AuDHD
A place for those that got both Autism and ADHD, those confirmed as one and are suspecting they got the other as well, and also everyone who is neither and just genuinely curious.
Since the combo comes with its own set of challenges, this shall be a place to ask for advice, vent, infodump about special interests and/or just vibe and meme.
Please be respectful. General niceness guidelines apply - formal rules will be added later if necessary.
In regards to medication and medical advice: Please take under consideration that this is only an online support community. Offered advice is always an expression of individual opinions or experiences and shall never be taken as substitute for a professional in-person assessment!
This is a SFW community. Sensitive topics are allowed, but must be properly labeled.
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It is and it's normal. When I was taking medicine to help with ADHD I could drink a huge coffee and then go to sleep. I stopped taking ADHD medicine 15-20 years ago (mainly due to side effects and being rebellious against my parents) but I still have a weird relationship with caffeine. 3 coffees to even feel it at all, and one just makes me sleepy.
People with ADHD have something called a paradoxical effect with stimulants. It's related to the differences in brain chemistry, and it's why amphetamines are a useful pharmaceutical therapy for those with ADHD while having something more akin to a recreational effect on the neurotypical.
What fucks me up is that i don't even get the paradoxical effect, and i'm hesitant to chug 600mg of caffeine to see if that does anything to me
Sometimes the paradoxical effect is just nothing, or very limited expected effect. The name is a bit of a misnomer in the sense that stimulants don't have an opposite effect, but rather they are inducing stimulation where it is lacking for ADHD. So instead of getting this rush of energy and focus that a neurotypical individual would, those with ADHD are merely reaching a "normal" level of stimulation by compensating for a lack thereof. In essence the stimulants aren't acting differently with ADHD, instead their action is compensation. You can see evidence of this in that those properly undergoing amphetamine therapy will still have some side effects of stimulants (e.g. reduced appetite).
At least this is how I understand it. I'm only a nurse, so I very well could have some misunderstanding here that hasn't been corrected.
I call them my coffee naps. 3 cups and then i go pass out for two hours. And I just got diagnosed with ADHD this week. Wasn't aware of the relationship between the two.