Replies (2)

• @AnAutieAtUni@beige.party 2026-09-02 08:14

  @HarmonySeeker@autistics.life I’m very similar to you. Cognitive profiles are really interesting to explore, especially as an AuDHD’er. These are my differences and some more details about each one: Instead of composing music, which is something I haven’t learned, I love other forms of art. For this, I need to be able to feel it. I’m very kinaesthetic. So I love the movement required to make art. But I’ve also painted detailed miniature paintings that required intense focus and very little, highly controlled movement, so I think hyperfocus is a skill I love to use as well. With some art I would see a blank sheet of paper and already see the picture on it, so it felt more like I was just following a guide, filling in the gaps. I wonder if composing music is like that for you. I haven’t experienced this though since I first got burnout many years ago in a job that forced me to be creative every day alongside workplace harassment, and later I got ME/CFS, which affects cognitive ability. I’ve managed to get most of it back, but not all and it fluctuates with my daily symptom level. I can almost always do maths or coding or analyse data. It seems this part of my brain keeps going even when I’m stressed. It feels like logic and order, so very calming to do. I can sometimes code while watching a movie in the background, even hold a conversation at the same time. Although not right now because I’m learning a lot of new stuff on a masters course so I need my full attention on that. But it seems this part of my brain is like a separate computer to the rest - haha! I do enjoy writing, but as you said for you, it takes me days or longer to structure what I want to say. I managed to improve this by learning some writing strategies in my recent undergraduate degree but I still find it hard to write longer pieces. I think the issue is related to needing to see multiple perspectives at once: from zoomed right in for crafting the individual sentences to zoomed right out to check the structure and even purpose of the writing as a whole. Switching between zoomed out and zoomed in for words is really hard, can even make me feel nauseous. I can do it, can even do it very well, but I would hate it to be all I do as a day job, for example! Satisfying once done, but draining in the process! Spoken conversations, and especially unexpected questions, can be a nemesis of mine too like you said for you. I can shut down or go non-speaking, or often somewhere in between where I force garbled words out and don’t even know what I’m saying and stutter a lot, etc. I loathe audio-only calls for this reason and avoid them as much as possible. But then that’s a lot to do with being able to see someone and their body language helps me contextualise their words, otherwise I can really misunderstand. If I must do a telephone call, I sometimes use a relay service in the UK where a real human acts as a relay to speak my typed words to the person on the other end and then types responses back to me. In person, if I can’t speak, I sometimes use my phone to type what I want to say and show someone the screen, or use any messaging app with them even if the other person is right next to me. Planned one-to-one spoken conversations are the best for me, any more people than that and my brain melts and I go into listen-only mode. I can sometimes remember a lot of conversations, but then other times nothing at all. I can’t follow verbal instructions. I remember only one step at a time, and if multiple steps are spoken to me at once, my brain can mangle them all! I can listen to audiobooks and podcasts sometimes because the content and contexts are predictable and I don’t need to speak, but I will always be more interested in my environment than what I’m listening to, so I can only listen well when my environment is very predictable and not stimulating. E.g. while cleaning, walking, etc. Health limitations right now mean there are not many opportunities. I prefer to watch videos and join video calls when they have captions or subtitles and always ask to be able to use the chat function as a back up. Without captions I can miss quite a bit. I enjoy reading and comprehend what I read well, but keeping my focus on anything except a current hyperfixation has become increasingly difficult with age. I’m hoping to try ADHD meds soon. I can practically inhale some writing that interests me intensely right here and now, but then I can labour for days over reading something that doesn’t have that relevancy and urgency. I’m adding some extra tags and hashtags to help give your post more visibility. It’s a very interesting topic! @autistics@fedigroups.social #ActuallyAutistic #ADHD #AuDHD

  Open ##5396070

• @pathfinder@beige.party 2026-09-02 13:56

  @HarmonySeeker@autistics.life As a general rule I am better at dealing with written communication than I am with verbal processing, both in terms of listening and speech. It does somewhat depend on the subject. Because my mind throws up a hard no, at certain things. Maths, beyond the basics, science and technology in particular and especially once they descend into techno speech. One of the fun things about being audhd though, is that our skill sets tend to be either hypo or hyper. But, in some areas, can swing between the two. This especially seems to baffle outside observes of the NT variety. The apparent impossibility, for them anyway, of how we can be fine, or excel, one day and another barely function.

  Open ##5396081