Over-functioning AuDHD Late-diagnosed Woman

It has only recently occurred to me that the way that I have described myself for so many years: as someone who does things more quickly and efficiently than other people, but also needs a lot more rest and recovery than other people, is part of the ADHD part of my experience and also a main reason that I and many other women are late-diagnosed. Because women over-functioning is the bread and butter of our neurotypical patriarchal world. As long as we keep doing invisible labor behind the scenes that keep the rest of the world and the people/men around us afloat, no one is going to diagnose us with any problem.

And as soon as we STOP doing that labor, it becomes a personal issue and not a societal one. That is, it’s a “me” problem when I ask for relief from the burnout that always comes like clockwork from the incredibly complex layer of jobs that I seem to have volunteered for when I see the problems that other people are having and step in silently to help them so that the system around me runs more effectively.

I don’t get any “credit” for the over-functioning. People think it’s something to laud me for, and the problem with this is that it encourages me to keep doing it on a personal level and it doesn’t occur to anyone that actually, this over-functioning is a symptom of the disease. Because no one wants to cure this disease.

It reminds me a bit of one of my siblings who was diagnosed (finally, after decades!) with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and it was only after a bunch of other symptoms came up that they realized that, in fact, the “flexibility” they had always thought of as a special skill that they worked hard on, was, in fact, a symptom that should always have been added to the list of other problems and not put the side.

If I look at my over-functioning, at my tendency to have a TON of hobbies that I get very good at and have a hard time abandoning, as part of a problem rather than something to be proud of and to preen over, then the world and my place in it looks very different.

Even after my autism diagnosis, I think that I liked the idea that I was so good at so many very different things. Triathlon. Knitting/crochet. Languages. Writing. Test-taking. And more recently added to the list: finances. I’m good at so many things because I am smart and motivated and hard-working, right? It didn’t occur to me that this was actually the ADHD I didn’t have because I was so good at using systems to build up my executive function.

Of course I don’t have that tendency to have a new hobby and drop all the old ones. Because I never drop hobbies. I accumulate them and keep adding to them. No ADHD here. Nope, not chasing after the shiny squirrel of a bright new skill that I can show off to the world and stimulate my brain with so that I have a reason to get up every morning. I don’t like novelty, no sir. I just like learning stuff and getting good at it.

You see?