I feel this in my soul.

Yep. This is partly why I work US PST/PDT hours despite living three time zones eastward. If I couldn’t get to sleep until 2:00 am my time, I can still get eight hours of sleep and be up an hour before work. And because West Coast folks tend to be less anal about such things (they just care that work is getting done and communication is happening), if necessary I can start an hour or two late on days when there are no morning meetings.

I also only take my first Dexedrine dose unless it’s a very bad day for focusing and I don’t have any morning obligations the following day.

I completely agree with this. Getting my ADHD under control with Dexedrine and Wellbutrin along with guanfacine to take the edge off of the irritability has been a life changer. I’m still very much AuDHD, but at a manageable level.

Working from home means no longer having to battle sensory sensitivity. I created and set up my own custom lighting setup (read: a couple of motor controllers and AliExpress LED strips). I normally work under very low lighting, but it’s trivial to adjust it when I have to be on camera. That’s rare because I luckily work on a team in which it’s socially acceptable not to have it on. At work, ADHD drives the flashes of insight and willingness to try ridiculous ideas; autism keeps track of the todo list and forces me to think about edge cases.

It’s the autism that drives me to clean up things that I spill and isolate and regularly get rid of trash, for example. It’s also why I am generally well prepared while traveling. I have dedicated cases for electronics, toiletries, cutlery and condiments, even bookmarks and writing utensils, and I always have a little cash, some of it in quarters, just in case I have to do laundry. Incidentally, those are some of the things that drive me batty about my boyfriend, who’s allistic and inattentive ADHD. But I know he can’t help it, plus he has to deal with my rigidity and hyperactivity.

Anyway…my analytical and hyperactive nature are what drive me to exercise regularly and to see it as a lifelong habit; given the vast body of data about its benefits and the dangers of being sedentary, it would be illogical if I didn’t do it.

The advice about not looking for love is good but incomplete. I think that some people (myself included) have to put some thoughtful effort into dating if they want a partner. For others, it comes more naturally for one or two simple reason(s): they have a wide social circle and/or they have lives that consistently put them in contact with a lot of other people. In a lot of ways, it truly is a numbers game.

Since I’m not one of those people, I took a systematic approach to dating and sought to replicate that network effect while still staying true to myself. I upgraded to the paid version of Scruff (I’m a gay man) after realizing that it was far easier for me to make friends than date where I was. The immediate goal was not to find a boyfriend, it was to practice chatting with men in a platonic manner. The secondary goal was to make a friend or two. I made a goal of chatting with 4-5 people each week.

In the meantime, I started delving more into my hobbies by taking classes and going to meetups because they exposed me to more people. Also, hobbies are a good source of conversational topics.

After 3-4 months of doing this, I received a message on Scruff at 2:00 one morning. My sleep schedule at that time was messed up, so I was actually awake then. I looked at his profile and saw that he was interested in maps (one of my special interests). So I responded and we just hit it off. If you’ve ever met someone and just clicked with them, you’ll understand what I mean by that. We became good friends within a month or two, then things got a little more serious. The downside was that he was literally on the other side of the continent and we both had careers that were dependent on our locations, so we agreed to keep things platonic. We met in person the following month and found that the attraction was still there, only stronger.

We’ve been together for over four years now and have lived together for 3.5 of them. He also has ADHD, which is probably part of why we get along so well. Perhaps I just got lucky, but if I hadn’t pushed myself to socialize with others (I consider text-based conversations to be a form of socializing), we would never have met.

tl;dr: The closest thing there is to a magic formula is to be kind, interesting, and interested in other people. And “interesting” means different things to everyone, but in my experience, hobbies and special interests tend to be a bit of an advantage. Also, a good first step is to widen your social circle (use your favorite search engine to learn more about the weak ties theory, if you want to nerd out about how that works…this is also a good start: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_ties).

This is me. It sometimes feels like my autism and ADHD are at odds. For a very long time, I refused to make any lists or do any kind of planning because if anything disrupted the process of executing them, I’d have a meltdown or come close to it.

Even now, I have to loosely plan, which comes across to allistics and NTs as being overly negative, when in reality it’s proactive ADHD management and meltdown prevention.

In the States, the same choads that drive tankmobiles tend to complain about fuel prices and how it’s all big gubmint’s fault for stealing their fun (fun being defined as the ability to do 95 mph on the interstate and still pay under $50 for a tank of gas).

The negative: not to be too self-deprecating, but… just how annoying I can be to others (both my ex- and current partners vastly prefer it when I’m on meds). Being impulsive, having difficulty picking up on social cues, and being blunt (yay autism) is a volatile mix and I truly wonder how many friendships it’s wrecked

The neutral: the autism comes out in force, but mostly in a good way. I live and die by (self-directed) routines and having an analytical personality helps in nudging myself to do the right thing (e.g., it’s easier to stop procrastinating if I think about all of the possible consequences of continuing to procrastinate)

The good: with the right systems in place and in the right job, I actually can do well in a full-time job