ADHD and Autism in adults
It is astonishing how much ADHD and Autism have grown in prominence in the last 40-50 years.
According to a Guardian article ‘about 15% of the global population are said to be neurodivergent’. This interesting and helpful article starts by saying that ‘it was in the mid-90s that neurodiversity as a formal concept and a rights movement began to emerge’.
Neurodivergent people will usually be diagnosed as being autistic (autism was previously known as Asperger’s syndrome), or having ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). Some people find that they are diagnosed as having both ADHD and autism. As Dr Megan Anna Neff says: These conditions ‘share a great deal of genetic and neurobiological overlap’. This dual diagnosis was not possible before 2013.
While there is a much greater awareness of autism and ADHD today than ever before, help from therapists has not been readily available. Furthermore, therapy may well have failed because of the therapist not knowing about neurodivergence and its effect on a person’s daily life. In fact I was probably one of those therapists myself until I undertook training on autism and ADHD.
There has been a big increase in the numbers of people being diagnosed as autistic and as having ADHD. In the UK it can take 4 years to get a diagnosis on the NHS, which is a long time when one is experiencing difficulties in living and perhaps not understanding what could be the cause.
ADHD – Lived Experience
Adults with ADHD can find themselves unable to structure thoughts, prioritize and organize. They can be easily distracted, suffer from forgetfulness. They may also find themselves being unable to filter out intrusive noises or bright lights in the way that a neurotypical person can. They can find it difficult to arrive at appointments on time. These are just a few examples.
Autism
I quote here from Laurie Penny, diagnosed as autistic, in an article in the Observer Magazine of 11th May entitled ‘Diagnosing my Difference’, who gives a succinct description of her experience of being autistic: ‘For as long as records have been kept, a small percentage of the species has been meaningfully different to other people and meaningfully similar to each other. We are odd, obsessive and socially oblivious. We find the world noisy, intense, overwhelming’.
There are adults who have been diagnosed as autistic after many years of being unaware of this, who have been unable to hold down a job with the level of responsibility to which their education would normally entitle them to assume.
In seeing patients who have not been diagnosed as autistic but whose life difficulties suggest autism, I have been struck by the degree of anxiety they experience in their daily life. This can range from feeling anxious about a change in routine, like preparing to go away on holiday, to extreme anxiety about how they are performing in a group of friends and what image they are giving of themselves. I show my patients that I take their worries seriously and use the session to think together with them what measures they could take to make daily life easier. One of my patients needed to start the day earlier so she could do all she needed to do in terms of studying. With help and encouragement from me she was able to start her day a few hours earlier and hugely gained in self-confidence when she experienced the positive impact that this had on her life.
The Norwegian film La Palma shows Tobias, a young boy with few social skills, described as being ‘on the spectrum’ with an obsessive interest in swimming, drawing and numbers, who at a critical point finds the co-ordinates on his laptop (sent out by the Norwegian government) which will guide his mother and a worker on Tenerife to the only safe spot on the island to escape a tsunami. Perhaps the film is quietly making the point that the differently re-wired brains of autistic people are sorely needed in our world today to help solve the daunting problems we face as a species on earth.
In ‘Diagnosing My Difference’ there is an extraordinary paragraph where 8 year old Laurie Penny describes a teacher who is screaming at her for being ‘the rudest girl in the school’. ‘Are you OK?’ she asks, having seen the ‘big bags under his red-rimmed eyes’ and previously read that this means he must be ‘tired, sad or sick’. She forgets his angry shouting and focuses on the fact that this teacher is clearly not ok.
This episode beautifully illustrates what Simon Baren-Cohen says in his book Zero Degrees of Empathy, that the ‘affective empathy’ of autistic people is ‘frequently intact: we know this because when it is pointed out to them that someone is upset it often upsets them’.
Laurie Penny concludes by saying: ‘I’ve been incredibly lucky; not everyone with my symptoms is able to work and live independently. But how many more of us could if we were met halfway by a culture that actually values human difference?’
This is a heartfelt plea from an autistic woman (albeit a very successful one) to those of us who are in the neurotypical majority, to accept neurodivergence as something valuable and worthy of respect. This is a beautifully written article which portrays in subtle ways the anguish of the autistic person without labouring the point.
References
ADHD and AUTISM: how many people have it, what causes it, and why are diagnoses soaring? Sample. I., Guardian 01 June 2004
Penny, L., Diagnosing My Difference Observer Magazine 11 May 2025. https://observer.co.uk/news/first-person/article/laurie-penny-autism
Baren-Cohen, S., Zero Degrees of Empathy A new theory of human cruelty and kindness Penguin Books 2012
Resources
La Palma Norwegian film described as a ‘disaster drama miniseries’. Currently available to watch on Netflix.
ADHD and Autism: How ADHD and Autism are Related Neurodivergent Insights Dr Megan Anna Neff 17th March 2025
https://neurodivergentinsights.com/adhd-and-autism-overlap/