants to stick in ‘wellness’ camps.

The autistic strength when shit gets fucked is we don’t put our personal feelings about shit being fucked first. We’re not shocked at finding ourselves outside our comfort zone (we pretty much live there already). And I think our struggle to sometimes understand emotions, and the ease we tend to have with logic, inclines us to put our logical understanding that shit is fucked and action MUST be taken to unfuck it first.

Our blunt calls to do so bypass neurotypical uncertainty because something pushed them outside their comfort zone. They bypass the neurotypical tendency to flinch from the truth, not call things what they are, delay, delay, delay; until things get WORSE. So SPEAK UP (like we do)!

Disclaimer

(Yes, I acknowledge not all neurotypical people are the same. Nor are all autistic people. But the general patterns I see with a lot of neurotypical people when it comes to stubbornly refusing to abandon the illusion of their comfort zone, to face shit being fucked and get off their backsides and DO ANYTHING for our planet, democracy, Palestine etc, CONCERNS me.)

Sharing the Good Stuff

Having raised some heavy shit, I’d like to end with an autistic approach to life that can make the good parts better. My mum likes travelling with me. She says seeing my enthusiasm makes site seeing more enjoyable. I’ve never cared if people view my displays of enthusiasm as ‘child like’ or ‘over the top’ or whatever. If I LOVE something, than I LOVE it. I’m not going to tone it down because ‘maybe someone will judge me.’

When the emotion is enthusiasm, I don’t think I’ve seen someone judge me badly. As an adult, people either smile, or they don’t click with whatever I’m responding to and they move on. And by not giving a shit either way, I get to fully feel and express my excitement at seeing something beautiful, or new. Heck, I’ll pause part way down the street to stare up at possums at night, or to smile at birds by day.

Smell Those Roses

All of us are so busy with our own lives, we often don’t even notice things. I once went to the supermarket wearing fluffy rainbow slippers because I forgot I had them on under my flared jeans. A group of teens had a chuckle when they noticed and smiled at me. No one else noticed a thing. I think ‘other people’ care far less about any one person than that one person thinks. I think most people care far too much about what other people might think of them. And I’ve never had any intention of letting fear of others opinions get in the way of having fun.

I don’t know strangers. Therefore I don’t care what they think. (Though them agreeing with me does score them points ;). Expressing my autistic enthusiasm for life lets me enjoy it fully, and it makes other people either notice what I’m noticing, or notice my enjoyment. Either one tends to make them smile.

In a world with TONNES OF SHIT going on, its important to smell those roses, smile at screeching rainbow lorikeets zooming past your head, stare at pretty sunsets etc. Let yourself fully enjoy life, and rather than people judging you, you may see them enjoying it with you.

Oh, I’m Also Actually Autistic (Identifying which of my traits are autistic).

Manging My Neurodiversity (Communication, processing and mental health strategies).

Minimising Visual Overload (for autistic & ADHD comfort)

March 14, 2025 / Elise Carlson / 2 Comments

Like many late in life (in my case self) diagnosed autistic people, I’ve spent my life saturated with sensory overload. For years, I had no idea how much energy I wasted at work filtering out absurd amounts of sensory input. Or why it was so hard to switch off or relax at home. Having finally worked it out, I’ll share how I organise and set up my house (decor, storage and cleaning) and some things at work/ school to minimise visual overload. Whether you are autistic, or you live, work or travel with someone who is or may be autistic, I hope those strategies make their/ your life easier, something we could all do with in the Enshitification Era.

Reducing Sensory Overload At Home

Clutter is Evil

This is a challenge for those of us with autism AND ADHD. For much of my life (before ADHD diagnosis and medication), I left clutter everywhere. It was inevitable, as I A. struggled to focus long enough to finish packing up. And B. always worried I’d forget a more important thing that needed doing. So I was forever running from one task to the next before I inevitably got distracted, leaving small piles of clutter everywhere.

I found early in my teaching career that any chance of relaxing or resting on the weekend was best achieved by tidying on Friday nights. I’d begin by putting dirty clothes in the washing basket, dirty dishes in the dishwasher, and packing away scattered papers and other random objects I wasn’t using.

The more stuff I put out of sight, the more tension I was barely aware of in my torso relaxed. Because I no longer needed to remain poised to escape far too many objects crowding my vision and overwhelming my brain until I struggled to remember or think about anything else. Nor was I overwhelmed by the many categories of thing needing putting away in different locations.

Mess is Also Bad

In recent years, I’ve often been able to only clean one or two things before fatigue or pain begin flare and I have to take the rest of the day off cleaning. This has made me aware of which surfaces I want clean the most. Its always the biggest ones.

If there is a 2cm by 2cm or bigger drop of any substance spilt on the kitchen floor; I notice it. Probably every single time I walk past. Crumbs on the carpet? I know about them! Leaves that blew in the door? Annoy me every time I enter the house! Crumbs/ substances on the bench, in the sink or on the stove stop? I notice most of them, every time I enter the kitchen.

It ANNOYS me. They shouldn’t be there. It doesn’t look good. But most importantly, the energy that gets wasted noticing every crumb, drip and whatever needs wiping or vacuuming on every surface of the house, on top of every piece of furniture and decor within the house is TIRING. I consciously perceive too much visual information. (Which my psychiatrist explained is definitely an ADHD thing, but which I suspect is also an autism thing).

Its impossible to relax in your home when you notice five things that need cleaning/ tidying/ something done about them EVERY SINGLE TIME you enter ANY and ALL rooms of the house. The mere constant sight of a messy/ cluttered house is tiring for me to live in. So if anyone in your home is autistic/ has ADHD; the more frequently you and whoever you live with can vacuum/ sweep/ wipe down surfaces; the better!

Non-Overstimulating Household Set Up

A common cause of frustration for me is difficulty distinguishing between the thing I want and the sea of shit I don’t care about just now surrounding it. The thing I want may be right in front of me. But if its an object on the kitchen table with twenty other objects, my brain may note as many of the twenty objects as it can before getting overloaded and overlooking the thing I want; multiple times. Or it may register the clutter on the table as ‘solid mass of too many bloody objects’ and not differentiate between them.

So I decluttered my house, but the cupboards, wardrobes etc, still contained too much stuff. I never perceive the item at the back of the pantry/ fridge until well after it expires. Because by the time I’d consciously perceived all twenty eight items in front of it; I’m tired and my brain perceives the back row as a vague blur.

Non-Overstimulating Pantry

Only recently did I solve storage problems to my satisfaction. Its tricky in the pantry, because I have three housemates who each have their own grocery shelves. And our shelves are narrow and deep. Storing items in rows seems necessary, but its hard to see behind each row. So I put tall items around the outsides and across the back. And smaller items in front, in a couple of baskets I can lift out to easily perceive (and reach) items in the back row.

This helped, but peering into the pantry was still a visually jarring experience. It was like looking into a room where all the furniture is positioned at contrary angles and some items are incorrectly proportioned in relation to others. None of it is quite what you expect. None of it initially makes sense. Its mental gymnastics just to find the vinegar for your salad dressing (and yes, frustrating).

I do a lot of baking, so I bought tuppleware containers for ingredients that are all the same height. Now every type of flour, sugar, coconut etc doesn’t block or obscure the others. And they fit in a nice row along one side, so I can see what’s in each container. And another daily cause of frustration is now a relief that makes daily life that little bit easier.

(Left before, right after).

3 pantry shelves, the bottom and middle with items piled on top of and in front of each other, crowded to the point its difficult to see or reach anything.

Same three shelves, in neat rows of containers the same shapes and sizes, nothing stacked on top of anything, every item visible all the way to the back.

Non-Overstimulating Crockery/ Glassware etc

Only when we moved house did I notice how unpleasant looking in the cupboard for a glass or bowl was. With a sharehouse of around 8-9 different people over the years; our glassware and crockery was very mismatched. Giving away the worst matching sets and buying new, all the same glasses and crockery sets made those cupboards more calming and pleasant to look at.

Note: if you’re tempted to joke about OCD here; don’t A. trivialise a debilitating condition by reducing it to someone merely wanting their crockery and glassware to match. And don’t B, mock people for wanting matching crockery. In this case, that’s like mocking someone for wearing sunglasses on a glary, sunny day. There’s nothing wrong with making things comfortable to view.

Non-Overstimulating Storage

As a teacher, Christmas tends to include gifts of soaps, bath and skincare products. And as an easily distracted ADHDer, the bathroom is best kept clean when the products I use to clean it are stored in the bathroom. (So I don’t enter the room with the products and forget why I was there, the same applying to the kitchen). So my vanity had lots of unused stuff in it, because my brain mostly registered the contents of the huge drawer as ‘big slab of too much stuff’.

In this case the problem was the vanity was a large drawer, with lots of small things placed side by side, and in rows. With so many things in one place, no manner of arranging them could avoid visual overload. Enter a brother who gives thoughtful gifts and figured a large jewellery box with lots of little drawers could be handy for me to store stuff. With a mini drawer chest, small items went from maybe 60 objects of seven varieties in one space, to 3-4 varieties per drawer, and so few items that I can comfortably perceive them all.

Where possible, I suggest using or buying smaller cupboards/ drawers, in which you can separate objects by category. So that opening a door doesn’t instantly reveal shelves of 50 different objects of 8 types. (I don’t like and am lucky my current house doesn’t have a linen cupboard. That’s always too many shelves for me to look at, let alone perceive the thing I want).

White Space/ Resting Your Eyes

In my new house, one housemate’s room has very little decor on furniture, the walls etc. That room has A LOT of white space. Every direction offers blank, plain emptiness that lets my tendency to see EVERYTHING rest, because there’s nothing to perceive, no visual information to process.

I like having some visual stimulation. But if every book/ decorative item/ plant is as eye level; that’s overwhelming. I only put display items on furniture below eye level, so that when walking around I can focus on what I’m thinking, instead of being bombarded by sight of too much stuff.

Increase White Space, Maximise Cupboards

Two pieces of furniture in my new house reduce visual overload. My old tv cabinet had lead light doors that displayed many spines, images, and endless range of colours and texts of tens of my dvds through its glass doors. My new one has solid timber doors, of one colour of harmonious tones. Now, watching tv is a more relaxing and restful experience.

The other change is a book case. As author and reader I know, the point of lots of lovely books and a bookshelf is to display them. But the spines of many rows of books is the same mass of colours, shapes, text and images as rows of dvd spines. And its location meant I regularly walked past it when not wanting to browse books. Too often, it was a solid, 2m high wall of sensory overload that almost made me flinch in passing.

My new bookcase reduces visual overload by screening two rows of books behind wooden doors. The timber framing the glass doors, frames each edge of the shelf with a single colour. While having a pane of glass and lines of lead between me and the books softens the former wall of too much colour and variety. I don’t feel sad I can’t see all the books all the time. I feel relieved possessions I love no longer silently scream at me every time I walk past.

Pine 2m high bookshelf crammed with books of many colours, different heights and thicknesses, some stacked atop each other.

Antique bookcase with carved cupboard doors and two drawers above them screening three rows of books. Upper section has two timber framed doors with leadlight glass in the middles, greatly reducing the mass of exposed spines and visual overload.

Reducing Visual Overload At Work: School

Walls Covered in Posters/ Charts are Evil

This is a BIG one. Honestly, I look back at classrooms I’ve taught in over the last twelve years and wonder why I’m still sane. Remember what I said about row upon row of pantry items being too many items to process? Or row upon row of book spines being a 2m high wall of sensory overload that silently screams at me?

It may not surprise you that as a teacher I HATE classroom walls. I generally avoid looking at them. They have an unfortunate tendency to be a solid mass of teacher charts and or children’s work; of so many colours, writings, drawings and so many categories. They are TOO MUCH.

Imagine being in a room with twenty something children and all of them are shouting at you for the entire day. Classroom walls have the same stressful, overloading impact on me. And a staffroom with work safety, company policy and whatever else posters all over its walls is little better. So if you have any say in your workplaces walls bombarding people with masses of visual information charts/ posters etc ; please reduce it!

What are Visually Overwhelming Walls Doing to ND Adults/ Kids?

If your wall charts/ posters aren’t vital; I’m wasting energy filtering them out so I don’t get overwhelmed, and can actually do my job. So is the autistic kid in your classroom, or your autistic co-worker. Trust me, same goes for the ADHD kids and co-workers!

And you know what, with that overloading visual sensory input in my face throughout my entire work day, I wonder if I wasted something like 30% of my energy filtering out the visual overload of unnecessary crap on walls. That’s 30% of my energy at work, NOT going into my work. That’s the autistic kid having a meltdown because on top of the input of what all the other kids and the teacher are doing, and trying to keep up while struggling to process social cues; they’re overwhelmed. Its the ADHD kid infinitely distracted, or zoning out, because they too are overwhelmed.

Noise At Work

While this blog focuses on visual overload, which bothers me personally the most, everything I’ve said about the discomfort of visual overload applies to audio overload. Whether a particular person/ appliance/ music etc is too loud, or there are too many voices speaking in the same room making it hard for an autistic person to hear the person speaking to them; audio overload also needs minimising. Luckily headphones, both for the person listening to noise and noise cancelling ones, and other sound proofing options offer relief that visual overload doesn’t have an easy equivalent for.

Neurodiverse Communication

Rehearsing Conversations

I’m guessing neurotypical people rehearse conversations in their heads when they’re giving a speech, or telling someone they really care about something that really matters to them. By the time I was around fifteen, I rehearsed ANYTHING and EVERYTHING I may like to say to my friends before saying it aloud. I would approach social situations with prepared topics and comments drafted in my brain and would be happy when I got to say them all.

Did I monitor the interest levels of people as I plunged through my pre-rehearsed topics? Not really. Sometimes when I’d finished talking I did. Knowing how much to say about a topic and not rambling on when the other person isn’t as interested as me is a life skill I am still refining, in my thirties.

This is an autistic trait common in adults.

What are You on About?

As a teenager, I routinely initiated conversations with peers because it was the easiest way to communicate. Even as an adult I find other people starting the conversation challenging. With people I don’t know well, the first thing I think they’re saying usually isn’t what they mean. I’ve developed a habit of listening, ignoring my first interpretation, and waiting until a second or third interpretation forms in my mind before I respond. Usually by then I’ve correctly identified the topic and their intended meaning. If I take too long, I comment on one aspect I’m sure I understand, to encourage them to say more, to give me more time to figure out what they’re talking about.

When I’m tired, I also struggle because I interpret things literally. I suspect that any other time I remember what I know about that person, or topic and do mental gymnastics to get from what they literally said to what they actually mean. That gets socially awkward because neurotypical people, especially adults in a professional context, tend to want immediate answers to their questions. But they don’t say what they literally mean, so I need processing time to do mental gymnastics before I can answer.

I suspect my main challenge with both of the above can be taking people more literally than they intend. Though my ADHD being challenged by information overload is also a close contender for that title. When the other person talks too much I start forgetting information they’ve said before connecting the pieces of it together and extracting meaning from them. Either way, the other person’s point can go completely over my head.

Taking people too literally? Classic autistic trait.

Why Can’t People Just SAY what they MEAN?

I am already using SO MUCH energy in conversations to: stay focused (because ADHD), not interrupt (because ADHD), read body language and tone (because autism), put effort into the above simultaneously (neurodivers e people tend to struggle with split-focus) while tracking what you mean AND responding swiftly. I have very few spoons left to dedicate to hunting mystical meanings you hide between your words. Just TELL ME what you want!

This wasn’t easy for me to recognise, because while I was swiftly frustrated with academics who waffle on at Uni (mostly in articles), and adults who beat around the bush; I work with kids. I’m always working with people who may be discussing things they are unclear on, and struggle to put into words. Teaching has me forever piecing together clues, filling gaps and actively supporting students to communicate more clearly/ effectively/ socially acceptably with each other.

I tend to recognise sarcasm and quite a few other things autistic people generally struggle with, perhaps because I’ve worked closely with twenty-something kids five days a week and adults after hours, for over ten years. Experience has positioned me to present as neurotypical, but when I get tired at the end of the day and someone in leadership gives an instruction that sounds like its giving me a choice but actually means ‘I want you to do x like y,’ I’m prone to mis their intended meaning and take them at their literal one. When I’m online and tired, sometimes I skip over posts because there aren’t enough contextual clues within them and I just don’t know what they mean.

I prefer to get directions at work from leaders who speak directly, even bluntly and keep to the point. That’s A LOT clearer to me, and a lot less effort to process.

I Say What I Mean

I lost track long ago how many times growing up my mother would joke ‘why don’t you tell us what you really think?’ Over the past year I’ve often deleted my posts about genocide in Palestine because I can’t express my feelings without swearing the house down and saying things I know could be inflammatory and not do any form of good.

But growing up, with close friends and family, I tended to just say what I meant, uncensored. Only in England did I learn to shut up at work, so I didn’t spend the entire day saying; ‘This system is on fire. Why are you teaching in it instead of trying putting out the flames?’ (Yes, this is a metaphor for the string of swearing I was actually thinking in).

Honestly, I think the downside of ‘polite society’ in an age where Trump is running for a second presidency and the phrase ‘you can’t make this shit up’ is common commentary on real life is an era in which MORE people need to be saying; ‘This shit is fucked up.’ I fear that being ‘polite’ and not bluntly calling things out normalises shit that absolutely SHOULD NOT be happening. *Points at genocide in Palestine*.

Again, the tendency to be blunt is an autistic one.

Tone

I had no idea that speaking more informally than is appropriate is an autistic tendency. (I was more familiar with the perhaps more common, or better recognised tendency to speak formally when it isn’t expected/ required). But both are autistic traits, and natural inclinations I learned to adapt at work. I did it as early as working in retail (where being tall, thin, blond and female presenting, speaking in a more formal, professional manner meant I was less likely to have to put up with people treating me like an airhead).

A more warm and welcoming professional tone also works well with parents as a teacher. And when I step into ‘professional communication mode’ I find it easier to make eye contact, ask other people questions and behave in what people consider a welcoming, professional way (which is of course a neurotypical way).

With adults at work, I also tend to tone down my excitement, and present in a calmer, more professional manner. Whereas with students I’ll be up pacing, gesticulating, and my tone will be full of enthusiasm on topics of interest, which is thankfully many within the expanse that is twenty-first century curriculum.

Leading Conversations

Having prepared my talking points in advance, I also like to lead conversations. When I start the conversation, especially a group conversation, its SO much easier to keep track of what we’re talking about and have clarity about the conversation. It also gives me the chance to ensure my particular interests feature strongly, which makes it much easier for me to follow and actively participate.

While struggling to follow group conversations is a classic ADHD trait, the desire to lead them is an autistic one. (This and other autistic traits being listed nicely in this article).

Reciprocity In Conversation

I have the ADHD tendency of ‘I just need to tell you these ten things, all at once, before I forget half of them.’ THEN I have the headspace to properly listen to and take in what that person is saying.

But when the other person asks about me first, I have to make a real effort to ask about them, because its what they expect, not my natural inclination. This is a more autistic tendency.

I loved an episode of the Aussie comedy FISK, where the autistic coded main character is being pretty much trained in small talk/ social niceties by a colleague, but needs to urgently leave. She’s trying to throw out, ‘How are you? And isn’t it a nice day? And what are your plans for the weekend?’ In a very rushed, and random order, because its what the colleague expects, but is clearly unnatural and awkward to the autistic coded MC.

What are Social Graces?

I’ve never been a fan of a few basic social conventions.

1. I don’t like eye contact.

They don’t notice anything. And you don’t want to notice how uncomfortable eye contact makes you, because God knows how often how many people are trying to make eye contact with you and you’re trying to uncomfortably meet it!

2. I don’t do small talk.

When you talk to people you’re supposed to ask how they are. When they’re strangers you’re supposed to do ice breakers, or ‘polite conversation starters’ like the weather, or —hell, I don’t know because I don’t do it. Why? Because I’m not interested. I’m interested in what I’m interested in. In a state of nature going to launch into whatever interests me n that moment with no names, greetings, preamble or niceties. No time wasting— lets get into it! (Yes the impatience is likely ADHD, though struggling with small talk period as an autistic trait.)

Again, I have had to spend lots of time learning and practicing asking how people are, or thinking of things that matter to them and asking how about those. I do care about the latter. If they start talking about it I will show interest in my responses. But its not natural for me to think what to ask about other people. I used to just assume that if something mattered to people they wouldn’t need an invitation to talk about it and would just say it, but I’m learning there are many exceptions to that.

Elise Carlson selfie, smiling, wearing glasses, a cap, with short curls poking out the sides, stripy top, river and mossy rocks in background. — Neurodiverse me, hiking in the Otway Ranges, March 2023.

I’m Thinking…

Hyper Focus

For me, hyper focus is a very important strategy that enabled me to have a teaching career and ADHD at the same time. What I didn’t notice in this section of the blog back in 2021 was how much I like hyper focusing on topics of particular interest, or special interests —a classic autistic trait.

What’s the Point?

Why be on time for class, so I can line up outside, wait for everyone else to enter and sit down slowly and get zero benefits for having got out of bed a bit earlier? If you want me to do something —tell me why. The fact you want me to do it doesn’t motivate me. The fact you were my parent or teacher and even now, the fact alone that its my boss asking doesn’t motivate me.

Intrinsic motivation for me is not conforming to other people’s expectations, their wants, being obedient or doing anything purely because someone asked. I care about, I want to understand, I am motivated by WHY. Tell me how it benefits people —students, colleagues, my boss, me —anybody— or how it makes my work more productive, or easier, or safer or whatever. That’s what motivates me. I don’t know anyone else so strongly motivated by being told why.

The most likely explanation I’ve found at this time for ‘why?’ being so important: the autistic tendency to excel at logical reasoning, which may be more important than or even compensate for intuition in decision making (source on this).

Logic and Decision Making

Deleting my Twitter account was initially an emotional decision, because I had so many friends and writer contacts there. But as the account with a violence against Jews handle was repeatedly reported and found to ‘not violate Twitter’s safety policies’, and the Australian esafety commissioner fined Musk for failing to meet minimum child protection standards, the site became increasing dysfunctional and un-usable, the word ‘cis’ was banned… how could anyone NOT delete their account? How could decent humans ignore reason and divorce their actions from their consciences like this?

Guess what? Turns out excelling at logical thought and reasoning, and a strong sense of social justice are autistic tendencies.

I’m coming to realise that for people choosing to stay on Twitter, its likely an emotional decision about not wanting to lose friends they have there. If only all my friends could leave based on logic and reason and then we could all have migrated together and not got separated! GAH!

(I understand people who chose differently on perhaps an intellectual level here, but as you can see my own emotional reasoning takes me in the opposite direction, because my emotions are a response to the logic of the situation, not an emotional, direct response to the situation itself.).

Why did you change that?

Earlier this year I was in casual teaching. Before doing so, I had to answer the question: are you prepared to be called in to work on the day, or only to be booked in advance?

I have (while living in England) woken up to a phone call, looked up how to access a school I’ve never been to before via public transport and rushed off to work. I can do that. But the relief I felt on being texted a list of dates, and comparing them to my (physical) calendar to check my availability and getting to text back with ‘Yes I am available on those dates’ in a text message?

That’s my autistic love of structure, order, routine. I like predictability telling me what will happen and when, giving me time to mentally adjust to the fact its coming. In this case I liked it to fit work days around medical appointments and moving house, and writing novels and socialising around work.

So heads up, if you know a neurodivergent person (especially someone who’s autistic): don’t spring sudden changes on them! Sudden change is stressful. It often needs to be processed faster than I’m capable of processing it. And if you’re the parents of an autistic child: always give them an idea of how long they can do that thing they love, that they must pack up in five minutes, in two minutes, now! Sudden change is bad!

Memory

Before Twitter became fascist zombie land, (yeah, being blunt is also an autistic tendency and sometimes I just think fuck sensoring my language into neurotypical, I’m calling this shit as I see it), I knew SO MANY writers by name. I recalled at least one genre SO MANY of them wrote. I did make lists to help me, and now do so on Bsky, but my memory was unusual.

Which is clearest when I tell you my ADHD hates making notes about my multi character, complex plot, epic fantasy novels. So I just edit whole novels multiple times. I do my consistency edits of 100k novels in three days, because reading them that close together lets me just remember compass points on their journey, or that character mentioned something seven chapters ago clashing with this chapter’s mention of it.

In some ways my memory is terrible: see ADHD’s impact on working memory. But in others its excellent, and the excellent ways tend to align with autistic tendencies.

Sensory Needs

Its Too Bright

I was once co-teaching and noticed that when the other teacher was teaching, I kept looking at the wall away from the children. That’s because it was blue, and calming and not cluttered with teaching charts. When that teacher went on leave and it became my classroom, I spent 45 minutes pinning A3 sheets of pastel purple over the lurid colours of the wall children sat beside, and took down most charts (I didn’t use them anyway).

That was the most obvious instance in my life of; dude, you have sensory issues! Certain colours, and brightness/ tone are so uncomfortable I don’t want to look at them (and yes, will spend forty five minutes covering them up).

Its Too Loud

The other obvious sensory issue my whole life has been sound. The number of times a repetitive noise has continued until it distracts and frustrates me and I verbally complain and no one else in the room can hear it…

Until getting chronically ill, I was a light sleeper. Possum lands on the roof? I wake up. Car drives over speed bump outside my house? Wake up. Someone walks down the corridor, opens a door, uses the shower in the bathroom next to my room… I bought earplugs when a housemate was getting up at 5.50am because I would wake when he open his door opened (it scrapped across his carpet) and not get to sleep until he shut the front door (it was deadlock only and impossible to turn quietly.)

Sensory sensitivity (which can also be to smell, taste and texture, all of which bother me a lot less) is another classic autistic trait.

Other Areas

Difficulty Maintaining Friendships & Holding Down Employment

This wasn’t an easy one to evaluate, because I move house (sometimes countries) every couple of years. I change work places just as often (these are classic ADHD novelty seeking behaviours). But I didn’t realise holding employment and maintaining friendships are also common autistic struggles.

The one year contract was my bane as a teacher. My ADHD swiftly got fed up with the same time-consuming, repetitive routine of annually re-applying for my job because my contract had finished. That made things hit harder, and is why I figured why not teach overseas? Employment is no longer enough incentive to go through several weeks of lots of work and stress to get the same outcome annually (employment). There’s your autistic logic, running away with the ADHD quest for novelty. My difficulty in spotting both is that at moments like these, they ran hand in hand.

Creativity

I was the ‘in their own world child.’ My author bio mentions ‘graduating from playing imaginary games to writing fantasy.’ This is very much true. While fascination with facts is known as a typical autism trait in children by teachers, it was news to me that an interest in fantasy worlds can also be an autistic trait.

What Now?

Since moving house, I’m selling off things I don’t use and have purchased matching crockery and glassware, to reduce visual sensory overload at home. I also de-clutter my classroom where possible. I ask clarifying questions when needed at work, to help me piece together the too-many pieces of information people are telling me and extract the speaker’s intended meaning from them.

I tell colleagues when I can’t keep up with the professional conversation and again ask clarifying questions as needed. Ultimately, in conversation and meeting sensory needs, I give myself space to be comfortable, my neurodiverse self –autistic and ADHD-istic– and to succeed as such.

Strategy Number 1: Clarify (and play for time)

I don’t just need additional context because I’m neurodivergent. I rarely speak to parents, so I have little knowledge of them and their concerns. Even as a neurotypical person I might not anticipate what they’re asking about. So when they finish talking, I try to summarise their main concern and confirm it by asking, “Is that your concern? Are you also wondering about x?” Or, “So you’d like to know about Y? Is there anything else you’d like to know about that?”

Summarising and asking clarifying questions helps me ensure I have perceived the person’s main message (I tend to clutch at side points when I’m put on the spot), and gives me time to process. Only then do I stand a chance of recalling my usual answer to that sort of question (as an experienced teacher I’m lucky to have a bank of these from past experience). It also gives me time and mental space to connect what they are saying with what I know about the topic, to form my answer. Not to mention, clarifying what the other person is saying signals clearly that you are listening, interested in what they have to say and are keen to understand and help them, all good things to signal.

Strategy 2: Play for Time

If I’m having a casual one on one conversation, especially start of the day ones with students where there’s no contextual clues of what they’re talking about, again, I need time to process. I usually seize on a single piece of what they said, and comment on it, encouraging them to elaborate. While they elaborate, I’m processing, connecting the trip to Sydney to visiting their grandparents and that being why the child is excited. This isn’t a one off for me. It happens in MANY conversations where I’m not given multiple contextual clues.

Note for neurotypical people: If you’re ever chatting to someone and you think the point the other person chose to comment on is random, or not your main point, don’t go feeling misunderstood: elaborate. Adults are so time poor these days that I feel like we often start our conversations in the middle. Even a busy neurotypical person may benefit from, “You know how I was visiting my grandmother because she was sick last week? Well it turns out…”

Strategy 3: Ask ‘Stupid’ Questions

Sometimes in the staff room a colleague asks another, “Did you get those times sorted?” In most contexts that means nothing to me. “Times for what?” No, it doesn’t matter that the last conversation I had with that person was about times. That conversation was two hours ago and my head is full of the teaching I did in between. I need to be asked, “Did you get the times for little Jimmy’s parent-teacher interview sorted?”

I’ve always thought it was magic how most of my colleagues can answer questions like that with zero context, when I mostly can’t. When people ask me questions at a time and about a thing or in a location I don’t expect it, I need at least three contextual clues to know what they’re on about. And because teachers spend most of our time working with students, and many of our conversations are rushed between preparing lessons, meetings, yard duty, paperwork etc; my colleagues rarely give me context. So I’m learning to respond to questions with: “Are you talking about x?”

Note for Neurotypicals: Hyper focus makes context a necessity for me. Hyper focus means my focus is on my world building my novel set in a roughly Bronze Age era, fantasy world. So if you’re asking me about real world, modern day politics in America, I’ll first assume you’re asking about Umarinaris politics during Ruarnon’s reign. Then I might realise you mean modern politics, but modern politics has dickheads in every country (and I’m in Australia, so I may or may not assume Australia first), so which modern country’s political dickheads are you referring to? Give me context!

Processing Strategies

Strategy 1: Go With the Flow

Many writers joke about how much they procrastinate. But when I wake up on a Saturday morning, spend two to three hours bouncing around on social media, then go for a walk (possibly a drive first): I’m not procrastinating. I’m letting my restless, highly distractible brain do its ping pong thing. That involves letting it bounce towards whatever interests it, in any order, forget things, bounce to the next, then circle back.

I let my brain go with its flow. Then I walk and do housework to exercise off the physical restlessness and calm my mind. On Saturday night I watch tv or read, or ease into writing with a blog (like I’m doing right now) or a newsletter. Then on Sunday: I’m ready to write or edit some chapters.

This is what I mean when I say ‘go with the flow’. My brain isn’t linear. It may not finish one thought before it rushes to the next, and the next. It may have two lines of thought simultaneously.

Throughout the Day

But at work I HAVE to slow down. Through sheer will and discipline developed over years, I try to explicitly teach a single line of thought, to make learning accessible to my students. And during the day I force myself to, as much as possible, get all my lesson structure timings right and work to the school timetable and bells.

Once the kids go home, I let myself pack up and organise five different things at once. I forget the first, get distracted by the sixth, re-discover the first and so on. I’ve learned to keep looking around, and circling back each time I finish or get distracted from something, to see what else I’m still working on. Letting my brain go with its natural, chaotic flow when I’m tired takes a lot less effort than forcing myself to linearly do one thing at a time.

So with teaching and writing, I don’t fight or jam my brain into a neurotrypical mold. Wherever possible whilst actually getting things done, I let it march to the beat of its own erratic drum. Then I circle round to catch the things I got distracted from and forgot about before/ during completing them.

Strategy 2: To Do Lists

I laughed when people first mentioned these to me. What’s the point of a to do list? I lose the list LONG before I finish half the things on it. And I don’t remember to tick anything off, so I don’t experience the satisfaction of completing things, I just rush headlong into the next five. But editing the chaos of my novels and recalling the many jobs of different types juggled after hours in teaching was too much.

My new system is paper sticky notes. I don’t keep re-reading or ticking things off because that can get overwhelming and stressful. If I think I haven’t written something down, I just write it again and throw the notes in a pile so I don’t lose them. Once a week (there is a particular day where I have more time), I go over less urgent notes to do and cross their items off. Then I re-write the outstanding jobs in order of when they need to be done. That works for me.

For editing novels, instead of losing my edit notes, I type edit notes above each chapter in the draft. And I write notes that apply to the whole book before the first page, and re-read them periodically.

What Works For You?

For keeping track of things authoring and teaching, its been about listening to others, trialling things, identifying why things won’t work, figuring out what does, and being disciplined, stubborn, determined etc to plug the gaps. This is a good time to shout that its about figuring out what works for you and why, or what makes things harder, or stresses you out and why. And from there: what could make life easier for you?

Ideally we all got diagnosed as kids and had loads of strategies by adulthood, but the 90’s, naughties and earlier let us down big time on that front, so there are many women and nonbinary people and some men playing catch up. Good news though: its never too late to learn or to make your life easier!

Strategy 3: Ask For Help

I’m an impatient, adventurous but also a lone wolf type of person. I just want to dive in and get everything done fast (the best time for me to do anything was often yesterday, and sometimes last week. Failing that, its today.)

Sometimes I move too quick and overlook things multiple times. A classic example is supermarkets, where I can walk up and down the same aisle four times and not notice the item I want. Not only do I ask a staff member to tell me which aisle, but even how far down, or between what or even to point directly to it. I tell them, “I’m sorry, I have visual processing issues and I can’t seem to spot that one thing amongst the other stuff. Could you point to the shelf for me?” ‘Stupid question’ but it really helps.

My Mental Health Strategies

In conversation with others, I noticed how good luck and the benefits of other struggles in my life have positioned me well to manage my ADHD and autism from a mental health perspective. People with ADHD and or autism are statistically more likely to struggle with depression and anxiety, but for most of my life I’ve dodged both. So it seems a good focus for the third section of this blog. (Apologies fellow neurodiverse people, likely nothing in this section is easy and a good chunk works well for me because my experiences and personality predispositions align well).

Strategy 1: Accept What I Cannot Do

I’m realising in conversations with people who are self diagnosing as late in life as I am that I’ve been very fortunate. Some people I know have been carefully masking, measuring themselves up against neurotypicals and berating themselves for not being able to function like neurotypicals their whole lives. I haven’t had that struggle.

When I was around twenty I remember thinking, I’m an adult now. I should be able to do things like navigate to some place I’ve never been and get there on time. I couldn’t. Remembering to leave time for traffic, find a car park, get from car to venue etc is boring. I’m restless, impatient and easily distracted. All I knew back then was I struggled (and still do sometimes) in the moment to recall and allow for ALL the factors that allow you to get somewhere unfamiliar on time.

And I thought: most people with at least half a brain find this easy. I have more than half a brain but find it virtually impossible. I don’t know why or if I will ever know. So rather than be upset about something I can’t change, I’m just going to accept that I randomly suck at some things for no apparent reason. I’ll accept it as one of my quirks, enjoy getting lost, not sweat about being late and laugh it off.

Strategy 2: Don’t Compare Myself to Others

This was probably easy because I’ve rarely ever measured myself against my peers. I don’t date, or have my own kids so there’s no point of comparison as a partner or parent. As a nonbinary person I never cared much about the type of ‘man’, or ‘woman’ I am. I’ve met few nonbinary people, all recently, and as an umbrella term for multiple genders its hard to compare yourself to another nonbinary person anyway, so I didn’t care how my gender and that part of my identity compared to anyone.

When it came to my brain working differently and me behaving or struggling to do certain things in certain situations, I figured that’s just my quirks. I’m unlike many people in many ways, and in these particular ways I suck at things others can do easily. I didn’t suck enough to not be capable of what I want to do in life, it just made many things I wanted to do (like being a teacher and writing novels) A LOT harder and made me look clumsy. So the only times I compared myself to others and masked my ADHD and autism was when I worried it might raise questions about my competence at work (after I’d had years to settle in as a graduate teacher).

Strategy 3: Be Open About My Limitations At Work

I had no choice with this recently at work. The more boxes, colours and types of information a form collects, the more impossible I find it to perceive the whole form. Red hurts my eyes. White print on colour is hard to read correctly. And the more information jammed into more boxes, the more my brain shuts everything out to prevent being overloaded and doesn’t even realise it isn’t perceiving everything. I suspect this is a strategy my brain sub-consciously developed to minimise stress levels and help me avoid meltdowns.

The above became clear when I fell on my face doing a ridiculous amount of paperwork my colleagues found challenging but achievable that I found impossible earlier this year.

Whether or not your boss and colleagues believe you, understand you or appreciate the challenges you face at work makes a huge difference. I’ve been very lucky. And with understanding of my needs, I could develop strategies and work could put supports in place so that what was inaccessible to my neurodiverse brain became workable. (Though it was still exhausting -needlessly, because the organisation who produced the paperwork doesn’t understand how inaccessible they made it to people like me and don’t seem interested in learning.)

Had I not been open and honest about having visual and general processing challenges in completing paperwork, I could have been accused of being careless, lazy, incompetent etc. I was privledged that my bosses could be trusted with the truth of my neurodiversity (and chronic illness). And that they were willing to listen to how, between neurodiversity and chronic illness, I faced many significant obstacles in the workplace that my colleagues didn’t and they were genuinely prepared to support me with that.

Strategy 4: Be Open About My Limitations At Home

Again, I’ve been lucky. For my first three years as a teacher I lived alone in my own house, as chaotically as I wanted while I figured everything out. By the time I moved into a sharehouse, I had a fair idea of how to organise cleaning and other things that could annoy my housemates.

I’ve been clear about systems that help me succeed with housemates. For eg. bills are printed and stuck to my fridge (the one my food is in) and we sign when we’ve paid our share. Because if our bills are shared digitally, the infinite distractions on the internet mean I’ll forget the bill exists each time I close the tab I saw it in. On the fridge there are no distractions and I see it each time I enter the kitchen, creating the eight or so opportunities I need to remember to actually get as far as paying before being distracted by something else. I move a device into the kitchen, so when I bounce between tabs and forget what I’m doing, my physical location reminds me to pay a bill.

One housemate circles the cost and writes what each of us owe on bills, so I don’t get lost sifting through too many words and miss important details, like whether its gas or electricity (the first five or so times I look at it, out of impatience and restlessness).

I’ve also mentioned that I’m a light sleeper with sensitive hearing, and headphones or background noise exacerbate the ringing in my ears. I ask my housemates not to shower after 11pm (my room is next to the bathroom) or be cooking and banging pots and pans at 1am (I’m also near the kitchen). My housemates are good with this.

Key Points for Neurotypicals

Give the person you’re speaking to, especially if you’re asking them a question, context, each time you change the conversation topic.
Give people time to process what you’re saying or asking. If after a pause they still don’t respond, give them more information, in case they’re still unclear (and possibly feeling stupid for being so).
Please be patient and remember that its not that we don’t care. ADHD brains are distractible, impatient and can be impulsive. We will forget things temporarily, often because there’s too many things going on in our heads at once and we don’t have your capacity to focus on only one of them (without a massive struggle). Which one are you referring to?
Thanks for taking an interest in and being willing to learn about what life can be like for neurodiverse people, in particular ADHDers. You being informed and trying to understand can make a big difference in your interactions with us, how we are perceived and ultimately on our wellbeing.

Key Points for Neurodiverse People

It’s ok to ask ‘stupid questions,’ restate and clarify what others are saying and to ask for time to process information. Its also ok to ask if you can get back to someone at a later time. You are allowed to take the time you need to process the situation, even and most especially when that timing doesn’t match neurotypical expectations.
Figure out how your brain works best. Develop strategies that work with and support your brain where possible, and that scaffold your brain where it struggles. Talking to other ND people may help, but we, our brains and circumstances vary and you’ll need to figure out what works best for you.
It may seem I’m asking you for the sun AND the moon, but we need to accept what we can and can’t do and make our peace with it to be content in life. This includes not comparing ourselves to neurotypicals and not beating ourselves up for not measuring up to or not meeting neurotypical expectations. This world was not designed for us and that is NOT our fault.
If it is safe to do so and people at your work and home are willing to listen and are receptive to your words, tell them honestly what you struggle with. Tell them (when you’ve figured it out) how your brain makes some things difficult, and what they and you can do to make things easier.
Best of luck finding strategies that work for you!

Neurodivergent Self Diagnosis. ADHD? Autistic?

March 15, 2023 / Elise Carlson / 0 Comments

I’ve never considered myself to be ‘normal’ or ‘just like everyone else’. When you’re a nonbinary person, and an asexual, aromantic in a world of binary gender adults interested in romantic relationships and sex —you don’t fit. You often don’t quite present, sound or act like most people. But as I try to iron out creases that trip me up in my teaching career, and talk to neurodiverse friends on social media, I’m seeing another set of differences in how I think, feel and function that also set me apart. I Think I’m Neurodivergent (ADHD being the likely candidate).

Neurodiverse Communication

Rehearsing Conversations

What are You on About?

As a teenager, I routinely initiated conversations with peers because it was the easiest way to communicate. Even as an adult I find other people starting the conversation challenging. With people I don’t know well, the first thing I think they’re saying usually isn’t what they mean. I’ve developed a habit of listening, ignoring my first interpretation, and waiting until a second or third interpretation forms in my mind before I respond. Usually by then I’ve correctly identified the topic and their intended meaning. If I take too long to do that, I comment on one aspect I’m sure I understand, to encourage them to say more, to give me more time to figure out what they’re talking about.

Hyper Focus

This can make social interactions difficult. For example, when I’m planning what I’m teaching next week I plan teacher groups on four days of writing, despite thirty minutes earlier discussing having only three Writing lessons that week. Because if I am planning Writing, my brain is NOT thinking about the timetable, it is thinking about WRITING (this is the case for almost every complex thing I’m thinking about, almost always).

Often in meetings I’m hyper focused on one main thing, and someone asks or talks about something else. There’s a mental distance between me and them. To cross it, I have to pull back from that one thing I was thinking about. I need at least two, if not three details to figure out where on Earth my colleague is standing, let alone how to cross the mental gulf between us to talk about the same thing. And piecing together those clues takes time, so again I need more processing time in face to face, or on the phone conversations, when adults expect an immediate response. (This is why I love emails and social media, because I can take all the processing time I want before responding.)

[2024 edit: hyper focus is how I countered extremely high, persistent levels of distractibility, stemming from lack of dopamine in my brain due to ADHD meaning my brain doesn’t filter out anywhere near as much information as it should. Hence focusing on a single thing and not four others all in that moment also competing for my attention took A LOT of energy].

Group Conversations

Picture this. You’re in a meeting in which other people frequently give very few contextual clues, and elaborate on each other’s thoughts or change the topic rapidly. You don’t have enough contextual information to pull back from your hyper-focus to get what Joe is saying, and now Jane is saying something else, and then Max changes the topic again. Its like everyone else is is cycling on a level surface as a group, and you’re in the skate park stuck on jumps. You’re hitting road blocks, and doing all sorts of crazy gymnastics to move in a straight line and wondering why its so hard to keep up with the group cycling/ conversation. This is me in staff meetings.

[2024 edit: the above is a classic ADHD struggle.]

What are Social Graces?

I’ve never been a fan of a few basic social conventions.

1. I don’t use names.

I’m a teacher. I know that people like being addressed by name. That a simple thing like that can fill people’s buckets. But in a state of nature I would never speak to anyone by name unless they had their back to me. I’m just not wired that way. I’ve had to learn to use my students and colleagues names often and it’s something I often have to do consciously and deliberately, where everyone else seems to do it naturally.

So how do I speak to people? As a sociable person who likes people, I just walk up to them and start talking about whatever I notice that relates to them/ us/ the setting at the time. I often catch people off guard, and they take a moment to process what I’m saying, and introverts struggle. But I’ve started some great conversations that way.

2. I don’t like eye contact.

This is a classic, obvious autistic trait but I was unconcious of it for quite some time. Because people look you in the eyes and insist you look back from childhood. So you make yourself do it and pretend it doesn’t bother you. Or you make eye contact so they know you’re listening but you keep finding excuses to look away. They don’t notice anything. And you don’t want to notice how uncomfortable eye contact makes you, because God knows how often how many people are trying to make eye contact with you and you’re trying to uncomfortably meet it!

3. I don’t do small talk.

When you talk to people you’re supposed to ask how they are. When they’re strangers you’re supposed to do ice breakers, or ‘polite conversation starters’ like the weather, or —hell, I don’t know because I don’t do it. Why? Because I’m not interested. I’m interested in what I’m interested in, so in a state of nature I’m just going to launch into that with no names, greetings, preamble or niceties —no time wasting— lets get into it! (Yes the impatience is likely ADHD which I have quite a few traits of, and not just the ones that overlap with autism.)

Again, I have had to spend lots of time learning and practicing asking how people are, or thinking of things that matter to them and asking how those things are going. I do care about the latter. If they start talking about it I will show interest in my responses. But its not natural for me to think what to ask about other people. I used to just assume that if something mattered to people they wouldn’t need an invitation to talk about it and would just say it, but I’m learning there are many exceptions to that.

Brain Functioning

Organisation

Time Management High School

I had no idea what the above words meant as a kid or teenager. I lived a five-minute walk from the back gate of my school. I walked to school and was often a few minutes late. Why? Because to get to class on time I had to know how long it took me to get ready for school, how long the walk was, factor in the time to get from the gate to my locker, to carry my books from my locker to my classroom. I had to juggle four things I have no inclination to deal with it, at the same time.

[And what was the point of being on time to class? Lining up outside the room? Waiting for everyone to slowly take their seats? If I came in right as the teacher was starting the roll —no time was wasted. I’ve always known I was a why person. If you asked me to do something I saw no reason for doing and gave me no reason —I wouldn’t do it. (More on this later.)]

Time Management University

At University I quickly realised I was not going to keep track of which assignments were due when, or even remember the assignments I had to do. And I’ve always found dates meaningless. There’s just days of the week, and which week it is of the school term or holidays (which works well for me as a teacher).

So how did I manage time around classes, a casual job and getting all the assignments done? I learned early on that starting an assignment within a week of getting it, working on it as often as I was motivated to, then doing the next got things done on time. So my ‘time management’ was just ‘start early and hope it works’. (Even now, this and ‘work on it as often as possible’ and maybe ‘achieve big thing x this week and thing y the next week is the limit of my ‘scheduling.’)

Navigating to New Places

I sucked at this, for over a decade after getting my licence. Navigating to an unfamiliar place meant looking it up in the Melways (a print book as this was pre sat nav and pre Google Maps), calculate travel time, factor in time to find a car park and time to walk from my car to the unfamiliar place. I got lost A LOT the year I got my licence. As an adventurous, easy-going person, I learned to embrace and enjoy it. If you drove too far out of town, the green signs would tell you where the next town/ suburb was and I trusted those signs and didn’t worry too much.

But when I had to be at that unfamiliar place at a certain time? That remained a challenge because I found it REALLY hard to factor all four of those things to get there on time for… about fifteen years. Not because I’m stupid. Not because I’m too lazy to plan. But because the night before when I set my alarm clock, or when I decide my departure time, I forget time to find a carpark, or get from my car to the unfamiliar place or that peak hour traffic is a thing (to this day that one catches me out).

I’m Thinking…

Hyper Focus

This has advantages too. As a teen, my mum and brother could be arguing in the next room, and I wouldn’t really hear them because I was hyper-focused on writing or editing my latest novel. But it wasn’t the greatest for my health as a teenager. In hindsight, I didn’t dress warmly enough in winter. I’d hyper-focus on the fun stuff I was doing with friends and not notice how cold I was. That wasn’t good for my asthma or hey fever.

Or I’d hyper focus on writing on school holidays, then realise it was four o’clock in the afternoon and I hadn’t eaten lunch yet. I still have to be careful when I’m working on anything important to me —at work or books at home— to keep an eye on the time, and not go too long without meal or bathroom breaks or get too hot or too cold (or write/edit novels until 2am when not teaching). Its a constant thing.

What’s the Point?

As I said earlier, why be on time for class, so I can line up outside, wait for everyone else to enter and sit down slowly and get zero benefits for having got out of bed a bit earlier? If you want me to do something —tell me why. The fact you want me to do it doesn’t motivate me. The fact you were my parent or teacher and even now, the fact alone that its my boss asking doesn’t motivate me. Intrinsic motivation for me is not conforming to other people’s expectations, their wants, being obedient or doing anything purely because someone asked. I care about, I want to understand, I am motivated by WHY. Tell me how it benefits people —students, colleagues, my boss, me —anybody— or how it makes my work more productive, or easier, or safer or whatever. That’s what motivates me. I don’t know anyone else so strongly motivated by being told why.

Who Cares What People Think?

I concluded as a teenager that collectively: people are stupid. Everyone else’s main motivator at high school seemed to be ‘does this help me fit in’? or ‘is it cool’? And what makes something cool? Cool kids think it’s cool. And what makes them cool? They just are. Does that make any rational sense whatsoever? No. So did I have any respect for their opinions about anything? No.

I suspect the weight I’ve given to rational arguments over everything else since about the age of seven, and especially throughout my teens, the black and white way I tend to see people and complex situations is another neurodiverse trait I have. Yes, I like people and I’ve always desired friends. But I want friends on my terms. I want to be me. I don’t want to conform to other people’s expectations of me. They expect me to a binary female. They expect me to be hetro sexual. They expect me to be neurotypical. I am none of those things. So I’ve always been disinterested in anyone who doesn’t like me for me and created my own space to be me. Since I was 15, my attitude was “I am me and if you don’t like it you can get stuffed.”

I’m Excited! Are You Excited?

There are many reasons I love teaching primary school children. Mainly, because so many things are new and exciting to them. They’re excited to be alive, and so am I. They see new amazing things and cry ‘Wow!’ They don’t care if they draw attention to themselves. They don’t care if people judge them for their enthusiasm. I don’t either.

I remember sitting in a tutorial in my first year of university and being astounded at how un-animated my classmates were. They sat so still. They looked so out of it. I put my hand up to give a wrong answer on purpose because no one else would answer the question. I wanted to knock on their skulls and call, ‘Hello? Is anybody home? Or am I taking this class with a bunch of zombies?’

There’s always been a large disconnect between my excitability and the majority of the adult population. When I meet new people, or familiar people, when I’m outside experiencing nature or exploring new places —I’m energised. I’m excited. I’m animatedly loving and living life to the full. I’m surprised that everyone is smiling at me. Then I realise I’m doing that thing where I walk around with a big smile on my face and am oblivious to doing so. This another of my traits I don’t have in common with any adults I know.

Does my brain have an off button?

I have two speeds: fast and stationary. I’m functioning at 100 miles an hour, or I’m asleep. There are rarely inbetween modes. This is because my brain DOES NOT STOP. No matter how tired I am, I am almost always thinking something, often something complicated and deep (this nearly killed me when I had long covid. My body was FUCKED and I still couldn’t rest properly for weeks).

The only things that keep me present in my physical surroundings are hyper-focusing on the scenery around me and or the inner symphony playing in my head (I often have instrumental music playing in my head, usually matching my mood, especially when I’m really happy).

As a teenager I’d sometimes stay up writing novels till midnight, when my exhausted body would insist on sleep. In my twenties I switched from power walking to running five days a week, to make my body so tired that it would drag my brain to sleep at night. (That was still crucial when I started teaching full time, which should have tired me sufficiently but didn’t). In my thirties I tire more easily, but still need to run 4km most days a week to sleep when fit (as opposed to the 6-7km I was running in my twenties). Regular exercise makes a HUGE difference in how well I mentally switch off and how deeply and effectively I sleep at night.

Stopping and Resting to Get Well

Self-care has perhaps been my single greatest challenge as a teacher. I always underestimate how sick I am. Usually drastically (and with a weak chest and asthma I can get SICK in winter). I spent years being terrible at lying in bed or on the couch. I’d get bored so easily. I’d try to write novels when my brain wasn’t up to it. I’d read them when it was still tiring. I’d go out for walks when I was barely well enough to stand because I HATE sitting inside all day. (Yes, even when long covid fatigue made me feel I’d literally gained 20-30 kilos I’d still drag myself out to walk even when a three hour lie down was what I desperately needed).

I suspect ADHD levels of desire for sensory and mental stimulation make rest very challenging for me. That’s probably why if I’m on social media a lot —I’m sick. Posts are short, easy to read and write unless I’m in a comma. And they’re stimulating. So social media is how I talk my brain into taking it easy. Then I try to switch to tv shows, then reading, to properly relax my mind and body and let them rest so I can get well. Again, learning how to do this defies all my natural instincts and has taken YEARS. I really see ADHD all over this.

Why did you change that?

In a recent meeting at work, I was asked to do something in a different order, for which I couldn’t use my normal data, with no forewarning. I sat there going WHAT? How am I supposed to do that? We’re supposed to do the other thing first? And I won’t be able to use the thing that normally helps me. How on Earth am I supposed to do that?

There was a solution, and having had to develop all sorts of habits to make navigating a neurotypical world as a neurodivergent person easier my entire life, I quickly found it. But I’m not fond of things changing without notice. Last time I missed a flight, I had to take time to take it in. Just breathe. I can’t now do x, y, or z. Plans have changed. Then gradually, one step at a time I make a new plan of how to do things. Standing in the ticketing queue for two hours was a perfect opportunity to do this.

What was I doing again?

It’s classic me that at this stage in the blog, if there was any logical connection between one subheading and another —I completely forget what it is. I knew I’d fully recovered from long covid the day I found myself working on the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth jobs I wanted to do at home, having started, not finished and forgotten about jobs 1-5. I’m very easily distracted. The notion of beginning one thing and continuing it until its finished without starting at least three other things first is utterly foreign to me.

I normally have 70 tabs open on my computer, the maximum. If I don’t have every tab I use as an author and in my private life open at once, how will I possibly remember all the digital jobs I was doing? When I completely lose track, at least once I week, I open all tabs I don’t recognise. I find writing competitions, book promotions, the latest author platform to join etc.

I like open tabs for the same reason I write to do lists on physical sticky notes: because its right in front of me. I never understood the point of diaries. You write dates in them, shut them, and everything inside them ceases to exist. If I can’t see it, I forget its there. So I keep my To Do List on a single page, and in some cases literally put physical tasks where I will fall over them so I don’t forget them.

ADHD?

My high levels of energy, inability to switch off, tendency to prefer doing umpteen things at once, to forget anything I can’t see, to fail to focus well enough to manage time or navigate to new places all point to ADHD for me. My doctor thinks so too. I’ve bumbled along, noticing things I find it easier to do differently to everyone else, accepting things I suck at that they find easy, and just doing what works for me. Or making it work for me, like exercising regularly to sleep well at night.

I’m relearning to manage it all, long covid having suppressed all my ADHD tendencies completely for seven months. So my next blog on this topic will be strategies I’ve developed to help manage being neurodivergent.

March 2024 Diagnosis Update

My ADHD has just been diagnosed. I think it was in the area of focus that a medical professional told me I needed to score six for ADHD on one of the tests. He also said, ‘Congratulations, you scored nine.’ I was totally unsurprised and content with this.

ADHD has always been more obvious in how my neurodivergent self presents. But on reflection, I’ve listed quite a few autistic traits above. And there is some overlap between autism and ADHD, and my mother is AuDHD. This is likely not the end of exploring my neurodivergent-ness, but only a stage in the journey.

Total Page Visits: 2912

Time Blindness, To When I Last Saw You

Time Blindness, To Me

How Can You Perceive Months as Weeks?

Hyper Focus

ADHD Sensory Overload & Not Thinking of You

ADHD, Cognitive Overload & Not Thinking of You

Object (& Concept) Permanence

Regular Overload =Regular Forgetfulness

Overload, Stress & Cognitive Inability

Distraction & Routine -Still Haven’t Called You

Distractibility -Its not That You Don’t Matter

Responsibility and Realistic Expectations

Final Note On Feelings & Positive Relationships

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Sensory Challenges

Road Works, Construction & Obstructions

Obstruction Management Tip 1: Reduce Stimulation & Pressure

Obstruction Management Tip 2: Reduce Stimulation & Pressure With Help

Do You Have the Right Travel Companion?

Navigation Communication Challenge: Noise

Communication Tip: Seek Quiet

Sensory Overload

Site Seeing V.S. Sensory Need Balance Tip

Avoiding ADHD Time-Fail Tax

ADHD Booking & Time Tips

Tours and Accomodation Tips

Low Spoons Travel (Pain/ Fatigue/ Chronic Illness)

Low Energy Management; Snacks

Low Energy; Pace Yourself

Low Energy; Rest Breaks

Related Reading

Value People For Who They Are

Learn Before You Judge Someone

Communicate When Your Expectations Aren’t Met

Value Logic and Questions

Age & Rank Alone Don’t Matter to Me

There is No ‘Normal or ‘Abnormal’ Person

The Downside of Calling Humans ‘Normal’

You Don’t Need Permission To Speak

Just Tell Us Your News!

Make Personal Connections With What the Other Person Said

The Value of Sharing Personal Connections

Abolish Taboo Conversation Topics

Suicide & The Need to Talk

How Can We Deal With It, If We Won’t Even Discus it?

Get Comfortable With Your Own Discomfort

Cut The Minimising Platitudes

Speak Up & Protest!

Disclaimer

Sharing the Good Stuff

Smell Those Roses

Reducing Sensory Overload At Home

Clutter is Evil

Mess is Also Bad

Non-Overstimulating Household Set Up

Non-Overstimulating Pantry

Non-Overstimulating Crockery/ Glassware etc

Non-Overstimulating Storage

White Space/ Resting Your Eyes

Increase White Space, Maximise Cupboards

Reducing Visual Overload At Work: School

Walls Covered in Posters/ Charts are Evil

What are Visually Overwhelming Walls Doing to ND Adults/ Kids?

Noise At Work

Related Reading

Neurodiverse Communication

Rehearsing Conversations

What are You on About?

Why Can’t People Just SAY what they MEAN?

I Say What I Mean

Tone

Leading Conversations

Reciprocity In Conversation

What are Social Graces?

1. I don’t like eye contact.

2. I don’t do small talk.

I’m Thinking…

Hyper Focus

What’s the Point?

Logic and Decision Making