I have a dual diagnosis and I know a lot about my weaknesses. I read a lot about autistic strengths but I feel most of those either don’t apply to me or they are negated by my ADHD.

For example I love making todo lists but following them needs extreme amounts of willpower. I’m good at analytical thinking but my lack of working memory and my distractability make it hard to do anything with that…

Are there any non obvious strengths I could look for?

  • Toaster@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    Let autism be your executive function. Let ADHD, your executive dysfunction, go hog wild and move a million miles an hour creating plans and ideas and doing it’s thing. But let autism, who loves executive function, drive the bus.

    So yeah ADHD goes fast, but autism reigns it in by telling you “okay, great set of ideas you just came up with bud. Now let’s immediately birth them into the world, or make peace with possibly never birthing them into the world” this allows you to go at ADHD speed, but it is reigned in by the structure and rigidity of autism. Autism helps gives you tangible results.

    For example, I have 3 ideas pop into my head. I deem them all good and correct things that would be worth my time to do. So thing 1 gets written down on a sticky note and put on my keys for tomorrow so I remember my lunch and some papers I need. Thing 2 gets written in a list on my phone for further research later, maybe I’m writing a list of good decoration ideas for an upcoming party. Thing 3 gets done immediately. I immediately go take my laundry out of the dryer, for example.

    I know this is a lot of words, but letting autism drive the bus/train of thought has changed my life. Letting him create systems to overcome executive dysfunction that work for us has been massively impactful and I now get so much done.