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So…Here I Am: Receiving My ADHD & ASD Diagnoses
I’m not really sure where to start, so I guess that the beginning is the best place.
I’m a married dad in my early 40s with a young son. I was recently diagnosed with ADHD and ASD. For nearly a year, I have been working from home. Along with me, my wife is also working from home and our son has alternated between face-to-face, (mostly) hybrid to completely virtual. During this period, I thought that I was handling things pretty well.
However, I started to notice that there were times that I was getting snippy and irritable. Most of this came through in raising my voice to my son after asking him multiple times to do one thing. After the fact, then I would talk him through what I asked and why. My wife started to notice that this was happening more frequently, especially after the pandemic.
Me Too?
Awhile back, I read a book, The Journal of Best Practices: A Memoir of Marriage, Asperger Syndrome, and One Man’s Quest to Be a Better Husband by David Finch (Thriftbooks). After buying it, I read it all the way through and, then, slightly wondered, “Could this be me?” While there were many similarities, part of me still doubted that I could also be on the spectrum because his behavior was more “severe,” more obvious. Later on, I’ll return to this book and how it proved to be important.
