ADHD, Autism, AuDHD And Trauma: How To Tell Them Apart And What To Do Next

We unpack how ADHD, autism, AuDHD, and complex trauma overlap, why women are missed for years, and how to finally tell the differences that matter for care. Clear criteria meet real-life examples, with simple steps, tools, and compassion for next moves.

• gendered research bias and masking in women
• ADHD inattentive vs hyperactive traits translated to daily life
• autism criteria in adult women and sensory needs
• AuDHD’s internal push-pull and flexible routines
• complex PTSD symptoms and disturbances in self-organization
• practical ways to tell overlaps apart under stress
• supports that match the source across ADHD, autism, trauma
• self-assessment, validation, and accommodations without shame

Here is the BONIS EPISODE I mentioned in this episode on AuDHD 

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2467345/episodes/18146570-bonus-epi-when-autism-meets-adhd-audhd

About Me:

I’m Autumn Moran, a Licensed Professional Counselor and Life Coach specializing in trauma-informed care for neurodivergent women and trauma survivors.

Therapy (Texas residents only):

I provide individual therapy in my private practice for women working through trauma, late diagnosis processing, relationship challenges, and healing from narcissistic abuse or toxic family systems. My approach is neurodivergent-affirming and focuses on helping you understand your patterns while building practical tools for nervous system regulation and authentic living.

Life Coaching (available anywhere):

For women outside Texas or those wanting support alongside therapy, I offer:

•Somatic Healing Coaching: Bridges the gap between cognitive understanding and embodied healing through nervous system work, movement practices, and practical integration tools. Perfect as a complement to talk therapy or for those ready to work directly with their body’s wisdom.

•Unmasking Journey Coaching: Specialized support for late-diagnosed neurodivergent women learning to reconnect with their authentic selves after decades of masking. We work on identifying your real needs, rebuilding your sense of self, and creating a life that fits who you actually are.

Whether you’re healing trauma, discovering yourself after late diagnosis, or both, my goal is to help you not just understand your story, but feel genuinely safe and at home in your own body.

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Work With Me:

Ready to start your healing journey?

Book a free 15-minute consultation: (http://linktr.ee/EmpoweringWellnessHub)

Listen to my DIVINE WOMAN Playlist (Apple & Spotify): Empowering songs for women healing through softness and strength - links are on the linktree link! 

Transcript

Welcome And Who This Is For

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Awaken Heart, a podcast for healing women, a place where your voice matters, your body is sacred, and your journey home to yourself is honored no matter how winding the road. I'm Audemaran, and I am passionate about supporting women on your healing journeys. If you've been here before, if this is not your first episode, welcome back. Thank you for listening. Thank you for tuning in. If you're new here, I am a licensed professional counselor in Texas. I provide trauma-informed therapy for clients in my private practice, specializing in work with neurodivergent women and trauma survivors. For women outside of Texas or those looking for additional support alongside their therapy, I also offer life coaching programs that include somatic healing coaching and an unmasking journey for late-diagnosed neurodivergent women. My somatic coaching is designed as a complement to traditional talk therapy. It helps you bridge the gap between cognitive understanding and embodied healing through nervous system work, body movement, breath work, and some other integrational tools. Whether you're working through trauma, discovering your authentic self after years of masking, or maybe both, my goal is to help you not just understand your story, but to feel genuinely safe and at home in your own body. New episodes drop every Wednesday and Friday, so be sure to subscribe, follow, like, whatever it is, so that you don't miss another one. And if today's episode resonates with you, I'd be so grateful if you'd share it with someone or leave a comment because it helps other women find this space and know that they're not alone in their healing. And that's my goal. So today I wanted to talk about neurodivergence in the sense in a DSM perspective, in a assessment diagnostic lens, ADHD versus autism versus odd DHD, which is autism and ADHD combined, and trauma, what they look like according to the guidebooks, what the criteria are, what they look like in real life, and just how to go about after that. And what makes all this so confusing. So today that's what I'm tackling. And it gets confusing because the symptoms overlap a lot. Emotional dysregulation shows up in ADHD, autism, and trauma. Difficulty with relationships also shows up in all three. Overwhelm, shutdown, exhaustion. Again, that can happen for all four of them. Sensory issues, autism and trauma, executive dysfunction, ADHD and trauma. So how are you supposed to know what you're dealing with? That's what we're going to do today. I'm going to walk you through actual diagnostic criteria for ADHD and autism from the DSM 5. And then the ISD 11 criteria for complex PTSD, because the DSM does not acknowledge complex PTSD. And then I'm going to translate these criteria into real life, what they actually look like, how they show up differently in women, and most importantly, how to tell them apart when they look so very similar. I'm also going to talk about odd ADHD. Again, that's where ADHD and autism combined, because it's more common than people realize, especially in women. And I'm talking about why late diagnosed women so often have multiple things going on at once. This may be a little bit longer of an

Why Women Get Missed And Mask

SPEAKER_00 3:40

episode because I'm trying to cover a lot, but I think it should be within an hour. Truth be told, full transparency. This is my second time recording this because the first time it just sounded like I was inside a fishbowl, and there was no program that could fix that. So here we are for round two. And the first round was an hour and 11 minutes. So that should be where we're at. If you just need time, or you can already look at the time when it's posted. Anyways, I am diving back in, or I'm diving into the purpose we're here. Let's go. But first, first part up, I want to talk about why it is so confusing for women before I get into the criteria. Because number one, the criteria were developed studying boys and men. The DSM5 ADHD criteria is based primarily on studies of hyperactive boys. The autism criteria is based on studies of boys with obvious external presentations. So when you're a woman who was taught to sit still, be quiet, hide your struggles, internalize everything, you just don't fit the stereotype. So you get missed. Women are socialized to be socially aware, accommodating, and people-pleasing. So we learn to hide our neurodivergent traits. We learn to perform normal. We learn to suppress our authentic responses, essentially. So this means that autistic women don't look like the stereotypical autistic person. An ADHD woman doesn't look hyperactive. Sometimes we're often spacey or even chatty. And our struggles are invisible until we burn out. Neurodivergent people experience trauma at much higher rates. Why? Because we're more vulnerable to abuse, we miss social cues, we trust easily, we see, we're seen as different, we're punished for being ourselves, which is traumatizing. We're gaslit about our experiences when we're told that we're too sensitive, too much, too dramatic, we're overreacting, all those things. And we often end up in toxic relationships because we don't recognize red flags. So when you're trying to figure out if you're neurodivergent or traumatized, the answer is often both. Even if you didn't have childhood trauma, late diagnosis itself is traumatic. You have spent decades thinking you're broken, lazy, too much, not enough. You've been misunderstood your whole life, and that creates trauma responses. And most late diagnosed women I work with have more than one thing going on. So ADHD and anxiety, autism and CPTSD, odd HD plus depression are all of the above. This isn't a coincidence. These things interact and compound each other. So as we go through the criteria, just try to remember you might have one, you might have several, and that's actually really common. So I want to start with ADHD. I think that's the most common one. The DSM

Symptom Overlap And Confusion

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criteria overview is that ADHD has two main categories. One is inattentive, and the other category is hyperactive and impulsivity. And then if you present with both of those, then you could be what's considered a combined type. To be diagnosed, you need six or more symptoms from either category or both that have persisted for six plus months, started before the age of 12, and occur in multiple settings and in pair functioning. So we'll start with the inattention criteria first. Often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes. So what this actually looks like is you might miss typos and emails even after proofreading multiple times. You forget important dates, appointments, deadlines. You zone out in meetings and miss critical information. Maybe you read a whole page or listen to a chunk of a podcast and realize you absorb nothing. You constantly lose things. Hello, Keysphone Wallet, KPW. You start task and forget steps, so things are incomplete, incomplete or wrong. Number two, often has difficulty sustaining attention in task or play. So you can't focus on boring tasks even when they're important. You start projects with enthusiasm and abandon them halfway. Maybe you can't sit through a movie or TV show unless they're extremely engaging. You could often drift off during conversations even with people you care about. Maybe work tasks take three hours when it should only take 30 minutes because you keep losing focus. But you can also hyperfocus on things that interest you for hours without noticing time passing. This is where the confusion sets in and that label of laziness comes in. If you can focus on video games, you don't have ADHD. Wrong. ADHD isn't the inability to focus, it's the inability to control what you focus on and for how long. Criteria three often does not seem to listen when spoken to. I mean, what's this actually look like? Does anyone say, Hey? Did you hear me? Come on. Mary. Sue, what's up? Did you hear me? Are you there? Hello? Maybe someone is talking to you. You hear the words, but you're just not processing the meaning, or it takes a delayed response, a delayed time for you to process what was just said. Maybe you have to ask people to repeat themselves constantly. You miss instructions even when you're trying to pay attention. People think you're ignoring them when you're actually trying so hard to listen. That's kind of goes into when you're not making eye contact. People assume you're not listening, but sometimes staring at something or doodling or dooming something is helping you process what's being said and to stay focused. You need things in writing because auditory information doesn't stick. Oh, give me visual. I am such a visual learner. Don't tell me rules because I'm gonna forget after you say three words on step one. Criteria number four often does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish tasks. So this is like when you start cleaning one room and end up in three different rooms with neither of them finished. Maybe you have 47 unfinished products, projects. You know what you need, but you can't make yourself do it. Maybe you follow multiple step instructions and become overwhelmed by all the steps. That's me with recipes. If it's too much, I'm out. It's gotta be simple, or I'm I'm sorry. I'm just not a chef. Maybe you need step-by-step lists for things other people do automatically. So you think if you're making a to-do list,

ADHD Criteria Translated To Real Life

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do you just put wash car, pay rent, or do you say wake up, brush teeth, shower, eat, have coffee, get dressed. You see what I'm saying? This isn't laziness. When you have the unfinished products or the messy rooms that none of them are cleaned or anything getting overwhelming because of the steps, your brain just struggles with task initiation and task switching. Criteria number five often has difficulty organizing tasks and activities. So your space is either chaotically messy or obsessively organized. Maybe you can't break big task into steps, into smaller steps. You just see the big task, the goal, and don't know how to get there. Your time management may be disastrous. Everything may take longer than you think, or you underestimate time wildly. You don't know where to start when faced with multiple tasks. That's task paralysis for sure. Planning ahead feels impossible. For high masking ADHD women, you might have systems that work, but maintaining them can be exhausting and they may fall apart under stress. Criteria number six often avoids, dislikes, are as reluctant to engage in tasks requiring sustained mental effort. So maybe you procrastinate on anything that requires sustained focus that doesn't make you excited. Paperwork, taxes, applications, you'd rather do anything else, right? You wait until the last minute because that deadline pressure is the only way you can make your brain do it. Reading dense material feels like trying to run through mud. Your physical resistance is present when you start certain tasks. Criteria number seven often loses things necessary for task and activities. We're going back to the KPW. Keys, phones, wallet. Constantly misplays. If it doesn't have a home, it's gonna get lost. It should have a home. Keys and phone, wallet should all have a home. And that's where they go when you get home. Important documents disappear. I went to get my CPAP machine and they had to order it, but he gave me this paper of the number that I needed to call when I got my machine so they could calibrate it or whatever. I I have no idea what I did with that paper. Between the office, my car, and my home, it disappeared. I have no idea. I can vaguely remember saying, I'm gonna put this right here, but I don't know where it is. I have no idea. I just called a main number and get to them in a roundabout way. Maybe you buy the same thing multiple times because you can't find the first one. Or you just forget or don't check the pantry and you end up with like four boxes of broth or three bags of rice. Like, geez um, I had so much rice in my pantry because I kept buying rice every time I went to the grocery store. It's so silly. Maybe you're always searching for something, like you can't find it, where did it go? I misplaced it. And that kind of goes along with the same idea of like you put things down and they vanished. Let's talk about remotes. How do they disappear so well? Criteria number eight. Often easily distracted by extraneous stimuli. So background noise completely derails your focus. Like, if I was doing this right now and there was something going on in the house, that would make me talk faster, that would make me kind of like breathe more shallowly. Like I can't handle background noise when I'm doing something. Like when I'm working, I need my house quiet. I need my space quiet. I can't handle other things going on because it's either FOMO, squirrel moment. I need to know what did I hear? Like, I'm I'm a nosy. I'm a nosy rosy. I just get distracted. Like a squirrel moment, someone walking by may pull your attention. You could be in a conversation, but if someone's moving around the restaurant or the park or something, you're all over the place. Maybe your own thoughts distract you mid-sentence. I do that all the time. I was just having a conversation the other day where we would be like, wait, why we're here? What'd we do to get here? I don't I don't remember what I was talking about. And it was a great conversation, but there were moments like that. You can't work in open offices. Oof. I worked for a Bank of America call center at one point in my life. And it was all an open concept with like small little cubicles that were as high as like your waist. There was so much noise, there was so much movement. It was so distracting. It was one of the hardest jobs I've had to like keep my cool and not lose my shit. I mean, on top of the micromanaging, maybe multiple tabs open, notifications on, your brain chases every input, all your notifications are on. Criteria number seven, I mean number nine, my bad. Number nine, last criteria under impulsivity. Often forgets is forgetful in daily activities. So forgetting appointments when you wrote them down, walking into rooms and forgetting where the why you're there, what you were trying to get. Again, you may forget what you're saying mid-sentence. Your working memory is terrible. You can't hold information long enough to use it. You need reminders for everything. And your working memory, like when you're a neurodivergent, your memory's kind of tricky. Like I cannot remember details, dates, times, anything like that, any social constructs like that. I can't remember that. But I can remember like what people were wearing, where someone was standing, maybe the exact sentence that was said and how someone responded. But it's like little blips. It's not like full pictures. Okay, so that was impulsivity. If you had six or more, you can get assessed for ADHD. Let's go into hyperactivity, impulsivity criteria. I think I said impulsivity a few minutes ago. I meant inattentive, inattentive type. If I I I can't, I messed up. So we just did inattentive. If I've confused you, I'm gonna get back, I'm getting back straight. We just did inattentive. That was nine criteria. If you met six or more out of those, that would qualify you for ADHD inattentive. Here we are with hyperactivity and impulsivity. The criteria are a little different, a little loose. So, like there's internal restlessness, you can't quiet your mind, constantly fidgeting, maybe legs bouncing, hair twirling, rubbing your face, messing with something of your clothing, holding on to something, feeling like you need to move, but forcing yourself to sit still because that's what's required of you. Maybe mental hyperactivity, your thoughts are racing, you can't turn off your brain. And then you talk a lot, maybe you interrupt people, not on purpose, but just like brain blurps. You dominate conversations or overshare. You can't do small talk, you go deep immediately, or you're bored. And then there's the impulsivity, impulse purchases, changing plans suddenly, saying yes to things you don't have capacity for, again, maybe interrupting people and making decisions without thinking through the consequences or making quick decisions. So overall, ADHD feels like your brain is a Ferrari engine with bicycle brakes. Too much power, not enough control. You want to do the things you care, but your brain won't cooperate. Executive function is impaired. You can't initiate, sustain, or complete tasks the way neurotypical people can. And the world tells you this is a character flaw. But honey, it is not. I said honey because I don't like people calling me honey. So, Miss Ma'am, it's not. It's neurology, it's evolution. We are here to evolve. Our brains are here as proof of evolution, I believe. I know. Stick with me. I'm not kooky. I mean, maybe I'm kooky. All right. So, what about autism? Again, this is from the DSM5 criteria. So, autism requires persistent deficits in social communication and interaction, plus restricted repetitive patterns of behavior, interest, or activities. Symptoms must be present in early development, but might not fully manifest until social demands exceed capacity. It causes impairment and not be better explained by intellectual disability. So, number one, deficits in social-emotional reciprocity. Reciprocity. Did I say it? I know that's a that's a word that's hard for me to say. So, abnormal social approach, failure of normal back and forth conversation, reduced sharing of interests, emotions, affect, failure to initiate or respond to social interactions. So, this is what this actually says for an autistic woman. Conversations feel like work. Either you're constantly analyzing, monitoring your body language, asking yourself if you're too much, too little, if this is the right response. Can I talk now? Am I making the right eye contact? All that, all that stuff. And also the replay, like afterwards, what did I say? Did I say too much? Oh, I said too much, all that. You can have deep conversations about topics you love, but the small talk is torture. Like, I'm not gonna talk to you about a football game, but I'll talk to you about like plants talking to humans telepathically. That sounds fun. Did you hear that? Have you talked about that or have you learned about that? Ugh. Or like healing herbs, okay, Chinese medicine. I can talk about really interesting things and really heavy things, but I don't want to talk about sports or celebrities or things like that. You naturally don't know when it's your turn to talk. It's just like what I said a little bit ago. Like, is it can I speak now? Am I saying it now? Is it the right time? And you either overshare or are share nothing. So, like either you're silent or if someone picks up on your like a good topic of yours, something that you have an interest in, you'll be talkative. But if it's not anything that's part of your special interest, probably not talking. You miss social cues about when someone is bored or wants to leave. Maybe you feel like you're performing in social insert in situations, never actually connecting, like no natural connection. So this is kind of like I have friends, but none of them know the real me. That's a good sign that there's masking going on. You might be very expressive around special interests, right? Repeat, repeat note, right? And you were struggle with unspoken rules of conversation. Like somehow other people know how to engage and do these conversations that make them flow, and then you have your conversations and they feel bumpy, wonky, and awkward. Number two, deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors. So the DSM says it's poorly integrated verbal and nonverbal communication, abnormalities in eye contact and body language, deficits in understanding and use of gestures and lack of facial expressions. So, what this means for autistic women, what it looks like. Eye contact can be uncomfortable or painful, but maybe you force it because you're supposed to. You don't naturally use or read body language. Maybe your facial expressions might not match your tone or your emotions. You're told that you have resting bitch face or seam cold. Oh my gosh. I used to get this a lot around my family of origin. If I was just sitting watching TV, I was just engrossed in what I was watching, and they would be like, What's wrong with you? Are you mad? Bitch, I'm mad now. Like, what are you talking about? I'm in my own world reading or watching TV. Like, what is going on? Like, why would you bother somebody because their face looks a certain way? Like, what in the friggin' frack? Maybe you don't understand unspo unspoken social hierarchies or clicks. I get you there. You're confused by social politics and games. Mmm. Especially in the workplace, right? Like how to behave and dress and be and like assimilate yourself so that you don't stick out and you don't lose your job. Maybe you prefer parallel play, doing separate things in the same space over interactive socializing. I do enjoy, you know, it's like let's come over and watch TV and play on our phones. Let's come over and do some crafts and talk. You do your craft, I'll do my craft. I'm gonna clean, you can plan your week. Like, let's just do two things and hang out at once. Body doubling is what it can also be called, is what it's more typically called. Maybe group dynamics are overwhelming and confusing. You also might have felt alienated from your peers your whole life. Romantic relationships are especially confusing. Dating feels like a game with no rules, no one explained. Some lesser-known autistic traits are intense compassion and empathy, which is contrary to the stereotypes, but it is very true. You might feel emotions very deeply, but do not know how to express them in ways others recognize. Okay, so that was category A, social communication and interaction deficits. And then B, restricted repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities. So criteria number one, stereotyped are repetitive motor movements, use of objects or speech. What this actually looks like. Stimming. So this might be stimming, but in subtle ways. So like playing with your hair, skin picking, rocking, chewing on the inside of your lip, playing with your hands, flicking your fingers, maybe hand flapping when no one's around, shaking your leg, repeating phrases or scripts, repeating what you've heard, Echolalia. I mean, I love to repeat things that are fun for me. Like it brings me back to the elf movie where he's sitting there and he meets Francisco and he's like, Francisco, Francisco, yeah. You know, like he's he's intrigued by the word, the way it says, the way it sounds, or if someone does like a little mess up, I think it's so cute. I love it. Alright, so maybe you need to do things the same way every time. And lining things up or organizing things by category. My oldest son used to line up his cars all in a row. And the one thing that really I knew he was neurodivergent when he was little was if you gave him a graham cracker and it wasn't a full graham cracker, like if you like broke it on the dotted lines and gave it to him broke up, he would lose his ever-loving mind. That poor soul, like poor baby, when I would forget and give him like a piece, and he'd be like, No, it has to be whole. Oh, I love him so much. For high masking women, you might suppress obvious stems in public, but do them in private, or you've replaced them with acceptable stems, fidgets, or jewelry. Think about like licking your lips, moving your tongue, doing something with your face, playing with your fingers so no one sees it, having hands in pocket, things like that. Number two, insistence on sameness and flexible adherence to routines or ritualized patterns. So you need routines to function. Morning, evening, work, all those need routines. Changes in plans cause significant distress. Like, don't tell me we're going to the store to wash the car and then go shopping at so-and-so, and then you add in something in between. It sucks my soul away. Not that it's a bad thing, not that I don't want to go, but it's just it's change and it causes distress. Maybe you eat the same foods, take the same routes, follow the same patterns. I I am I love my same foods. I eat my favorite food for a while, then it gets old, I get burnt out on it, and I find another favorite food, safe food. Right now it's me making these omelets, but I call them scrambled omelets because I'm still learning how to make a pretty omelet. But it it has all kinds of goodies: bell peppers, onions, cheese, turkey, Canadian bacon, a little healthier, and two eggs. So I get like 30 grams of protein. Whoop whoop, and I enjoy it, so I love it. Transitions are hard, stopping one activity and starting another. So, like if I was doing this and my son came in and said we gotta go or something, I would be so disgruntled. Like it just interrupts me. Not because I'm mad at him, not that I'm mad at all. It just is like, oh, I didn't plan for this. So unexpected changes maybe can feel like your whole day is ruined or the moment is ruined. Maybe you need advanced notice for changes, and rituals help you feel safe and regulated. My ritual is getting into comfy clothes, grabbing a book, or turning on a safe show and getting a snack, or just snuggling up with my pets. Criteria number three: highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus. So these are special interests that you can talk about for hours. I mean, hello podcast, hello, mental health therapy practice, hello yoga instructor. Like these are all my favorite things, and I have taken them to the next level. They are my life, my livelihood, right? Deep diving into topics until you know everything about them. Like I used to call myself a jack of all trades. I knew so much, but didn't know enough about one single thing to be

Hyperactivity, Impulsivity, And Executive Function

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an expert. But well-versed in lots of things. Hyper focused on hobbies, media, or subjects. Maybe you're told you're obsessed or too intense. Your interests might be common, like animal books or shows, but you and your intensity about them is not. So, like when you stay up till four in the morning reading a book instead of going to bed to get ready for work. You may be very expressive and animated when talking about your interests, but seem flat otherwise. Same with video games, right? If you stay on till 4 a.m. when you should have got off at 9, 8, 10, and went to bed. Criteria number four. Hyper or hypoactive to sensory input. Certain sounds are physically painful. Chewing, certain voices, background noises. For me, it's whistling. Whistling just breaks to my sheer soul. And my youngest is such a beautiful whistler. He can make so many beautiful tunes, and it's such a beautiful sound, but it just pierces my soul. If I hear someone whistle in public, it's like I immediately want to find them and fight them. So it's been hard parenting a beautiful whistler. There are times where I let it go and just suffer, and I try to excuse myself from the situation. And other times I just have to say, please either stop or go outside. I am about to lose my mind. Where am I? I'm looking for my notes. We said sounds, textures of clothing, food, surfaces matter intensely. I am at 100% cotton gal. I mean, I'm trying for 100% cotton, but right now my wardrobe is like either 60, 70% cotton, 30, 40% plastic. So I'm really working on getting everything 100% cotton because uh that feels good on my skin and I know it's healthy for my skin. Textures of food, mine's color for me in texture, but color really, if the color's off, if the color's even green, oof, I cannot handle it. Bright lights are overwhelming. I am I'm allergic to bright lights. I'm allergic to LED lights. Like, I cannot stand fluorescent or LED lights, like that just takes me out. I need what incandescent lights, old school lights, or lamps. Like right now, we have Christmas lights kind of hunk up all in the house, and it's given like a nice little orangest glow, and I don't have to turn on the overhead lights so much. When I'm alone, I don't have to turn them on at all. When my youngest is here, all hands on deck. Lights are on everywhere. He needs lights, he likes the lights. Maybe you're very sensitive to smells. You might need pressure. Think about like weighted blankets or tight hugs, or you might have the complete opposite where you can't tolerate touch. You might seek sensory input, so like spinning, jumping, loud music, or you might avoid it altogether. So it could be either or. And it could be a little bit of both if you're odd HD, right? And sensory overload leads to shutdown or meltdown. So in order for you to qualify for autism, you have to have like persistent deficits in each of the areas. So what I just what I explained. And then like symptoms must be developed be present in early developmental period, but may not fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities, or may be masked by learned strategies in later life. And of course, they're not better explained by intellectual disability. So common autistic meltdown triggers sensory overload, feeling misunderstood, fears coming to life, injustice, feeling overwhelmed or underwhelmed, feeling trapped, change and newness, emotional turmoil, and unmet needs. So overall, when you think about what it feels like to be autistic, the world is too loud, too bright, too unpredictable. Social situations feel like everyone else got a rule book you never received. You're constantly overanalyzing, masking, trying to fit in, and that's exhausting. You're not bad at socializing. You're socializing in a language that's not your native language all the time with no break. I've got episodes about this. There is an odd HD episode, and I will copy that in the show notes. Alright, so I just spoke about that. Was autism. So that was autism. It's very different when it comes to the criteria than from ADHD, but you get it. You get the persistence of some of the behaviors. If you are curious, if you have autism and you kind of resonated with all the listings and explanations, Embrace Autism is a good website to go to to take some quizzes. So I want to talk about when both of them collide, autism and ADHD, odd HD, because it's way more common than people realize. Research shows that they co-occur at high rates. Some estimates say 50 to 70% of autistic people also have ADHD traits, and vice versa. Why? Because they share some underlying neurological differences, and when you have one, you're more likely to have the other. Having both tends to create an internal conflict because ADHD and autism want opposite things. Autism says stick to the plan, do it repeatedly, be predictable because that's safe. Do one thing at a time, don't change what already works. And ADHD says blow up that plan. I can't even get started. Predictability is boring. Start everything at once. Change is exciting. More, more, more stimulation. I need more. So there's a push and pull. And the way I describe it is I'm consistently inconsistent, and I'm a free-spirited robot. I follow rules, I have routines, but they can disappear at any moment. I can change them at any moment. I can add, subtract, do everything new in any given moment. I am a free-spirited robot. So understanding you're not failing at being autistic or failing at having ADHD, you have both. The conflict is internal and real. And what you need is flexible routine. So if you think about what you've heard dopamine menus, low, medium, high dopamine days. Like if it's a low day, this is what I'm gonna do. If this is a medium day, this is what I'm gonna do. High, this is what I'm gonna do. And no matter what you choose, it's all fabulous. There's no wrong in it. You just honor your capacity.

Autism Criteria In Women

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You accommodate for both. You can have noise canceling headphones and fidgets. And it's very important to have self-compassion when the two are at war. And you need support systems that understand both, whether it's family, friends, therapists, support groups, life coaches, all kinds of things like that, massage therapist, Reiki person, whoever your support system is. So, very short on odd ADHD because I went through autism and ADHD. So you can imagine it's a little bit of both. It's a little bit of a conundrum, it's a little bit of opposites attract, it's a little bit of confusion. You want to make this big plan, you make this big plan, you set it down in writing, and the next day comes and you just can't do it. You failed. It's the it's the odd HD. Be gentle with yourself. Start smaller. All right, now let's talk about trauma. Complex PTSD is not in the DSM 5, but it is in the ICD 11, the International Diagnostic Manual. So complex PTSD includes all core PTSD symptoms plus additional disturbances in self-organization. It develops from prolonged repeated trauma, especially in childhood or in situations you couldn't escape. So core PTSD symptoms. Number one, re-experiencing the traumatic event. So flashbacks, feeling like you're back in the moment, intrusive memories that won't stop, nightmares, emotional or physical reactions when reminded of the trauma, feeling like it's happening again even when you know it's not. Number two, avoidance. Avoiding people, places, situations that remind you of trauma, avoiding thoughts or feelings about the trauma, numbing out, dissociating, not being able to remember parts of the traumatic experience, and staying busy to avoid processing. Number three, persistent sense of current threat. So this is what's essentially what we're talking about is hypervigilance. Always scanning for danger, startling easily, being easily scared or spooked. Get scared by someone in your house even though you know they're there. Can't relax even in safe situations, difficulty sleeping because you're on alert. This is like tossing and turning, waking up at certain sounds. This is not sitting up all night waiting for threat. This is just like maybe the air goes off and it's kind of quiet. So you wake up and you're like, am I safe? Who's in the house? Feeling like something bad is about to happen, overreacting to perceived threats. So disturbances of or of self-organization. So additional CPTSD symptoms, number one, affect dysregulation. So difficulty regulating your emotions. So your emotions are intense and overwhelming. You can go from zero to a hundred in an instant. Difficulty calming down once you're upset. Emotional reactions feel out of proportion to the situation, maybe after the fact, not when you're in it. When you're in it, it feels very appropriate. Numbness alternating with overwhelming emotion. So this is like someone you see calm and then heightened, calm and then heightened. Self-harm or other destructive behaviors to manage feelings. Maybe you don't hurt yourself, maybe you destroy other things. Difficulty identifying what you're feeling. This overlaps with ADHD because both involve emotional dysregulation. The difference is that H E D, H E D, H A D H D. Let me get let me get present. ADHD, emotional dysregulation, is neurological. Your brain processes emotions more intensely. Trauma emotional dysregulation is protective. Your nervous system is stuck in a threat mode because it perceives threat. Number two, negative self-concept. So persistent feelings of worthlessness, shame, guilt, or that you're just a piece of shit. Feeling fundamentally broken or damaged, believing you're bad, wrong, or unlovable, harsh self-criticism, difficulty accepting compliments or good things, feeling like you deserve the trauma. Number three, disturbances in relationships. This is where you have difficulty trusting people, either avoiding closeness or clinging on desperately, expecting people to hurt you, testing people to see if they'll stay, difficulty with boundaries, maybe they're too porous, too rigid, too open, too closed, attracting or being attracted to unhealthy relationships, unconsciously or consciously, it can just happen, even though you're trying your best not to. And feeling safest when you're alone. And this overlaps autism because both involve relationship difficulties. In autism, relationships are confusing because you don't understand the rules. With trauma, relationships are dangerous because you learn people hurt you. People are not safe. People can be scary. So, how trauma shows up differently than neurodivergence. So trauma is freeze or fawn responses. You shut down when stressed, you freeze. You people please to stay safe, you fawn. You can't access your voice or needs when threatened. Maybe you dissociate. That's being disconnected from body or reality. You have hypervigilance, you're always monitoring other people's emotions. You can read the room instantly because of your threat detection. You're exhausted from constant alertness, and you anticipate others' needs for you to stay safe. And then you have attachment wounds. You struggle with abandonment, people always leave. You struggle with engulfment, people always control. You create familiar dynamics, even when they're harmful. And that just goes to a dysregulated nervous system because your nervous system will choose familiar discomfort before it will choose unfamiliar comfort. And you don't know what healthy relationships look like. Maybe your blueprint for love and relationships was never healthy to begin with, and you don't know anything outside of that. So, overall, when you have trauma, your nervous system is stuck in survival mode. Even when you're objectively safe, your body doesn't believe it. You're constantly braced for impact, and you've learned that you're only safe if you're hyper-vigilant, if you're people pleasy, making yourself small, or avoiding everything altogether. So that's trauma. That's CPTSD. Let's talk about how they all overlap. Emotional dysregulation, ADHD, autism, and trauma. ADHD, emotions are intense but pass quickly. In autism, emotions spike in response to sensory overload, transitions, or social confusion. In trauma, emotions are triggered by reminders of past harm and hypervigilance. So that's how you can tell the difference of where this emotional dysregulation is coming from. What about difficulty in relationships? ADHD, you want to connect, but your symptoms interfere. How about sensory sensitivity showing up? In autism, sensory issues are consistent, specific to certain inputs. For trauma, sensory sensitivity is related to threat detection and it varies with the safety level. What about executive dysfunction? ADHD or trauma? For ADHD, executive dysfunction is constant, not related to your stress level. You always have a hard time organizing, always have a hard time planning, always have a hard time with time management, always have a hard time with regulating your emotions. And then with trauma, executive dysfunction worsens when triggered or in survival mode. So all that gets compounded if you feel unsafe. Shutdown shows up in autism and trauma. So autism shutdown is from sensory social overload, a need to recover over alone. And trauma is a shutdown from perceived threat. Your body goes into freeze. Social masking shows up in autism and trauma. So autism masking is to fit in socially, trying to understand and follow rules. Trauma is masking to avoid harm and managing other people's emotions for you to stay safe. And the truth about this, many of us, many of us have more than one. Many of us can be ADHD and trauma, autism and trauma, odd ADHD and trauma, just trauma that looks like neurodivergence, and maybe just neurodivergence that created trauma with a little bit of anxiety and depression thrown in. And that's okay. Understanding which is which helps you get to the right support. Questions to ask yourself. For ADHD, have I always struggled with focus, organization, time management even before trauma? Do I hyperfocus on things I find interesting? Is my main struggle executive function starting, sustaining, and completing task? Do stimulants help me focus and calm down? Coffee or medication? Do I feel like I have a Ferrari engine with bicycle brakes? For autism. Have I always felt different from others like everyone else got a manual? I didn't? Do social situations exhaust me even when they go well? Do I have intense interests I talk about, I can talk about for hours? Are sensory experiences, sound, textures, lights a big part of your daily experience? Do you need routines and predictability to feel okay? Do you take things literally and miss social cues regularly? When I say I am a literal person, I take rules and people so literal. Literal. For odd HD, do you experience the push and pull, the need for routine but can't keep it? The need for stimulation but getting overwhelmed? Do you have traits of both that seem to fight each other? This is where we're consistently inconsistent. That free-spirited robot. Do you hyperfocus on special interest but can't focus on boring tasks? For trauma, CPTSD? Did my struggles start or worsen after a specific traumatic experience? Is my primary issue feeling unsafe in my body or in relationships? Do I have freeze or fawn responses? Am I hyper-vigilant? Am I always scanning for danger? Do I struggle with shame, worthlessness, feeling fundamentally broken? Do I recreate unhealthy relationship patterns? So timing matters and it doesn't. It doesn't, it doesn't. It doesn't, it doesn't. Neurodivergence is present from early childhood, even if you didn't know it. Trauma is developed after traumatic experiences, though might have started in early childhood. So here's the complication. Neurodivergent kids often experience trauma because they're neurodivergent. So timing doesn't always help. So what helps for ADHD? Medications, whether it's stimulation or non-stimulant, stimulant or non-stimulant meds, external structures, that is like apps, planners, notes, whiteboards, body doubling, and accommodations for executive functioning. Autism, what you need or what helps is sensory accommodations, social scripts, alone time, and routine. Trauma, trauma therapy, CPT, EMDR, somatic work, nervous system regulation, learning to feel safe in your body and in your life and in your home, in everything you do. If ADHD medication helps you focus but doesn't touch your social confusion or sensory issues, you might be odd HD. If therapy helps you process trauma, but you still can't organize your life, you might have trauma plus ADHD. So please get assessed by someone who understands how these present in women, how they overlap, and how masking hides the symptoms, and how late diagnosis is affecting you, can affect you, and does affect you. Self-diagnosis is valid, especially for autism and ADHD. You know your brain, you know your experiences. If the criteria fit, trust yourself. So research shows that 50% 50 to 70 percent of neurodivergence is overlapping because shared genetic factors, shared neurological differences. When you have one, you're more likely to have the other. And we experience trauma at higher rates because we're more vulnerable, vulnerable. We miss red flags, we trust easily, we're punished for being ourselves. We're gaslit, too sensitive, we're overreacting. We end up in abusive relationships, we're bullied, excluded, misunderstood. So if you're neurodivergent, you're likely to have trauma too. And even if you didn't have childhood trauma, spending 20, 30, 40 years thinking you're broken, lazy too much, that's traumatic. You've been masking, you've been trying so hard, you've been failing at things that seem easy for everyone else, and you've internalized that something is fundamentally wrong with you. And that there, my dears, that creates shame, negative self-concept, difficulty trusting yourself, and relationship struggles, which look a lot like CPTSD symptoms. Women are diagnosed late because we're not the stereotype, we're not hyperactive boys. We mask better, we've been socialized to perform differently. We're dismissed, it's just anxiety, it's just depression, you're just you just need to rest. Providers miss it because they're looking for the male presentation. And then we internalize it. I'm just not trying hard enough. I'm there's nothing wrong with me. This this is just me. This is just who I am. I'm just I'm just broken. So by the time you're diagnosed, you've spent decades struggling without understanding why. That's compounding trauma on top of potential neurodivergence. So the cycle. You're born neurodivergent, you struggle, but don't know why. You're punished, criticized, misunderstood, you learn to mask, you develop anxiety, depression, CPTSD symptoms. You're diagnosed with anxiety, depression, but not the underlying neurodivergence. Treatment doesn't fully work because they're treating symptoms of neurodivergence, not the cause. And then you're finally getting diagnosed in your 30s, 40s, and 50s, and now you're dealing with neurodivergence plus decades of trauma from being undiagnosed. This is why just ADHD, just autism is rare in late-diagnosed women. By the time you figure it out, there's usually trauma layered on top. Okay. So what do you do with this information? What do you actually do with it? Step one, first and foremost, give yourself time to process. This is a lot. You're realizing you might be neurodivergent or that you have multiple things going on, and that is huge. Let yourself feel whatever comes up: grief, relief, anger, confusion, all of it's valid. If it's possible, step two, seek assessment or go to embrace autism and take some assessments for yourself. Self-diagnose or get diagnosed, especially if you need workplace accommodations. A therapist can assess you for ADHD and PTSD, and they can help you get accommodations. Step three, find find your people, connect with others who get it. Online communities, local support groups, neurodivergent affirming spaces. You need people who understand, who don't make you explain yourself, and who validate that this is real and hard. Step four, get the right support. For ADHD, consider medication, ADHD coaching, external structure and accountability, accommodations at work and school, tools that work with your brain, timers, apps, body doubling. For autism, sensory accommodations, noise canceling headphones, sunglasses, comfortable clothing, social scripts and explicit communication scripts and permissions to give those explicit communication needs, alone time built into your schedule, always and forever, routine and predictability where possible, and practicing to unmask in safe spaces. For odd HD, it's a combination of both: a flexible routine, understanding the push and pull is internal, it's not failure, and you have to have self-compassion when both are challenging each other. For trauma, trauma therapy, CPT, EMDR, somatic experiencing, IFS, nervous system regulation, get you a life coach that honors the nervous system regulating part and embodied coaching practice. I mean, I'm a yoga instructor, so this is embodied, pretty much embodied yoga

Sensory Profiles, Shutdowns, And Meltdowns

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movement with nervous system regulation, so somatic healing. You need safety in relationships, you need to heal your attachment wounds, and you need to learn that you're not fundamentally broken. Step five, accommodate yourself. You don't need a formal diagnosis to accommodate yourself. Work from home if offices overwhelm you, if that's an option, if that's something you can ask for, if that's something you can change into. Use timers and reminders if you forget things. Wear comfy clothes that work for you. Say no to social events when you're depleted, build in recovery time, and stop forcing yourself to be normal. Step six: you're not lazy, you're not broken, you're never, never too much, and you are enough. You're neurodivergent, you're a trauma survivor, you're doing your best with a brain that works differently in a world that has not been designed for us. That's not a character flaw, that's neurology and survival. And that brings me to the last step, step seven. Be patient with yourself. Understanding what you have is just the beginning. Learning how to work with it takes time. You will struggle, you will have hard days, you will still mask, you will get overwhelmed. And all of that's okay. That's not a failure. You're just learning a new way of. Being in the world. Alright. If you've made it through this whole episode, first of all, thank you. I know that that was a lot. But if you've been confused about whether you have ADHD, autism, both, or if it's trauma, I hope this gave you some clarity. I hope it gave you language for what you've been experiencing. I hope it helped you understand that you're not broken, you're just different. And if you're sitting here realizing you might have more than one thing going on, you are not alone. Most late diagnosed women do. And it's not a coincidence. It's the reality of being neurodivergent in a world that doesn't understand us. You deserve to understand your own brain. You deserve support, accommodations, and you deserve to stop fighting yourself and start working with yourself. Whether you're any of the above or all of the above that we've talked about, you are not alone. There's a whole community of us figuring this out together. And you're going to be okay. I promise you, it's going to work out. I'm here for you. If you want to dive deeper into any of these topics, I'm launching a late diagnosis series in January. This episode lands on January 2nd, and then the weeks following that is all going to be all the Wednesday episodes will be about late diagnosis in women. I'm talking about the grief, the identity, telling your family, accommodations at work, school, or home, and everything else that comes along with late diagnosis. Until then, take the gentlest possible care of your awakened heart and maybe just maybe start being a little kinder to your beautifully different brain. I'd love to hear from you. Message me, send a question, want to help more women hear about this episode and support me in growing my podcast, please comment, leave a review, leave a message, leave me an emoji of a white dove if this just helped you feel a little bit at peace and a little bit more knowledgeable about your experiences. If you want to work with me in my private practice or with my life coaching programs, please reach out to me through the link tree on my show notes, fill out the form for the 15-minute consultation, and I will get back to you and we will have a wonderful chat. Until next time, I want you to know that you are never too much, never too late, and you don't have to figure it out all alone. May you

When ADHD And Autism Collide: AuDHD

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be happy and free. May our healing ripple outward to bless the world with happiness and freedom. Take care of you, and I'll see you soon.