My Relationship With ADHD, Autism, and Alcohol
I
once drank 6 2-litre bottles of sparkling water in the course of an afternoon. …I say ‘once.’ This was by no means the first time and it certainly wasn’t the last. In fact, it’s something I’ve done without thinking on multiple occasions. So, why did it happen, you ask? Have there been multiple occasions on which I thought I might die of thirst? And, more importantly, what fatal flaw in my personality has made me like sparkling water? The answer is simpler than you might think: I have ADHD, autism, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Hyper-fixations are an intrinsic part of two of those disorders, and— spoiler alert— it’s not OCD, as you might think.
6
Instead, my hyper-fixations stem from my comorbid ADHD and autism. The easiest way to describe these conditions is to say that, at the core, both ADHD and autism are sensory processing disorders. People with autism can easily get overwhelmed or irritated by sensory stimuli and the same is true for people with ADHD. And when you have both… well… it’s literally double trouble. Because I live with both of these conditions, literally every aspect of existing is more intense for me. Overwhelming sensory stimuli is doubly upsetting. But when something produces a positive sensation for me, it’s twice as wonderful. And that means I need it twice as much. In fact, that’s exactly why I develop extreme fixations for certain things.
NEURODIVERSITY
