Autism and ADHD: How to Cope With a Dual Diagnosis | Siri Nelson | TEDxUAlberta

[Music] juxtaposition the act or instance of placing two or more objects side by side to make a comparison contrast them this word is one of my favorite words because it describes the way I view life how I see Life how I experience it we'll get into that my name is Siri I am 24 and this is a picture of me when I was around 4 and I thought it was cute so I included it I have odhd which is the combination of ADHD and autism now what is ADHD ADHD is three subtypes within the DSM

there's the inattentive type so that is you're not really paying attention but they're still listening they just kind of look off to the side we have your hyperactive so the kid that's running around doing everything all the time and causing a little bit of a Ruckus and the combin type which is both somehow the quiet kid and running around all the time and that is what I have for ADHD for autism there's a little bit different criteria so there's social emotional reciprocity differences so that's things like eye contact things like understanding back and forth conversation

um there's differences in nonverbal communication so again eye contact and understanding gestures when to use them what they mean in other people uh difficulty understanding maintaining and developing relationships if it's hard to have a conversation with someone it is very hard to start a relationship so that is one and our last one is repetitive and rigid patterns of behavior so that's your black and white thinking your only want to play with that one toy all the time and not move to any other thing and very restrictive uh interests as well sometimes so those can be

kind of wild to be existing together and that is who I am as a person I am everything and nothing all at the same time so I actually received both of these diagnosis as an adult which is wild considering some of the people who have known me my whole life um because a lot of those traits were very evident in my life people just didn't know it was related to those two diagnoses but why would I even want a diagnosis as an adult well there um or before we get there there are a couple uh

issues with getting an a diagnosis as an adult so 27 to 7 2.7 to 7.3% of Canadian adults have ADHD so that's a pretty high number if you relate that to Edmonton's population it's 29 to 880,000 adults with ADHD which is a pretty large number um and in Canada in general we have 1 Point 1 to 2% of Canadians of all ages have autism and within the Edmonton area that would be 11 to 22,000 people with Autism so there are a lot of people with both of those conditions um and the co-occurrence of both those

conditions is quite High uh 50 to 70% of autistic people also have ADHD so it's super common um and one big issue with getting diagnosed is our weight times in Canada so according to the Fraser Institute 10 10.8 to 37.4 weeks um you have to wait to even see a psychologist not even get the diagnosis just to see them to potentially get diagnosed and it depends on your Province how long that wait time is and if you go private and don't want to wait that long it costs around 2,000 for each diagnosis so 4,000 in

total if you have both conditions so that's a quite steep barrier for a lot of people to overcome I fortunately have had um the use of my student loans to help me with that diagnosis um because the weight times do um take a lot of time but yeah so why diagnosis in the pandemic I was burnt out uh I was burnt out probably before the pandemic but the Pand pandemic made all my friends go online and I never got to see them so I was really forced to think deeply about who I was as a

person and really what I wanted to do and I found myself in a very low mental health State uh and like just dark in general um my friend who once the the lockdown lifted I hung out with them and my friend we were hanging out on time this was just a one-off comment my friend loves to just ask me questions about things um he said Siri uh I've seen you've been kind of upset lately uh have you considered therapy now he said it in like a nice way but because we're still friends but um that

was like the one push I needed to go see someone um my first therapist happened to be um happened to my first therapist happened to work with autistic youth in her undergrad so she brought the idea of autism up to me and I said potentially you know my Tik Tok says that that could be a thing so let's look at this we did a couple screening tests and it was quite indicative so I pursued that full diagnosis um with the ADHD my sister has ADHD and during the pandemic we got a little bit closer and

I said maybe we're not as different as I thought we were so I also pursued that one now post- diagnosis there's a few emotions that come out we have relief because when you grow up not knowing that you have autism or ADHD there's a lot of things that are kind of weird about you but not weird enough for people to notice sometimes so you're like I'm kind of strange um and I don't I know why so like why is this happening um so knowing that there's a thing that is causing that is a big relief

um there's also a little bit of anger because it took me 24 years to figure that out so I feel like I could have gotten in different places done different things had I had known that these were occurring there's a little bit of shame because maybe if I knew about these things I could handle situations a little bit better um um yeah and just uh lost time that I had and it was jarring because when I got these diagnosis I was so excited to have them and I would tell a lot of people I was

like I am autistic fun fact um and a lot of people would be like that is wild um because it is kind of a taboo subject when you bring it up because people don't know how to react to that they're like I've never met met someone autistic that is like you or I don't look autistic so it's quite drawing to the public and me because they are not reacting in the way that I thought they were cuz I am so excited and they are very confused you know um but after you accept your diagnosis these

those emotions still every so often come up for me but they've leveled out at this point I now having KNN that I have these agnosis I have improved functioning I can now tell people what I need um and also if those things end up not working I know what works for other people and I can try that out because they also have autism or they also have ADHD or both and we can all I have a little community that we kind of go back and forth with those um I'm more gentle with myself so the

things that are wrong about me are not necessarily wrong I'm just a different person so what works for you might not not work for me and I that's not because I'm broken it's because I'm simply different um and with that there's a lot of more self assurance so when things go wrong it's like cool Siri we're going to keep going we're going to learn from it we're not going to let that take me down and I feel less like a burden my friends love to poke fun at this I will ask them all the time

we're like we are still friends right you haven't said that you were my friend recently I just need you to say yes so they know that those questions will come up and they know that it's not me questioning their character it's me needing a little bit more Assurance from them that I can't give myself all the time now accommodating myself in everyday life um there's a lot of compromising I have to do my ADHD makes me want to do everything all at once and I want to run around and be all active and everything my

autism wants to sit down and read a book for 4 hours it's a very wild time in my brain so compromising being like okay we can run for an hour and then we're going to sit down and just watch a little show and then that will make my brain happy for that day uh I use a lot of grounding techniques uh I do a lot of breathing techniques uh body scans just to make sure I stay grounded because I can get all in my head and not and forget that like life exists I'm not is

not all in my head um finding support in many ways so my friends are super supportive for me um they they know when I say certain things that I need certain reassurance or maybe I just need to hang out with them for like an hour maybe I need to call them they like they support me in that way um I also have my um medical team so like my therapists I consider my massage therapist and my chiropractor is part of that too because I like to tell them about my life and also helps me ground

at the same time um and boundaries this is something I'm still working on but having boundaries between like my professional friends versus my personal friends and everything within my life uh as soon as one thing starts leaking into the other thing that's when anxiety gets really high and then that's when the compromising falls short and everything kind of falls apart so having boundaries and knowing when to stay in what Lane is super help helpful for me and I'm again still continually working at this and you have to understand your strengths so because of my ADHD

I am super good at finding um social media trends for my work so I've been become the person that people go to for creativity and I think that's so cool because I never figured out that that was a strength until I did something and they were like that was really cool and I said that is just what I think of on The Daily so I guess it's kind of good um but yeah using your what you may struggle with to kind of get you into that strength mindset is what you need and everyone is unique

as I said before what works for me in this very moment might not work tomorrow it has changed that fast before and also what works for me might not work for my sister might not work for my friend for my mom um everything everyone is so unique so you have to kind of find your own Groove and finding what works for you is key and again that will change throughout time and I want to leave you with the quote that I made out myself um uh what makes you Misfit can make you into a miracle

if you put your mind in that right mindset I've been Siri and thank you so much oh