Pushing the Pull Door

From The Far Side by Gary Larson, Circa 1986

Like most 80’s babies, I grew up loving The Far Side, a famous comic strip by the brilliant Gary Larson. This particular image has lived rent free in my head for decades.

Since my family’s love language was making fun of each other (which went from love to cruelty more often than was healthy), my parents thought this comic so accurately described me¹ that it became an in-joke. They even bought me a T-shirt with this image on it. I took it on the chin, but it stuck with me. I was also confused by the dichotomy of feeling like I was super smart and super dumb at the same time.

I could tell you every cat breed in existence by the age of 5, but I couldn’t tie my shoes until 3rd grade. I could write beautiful poems and stories, and collapse at the idea of cleaning my room. I could recite entire films from memory, but have a meltdown if my dad shaved his mustache. I was smart enough to hold down conversations with grown adults, but struggled socially with kids my own age. Frankly, I related far more to adults than I did to other children². Children were obsessed with Baby Stuff. I wanted to talk about Real Stuff.

When I was diagnosed with ADHD three years ago, at 41, it explained a lot, but not everything. I think the ADHD was something that could have picked up earlier in my life, no question, and getting diagnosed and medicated for it would have been extraordinarily helpful. The grief of not getting that diagnosis was huge, and I try not to think too hard about how different things would be if it had.

There was something else, however, and what I hope solves the last great mystery of this half of my life.

No one — absolutely no one — would have suspected I was autistic.

But the signs were there.

When I started kindergarten, I learned pretty quickly that behaviors that were acceptable in pre-school were not so much in Big Girl School.

In the morning, when I got to class, I’d be so excited/energetic/scared that I would run to and fro, flapping my arms. My nursery school teacher called me a little birdie. My kindergarten teacher was less entertained.

I remember my mom sitting me down and telling me that maybe I should keep my wings on the inside when I was at school, and that it was better to be a bird outside. But I didn’t relate what I was doing to a bird. I was smart enough to know I wasn’t going to fly. I couldn’t explain why I did it, just that it felt good to do it, but now I was self-conscious about it.

Turns out, hand flapping is a hallmark behavior of an autistic child. It’s a form of stimming, which can regulate emotions. An autistic child will do it when excited, nervous, or stressed. I loved school because I loved learning, but didn’t love the confinement or the social aspect. I had friends, and was very outgoing, but if someone didn’t get me, they really didn’t get me. On top of that, I took a bus to school, which was a whole ecosystem unto itself. By the time that bus dropped me off at school, I was likely stressed out, and needed to calm myself somehow.

Another sign was my hyperlexia. Hyperlexia is when a child starts to read earlier than their peers, and far beyond their expected ability.

I actually wrote about this earlier post, but I will re-post the section about this:

I do not remember exactly when I started reading, but by kindergarten, I was a voracious reader. I read anything and everything I could get my grubby little hands on, including copies of Star Magazine that my mother bought in the checkout line at the grocery store. My mother claims I started reading when I was three. Maybe that is the exaggeration of a proud parent, but I remember climbing into bed with books very young.

Early into my kindergarten career, my mother received a disturbing phone call from my teacher. They told my mother that I was lagging behind in my reading skills, and that they were actually uncertain if I could read at all. My mother was offended and upset. Of course she can read, she told them, she’s been reading! They insisted it was just memorization. Apparently, I refused to do the work they were giving me.

Reader, it turns out that I was very very very bored. They were handing me books that I thought were made for babies, and asking me to sound out words. D-OG. C-AT. TR-AIN. And when I was very very very bored at that age, I simply refused to participate. I went off into the corner and made my own fun rather than sound out baby words from baby books. The teachers finally agreed to send me in for a formal reading evaluation where they would give me sections of books starting at a kindergarten level and ask me what they were about. I got all the way up to an eighth grade level and they finally gave up. Not only could I read, I could comprehend pretty grown up themes and topics for a 5 year old.

When the Trouble Began

As it turns out, approximately 84% of children with hyperlexia are autistic. I am pretty sure they didn’t know that in the 1980s, and instead, they just labeled me as “gifted”. I have much more to say on the “gifted and talented” front, but for now, let’s just say that the “gifted” label came with its own set of expectations and disappointments.

There were other signs too — night terrors, sleep problems, sensory issues. Many of these overlap with ADHD traits. My social issues could be a whole other post, but suffice to say, I had a hard time fitting in anywhere. I still do.

But the biggest autistic trait that I had as a kid (and into my teens) that I didn’t understand at all — THE BIG KAHUNA — was maladaptive daydreaming. This came in very handy when becoming a writer. For my actual life, not so much.

I might write about it one day, when and if I am ready. I reserve the right to keep some things just for myself. But for now, at least I understand it, I have a name for it, and that has helped me release what feels like a lifetime of shame.

I have not yet been “officially” diagnosed with autism. My shrink is pretty sure, and I’m pretty sure, and right now that is good enough for me. There is a part of me that wants to go through the assessment process, just because there was a difference between suspecting I had ADHD and knowing I had it. There is another part of me that understands that self-diagnosis is valid, and wants to just sit with this information for a while before deciding what to do.

What’s wild is that the medication for ADHD may have been the catalyst for my journey towards understanding that I was on the spectrum. Once my ADHD symptoms were more under control, it was the ‘tism’s³ time to shine.

This seems to be a common experience among AuDHD people, from what I have read. Many of us get the ADHD diagnosis before the autism diagnosis. Once you treat the ADHD with medication, and calm some of the more disruptive symptoms, the autistic traits come to the forefront.

I think it really kicked off when I started Zepbound almost a year ago. GLP-1s also regulate your dopamine, so that plus my stimulant medication gave me a clearer head, possibly clearer than I have ever been.

The problem with that is that my desire for novelty and socialization got tamped way the fuck down, and suddenly, I was self-isolating. The difference between times I have self-isolated in the past and this time is that I was actually completely and totally fine with it. I wasn’t depressed, I was just still. I gave myself permission to just be quiet for a while. I spent a lot of time with my paints. I meticulously organized my art supplies. I spent a lot of time deep diving special interest stuff. I also stopped pretending like sensory things didn’t bother me, like office lighting or a fork with a bent prong.

In that quiet, I started to notice. I started to notice things I hadn’t before. I started to think about past meltdowns. I started to think about the times I was the sickest, and started to really understand why. And then, my shrink left me a trail of breadcrumbs, which I will discuss in a later post. For now, suffice to say that reading about Pathological Demand Avoidance was the trait that really propelled me towards understanding that ADHD was only half the story.

AuDHD is a strange thing. My autistic traits and my ADHD traits worked well together, almost TOO well, for a long time. The autism gave me a level of immersion and focus on subjects and activities that interested me, and allowed me to be more consistent than ADHD people typically are in terms of employment and a creative career. The ADHD helped me in social situations, giving me dopamine from social interactions and novel experiences that my autism would rather avoid. The balance of the two made me appear mostly “normal” to the outside world, and is a part of why people regarded me as a Person Who Had Her Shit Together.

The funny thing is that I feel like I finally DO sort of have my shit together, for the first time, even though I am certain that people feel like I fell off the face of the planet and retreated from society. I haven’t, really, but I had to take some time to get to know myself. Again.

This self was always, always there. She’s always been me, I have always been her, but the fact that I am high-masking meant I had to reflect a lot about the version of myself that I presented to the world, the person I actually am, and where they intersect.

“Pushing the pull door” is really an apt metaphor for AuDHD, now that I think about it. You’re always at odds with the world, and in some ways, at odds with your own brain. There is a tug-of-war between the dopamine seeking side of ADHD and the stability seeking side of autism. And sometimes, even when you think you’re doing something correctly, it turns out you aren’t.

I don’t think that the version of myself I presented to the world is far off from the person I am, but there was one thing I so desperately tried to hide — which is that I am WEIRD. I have always, always been a little weird. And that is okay. It’s fine to be weird.

What wasn’t fine was not knowing why.

And now, at long last, I do.

A quick note to my subscribers, or anyone thinking about subscribing….

This month is the three year anniversary of The Long Climb!

In July of 2023, reeling from my recent ADHD diagnosis, and wanting to write about it, I decided to start a Substack. I didn’t even import people from my mailing lists. I just started writing. I needed an outlet that wasn’t beset with expectations from the jump.

And so I wrote. And kept writing. What a RIDE it has been. Thank you all so much for being here.

I have a lot more to say, but for now, I am announcing my Third Anniversary Sale and a new perk!

💰 Upgrade to a paid subscription for 30% off! This offer expires September 1st, and is for yearly subscriptions only.

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Thank you thank you thank you ALL for these amazing three years.

xoxo

KBQ

1. Like many high-masking neurodivergent children, I was in a Gifted and Talented program.

2. This is why I bristle at the idea that young adults shouldn’t be friends with people older than they are. I don’t know where I’d be today without being able to talk to people older than me on the internet. Yes, there were pitfalls to be sure, and some creeps, but some of those friendships I made in my late teens/early 20s still remain today.

3. This has nothing to do with anything, but my friend Sid once told me that if they had a band, they would call it ‘Tism Rizz, which I still think is the funniest shit ever. If you are a person who will get mad at me for poking fun at my own disability, you should probably find another writer. Humor is how I cope with literally everything, and I have spent farrrr too much of my short life trying not to offend people with my true self.