Struggles of an AuDHD student

The process of realizing, coming to terms with, and, very gradually, embracing my AuDHD diagnosis (autism + ADHD) was not linear, straightforward, or easy. In an education system that has been structured to shame and punish AuDHD traits, how could it be? While many of the institutions I attended have been nominally progressive and inclusive, there have always been boundaries. Schools are happy to celebrate neurodivergence—to proudly declare that they provide accommodations for any students who may need them; but these accommodations often seem to exist more so to shore up the school’s reputation than to materially aid the neurodivergent students in attendance.

Certainly, schools are often more than willing to offer extensions to the AuDHD student who asks a week in advance. But when the actual effects of AuDHD—not to mention the stigma surrounding neurodivergence—cause a student to be unable to interface with the support systems the schools have in place in a timely manner, patience and accommodations often run dry. My attempts to navigate my AuDHD—at first unknowingly—have shaped my time in education; and in turn, my experiences in education have shaped my understanding of my AuDHD.

The shame of standing out early

One of my earliest firm memories is a display of clear autistic traits—though at the time, neither I, my parents, nor my teachers had the words to describe it as such.

In the first grade, my class had a weekly assignment; to read any book, and return to class ready to give a brief description of that book. Important to this story is the fact that I was a remarkably precocious reader. If memory serves, I started reading at age 3, and was reading on my own by age 4. By grade 1 I had progressed past books intended for language acquisition and was reading simple novels intended for older children or younger teens. As such, the first week, I read the first book in The Mysterious Benedict Society series. This was by no means a complex book, but it was a chapter book, and intended for children a few years older than myself at the time. Thus, when I came to class and showed my teacher the book, she outright refused to believe I had actually read it. She—gently at first—informed me that there was no need to lie about the books I was reading and that it was alright to read a picture book like the other children. When I informed her I was not lying, she became agitated. She insisted that I admit to lying about reading the book.

At the time this experience was deeply confusing. My parents had told me to never lie to my teachers; my teacher was telling me to say something that I knew to be untrue. I recall experiencing great distress at this clashing of established rules; I didn’t know how to act in order to square this contradiction. As such, I became silent, and was sent to the principal’s office. I believe that to my teacher, it seemed as though my refusal to ‘confess’ came out of a strong desire to be seen as special or exceptional. This was not the case. I hadn’t read that book in order to appear exceptional. I read it because it happened to seem interesting to me. The ‘resolution’ of this situation was that I was forced to ‘apologize’ to the class for lying. When I insisted to my teacher again that I was not lying, she told me she wasn’t going to discuss this anymore and that I simply had to say that I was. This experience was deeply humiliating and shameful. By using tactics of browbeating and shaming, my teacher instilled in me the lesson that I ought to hide my interests, and be careful not to go beyond the bounds of normalcy.

Overlooked diagnoses

I chose to include this story in full as an example of what, in a more AuDHD-aware society, might have been recognized as an early indicator that could have resulted in a diagnosis much earlier in my life. The hyperfocus on reading, and the distress and confusion I experienced when two social rules came into conflict are both now familiar to me—and will probably be familiar to most who have AuDHD themselves. Yet they would be dismissed as ‘quirks’ for over a decade after this incident occurred. One wonders how much less difficulty I may have had throughout my adolescence had these signs been identified so early.

Because of a lack of education and information regarding autism and/or ADHD—or indeed hyperlexia, which is a precocious ability to read—my teachers did not recognize I had either—until I came back with a formal diagnosis. As such, they essentially did not know what to do with me. I excelled when I was able to dedicate my focus to something, and abide by classroom rules; but I often was simply not able to do that.

Impossible impulses

One frequent example of this—which my parents were called about multiple times—was answering questions out of turn. Often the teacher would ask a question, and I would be the only one to raise my hand. However, because I had already answered a few questions, the teacher would try to encourage other people to raise their hands. Eventually, I would feel overcome by the intense, almost irresistible urge to blurt out the answer, at which point I would get admonished for speaking out of turn.

This would often happen several times throughout the same class. To my teachers, this appeared to be sheer belligerence; after all, they had explicitly given me a very simple instruction only minutes ago, yet I was deliberately going against it. It was immensely difficult to explain to them that I didn’t just want to answer; I felt physically compelled to. This compulsion would become especially strong if a classmate answered a question incorrectly. I found it nearly impossible not to blurt out the correct answer. This was in part due to the feeling described above, but also because I wanted to avoid the lengthy, often tedious pedagogical nudging of the person towards the correct answer—which I of course recognize likely helped that student to better understand the material.

The only strategy I ever found that helped to manage this urge was to write the answers to questions asked by the teacher in my notebook rather than raising my hands. As such, my elementary school binders are full of written in margins. This provided some relief. While there was still a desire to vocalize, I at least did not feel as though I would burst if I didn’t. One issue was that if I knew the answer and did not speak up, the class would often be taken on a five to ten-minute discussion of the process of arriving at the answer, which, despite knowing the answer, I had to appear attentive during. This was incredibly frustrating to me. Perhaps if I could have read a book during this time (seeing as I already understood the material) or even if I was permitted to doodle in my notebook, this experience could have been less frustrating—possibly even pleasant. But as it was structured, it felt quite unbearable.

I have included this experience as one example of a general phenomenon throughout my pre-high school experiences. That is—the interpretation of my actions as belligerent, disobedient, or intentionally disruptive. This is not to say I was never mischievous for the sake of it; I was a child, that’s simply par for the course. However, most of the things I got in trouble for were things I did not feel I had any control over. I do not believe this is the fault of individual teachers, I should note. They had no frame of reference or explanation for why a student would act in this manner. Rather, I believe this is the fault of the school system for not providing teachers with greater training in identifying and responding to students with AuDHD. It must have felt as difficult from their perspective as from mine, to handle the classroom environment. I truly do feel for them; they, for the most part, wanted the best for all of their students. However, the school system—and society at large—simply did not provide them with the requisite tools to provide that.

Late nights & last-minute successes

While high school was a period of great social and academic growth, it was also a period of very real struggle. As the workload became more complex, I came face to face with a new host of problems I had yet to encounter. In elementary and middle school, I was essentially able to get by on my quick information acquisition. I usually did not have to study for tests, and would simply be able to retain the information I was told in class. Any assignments were so brief as to be completable in a brief burst of night-before or morning-of productivity.

In high school, however, I was finally confronted with real academic challenges: essays that ran dozens of pages, and tests that covered whole terms of complicated and precise formulas. It was only when faced with these fresh challenges that many of the features of my AuDHD became truly apparent. I struggled with my first couple of serious assignments; the first essay I attempted to write at the absolute last minute was late. The first test I took where I genuinely needed to study saw me receiving an uncharacteristically low mark. Yet I could not simply take these lessons, integrate them into my workflow, and move on.

After my first late assignment, I decided that I would start my next one a day early; since the prior one had been a day late, this made sense. The next week I received another assignment; and as I had promised myself, I sat at my computer more than a full day before it was due, prepared to begin writing. But much to my distress, I could produce absolutely nothing. I sat there, desperately wanting to write, feeling anxiety grow in my gut about the consequences of my procrastination, but I kept clicking YouTube video after YouTube video, utterly unable to break out from the cycle of clicks. Eventually, as hours passed and day turned to night, I had to take one last look at my blank document, with my name and title at the top, and close my computer for the day. Though this experience absolutely baffled me at the time, it is deeply familiar to me now, as it will be to any with AuDHD.

The next day, however, when I once again sat down to write the essay—which I now had a very limited period of time to put to paper—I found something peculiar; I was able not only to focus and write, but to do so at an incredible pace. In a surge of productivity, I sat down and completed the essay in approximately half of the time I expected it to take me. I distinctly recall feeling a mixture of pleasant surprise at this result, and annoyance at my struggles the day before. If it was so easy now to write this paper in so brief a time, and with a focus that seemed almost absolute, how could it have been such a struggle the day before?

While I did get an ADHD diagnosis in high school, this pattern would continue; I would leave things to the last minute, not by choice but due to the function of my mind, and would then complete them in one long rush of hyperfocus. This was still often possible in high school. I would, however, occasionally find myself having bitten off more than I could chew, and would be late on assignments, or unprepared for tests, though never to a catastrophic extent. While the ADHD that was diagnosed during this time period was certainly a piece of the puzzle, this pattern of inability to work followed by hyperfocus is a clear indicator of AuDHD.

Overwhelm & task initiation challenges

When I graduated high school and moved on to university, I started to see more serious consequences for the struggles caused by my ADHD. It was often no longer possible to complete assignments in the brief bursts of productivity that I had become accustomed to; and when it was, I would often find myself staying up all night to do so—which, needless to say, played havoc with my sleep schedule and general health. All of this, however, was somewhat manageable. Assignments would be a day or two late, losing only a small percentage grade, and ultimately not affecting my overall success very much at all.

The real challenge came years into my degree, when, after a week of intense emotional distress due to family challenges, I sat down for one of my night-before hyperfocus sessions, and found that the machine did not work. Not only was I unable to tap into the (hyper)focus I had used to complete almost all of my assignments to this point; I was unable to produce anything at all! My anxiety about this grew, and grew, until I could do nothing but lie in bed in misery, questioning why I was unable to do what I had done so many times before. This was the first time that autistic burnout and the symptoms of ADHD coalesced for me.

The combination of the lack of task initiation, lack of focus, and autistic burnout was devastating. I failed that assignment—as every subsequent night for the next week, I sat down to write and had the same experience; only the anxiety and stress that locked my hyperfocus away was even greater due to the lateness of the assignment and my perceived failure. I skipped class to make time to write the paper, then never wrote the paper.

I took double my usual dose of Concerta in a desperate bid to unlock my focus, but found that this had no result except an upset stomach. I didn’t sleep for three days straight. This has become a familiar experience to me, and one I have yet to crack. I eventually had to accept that this was not an issue I was able to solve on my own. This was a deeply humiliating and distressing realization. In a society where, especially as a man, I was encouraged to solve problems myself—told that reaching out for support was a sign of weakness—it was incredibly difficult for me to square in my mind the concept of asking for accommodations.

A path of acceptance & understanding

The first time I did ask for accommodations, I was deeply cynical about it. “I don’t really need these accommodations, of course,” I told myself, while halfheartedly going to the meeting and sheepishly handing in my autism and ADHD diagnoses. This desire for perceived self-sufficiency kept me from enjoying the benefits of accommodations even as they were made available. All too often, I would only reach out for accommodations when I became desperate—often when it was too late.

Only very recently—and with the help of a great deal of introspection and therapy—have I taken the first steps towards breaking this cycle, and recognizing that my need for help is not a sign of inadequacy, but a feature of my mind. I cannot help but feel bitter about this. I cannot help but wish that society, my parents, and my teachers, had told me from a young age: “Your mind is a gift, and will lead you to wonderful places. But it comes with its own set of challenges. There is no shame in asking for help with those challenges, just as there is no shame in enjoying the benefits of your talents.”

How many sleepless nights spent with a knotted stomach and a headache, absolutely unable to produce anything, would this early revelation have spared me? How much easier would my academic career and life have been? Ultimately, these thoughts take me nowhere. I can only be grateful that I am on the right path now—a path of acceptance and understanding. I sincerely hope that any kinship or familiarity with the experiences detailed in this article sets you on the same path!