I was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult in a healthcare system that doesn't consistently recognize and treat ADHD in adults. Many clinicians are unfamiliar with it and still believe in myths like ADHD being a disorder that only affects children, or who fail to recognize ADHD as the primary condition and waste years of people's lives on diagnosis and medications that don't work, so I was forced to largely figure it out myself to try to advocate for myself - DSM-5, ICD-11, research papers, personal experiences from other people.

This is a long shot but have any of you had issues with noise and light sensitivity?

It’s something new that started happening to me in my early 30s. I can’t seem to get a diagnosis. Wondering if it’s autism related.

I’ve been to a bunch of specialists and they say it’s all in my head. But car headlights look 10x brighter than they should. And cutlery sounds 10x louder.

My son has ASD. I think I have it too on some degree. And yes, headlights especially nights are very hard to eyes. I have no issue on sounds though.

This life trajectory seems quite common in tech tbh. I suspect the proportion of autistics with ADHD in tech is quite high, given the appeal of: not working with people, novel difficult problems to solve, immediate sensory feedback from working on your computer. It also describes my life accurately as well.

Ironically, we chose a work style that requires maintaining prolonged focus, which sucks without meds (especially when dealing with boring tasks).