AuDHD: When autism meets ADHD

“I can see how you could look at someone like me and go, ‘That s***’s broken,’” says Rich Rowley. “I can write a master’s thesis in one day, but I can’t fill out a form. What’s that about? I must be broken, right?”

Rowley has diagnoses of ADHD and autism, a combination now so common it has its own unofficial label — AuDHD.

Like many AuDHDers, Rowley describes his brain as “always at odds with itself”.

“I’m desperate for routine, but stifled by it”, he says. “I don’t need relationships, but I thrive with them as well. It’s like being pulled two ways at the same time, and there’s never kind of a ‘happy in the middle’.”

Internal conflict is common for those who are both autistic and ADHD. But externally it looks like a person who is difficult, demanding or needy.

Podcast host Sonia Gray acknowledges relating to people who are inflexible is not always easy, but she believes the key is in understanding the intensity of their internal experience.

“Many people with an AuDHD-type brain are shunned by society. They’re seen as being unpredictable, demanding, or ‘just too much’. But if we dismiss them, it’s us that are missing out. We don’t get to experience their unique way of looking at the world, their energy, their passion.”

It’s only in recent years that getting a dual diagnosis has been possible. Before 2013, the two developmental conditions were seen as mutually exclusive. Diagnosis can be tricky because there are so many overlapping traits.

Sarah Watson, clinical director at Totally Psyched, says assessments at her clinic are at least three hours long, and her team needed to “upskill” to make sure they’re getting it right.

“There is still so much more for all of us to learn . . . because it’s such an emerging area. Those with AuDHD have often felt really misunderstood. It’s important they know they are truly special, truly unique individuals . . . one day this world will come to know and love what we know as AuDHD, I’m sure of it.”

Rowley has become a sought-after educator in the neurodiversity space and says his diagnosis completely changed him.

“It was an emotional roller coaster, but my world got bigger, because of it,” he says. “All of a sudden, I understood where I stand in relation to everything else. I’m learning to love my brain.”

● Rich Rowley is a guest on No Such Thing as Normal, a NZ Herald podcast, hosted by Sonia Gray.