Living in Contradiction: The Everyday Magic and Mayhem of Being AuDHD

Being neurodivergent—specifically AuDHD, the combination of autism and ADHD—means living in a state of constant contradiction. It’s like having your internal operating system patched together with both rocket fuel and tangled vines. There’s no manual, the wiring is custom, and the settings change daily. But once you start recognizing the pattern, it’s hard not to be both exasperated and oddly amused. 

Take memory, for example. I can vividly recall the scent of a classroom from 25 years ago or the precise dialogue from a childhood cartoon episode that aired only once. But ask me where I just put my coffee mug? Gone. Vanished. Maybe into a parallel dimension. 

I crave structure. My brain needs organization and tidiness like oxygen. But implementing it? That’s a whole different universe. Trying to develop and follow a routine feels like attempting to wrestle a grizzly bear with one arm tied behind my back—while also being expected to alphabetize the pantry. 

My imagination is a machine of mountainous ambition. I dream up elaborate projects, detailed story universes, and innovative career paths. But then the dishwasher needs unloading and my entire system crashes. Not figuratively—actually crashes. 

Noise and interruption are nails on a chalkboard—unless I’m the one making the noise and interrupting, which (let’s be honest) happens more often than not. I’m both annoyed and annoying, often within the same breath. 

Sometimes a shirt tag, a leaf brushing my arm, or a slight temperature change sends my entire nervous system into DEFCON 1. And yet, other times I’m so overstimulated I don’t notice that I’ve been walking around with a crumb on my lip for twenty minutes. 

I hear everything: bird chirps, floor creaks, distant fridge hums. Every background sound becomes the foreground. That is, until someone speaks directly to me—and suddenly, I hear nothing at all. Like a TV tuned to the wrong input channel. 

When it comes to relationships, I can go weeks before replying to someone I deeply care about—not because I don’t want to, but because initiating that response feels like climbing Everest. But if they take weeks to reply to me? My brain insists it’s because I’m secretly hated. (Spoiler alert: I’m not. But try telling that to my brain.) 

Novelty is my dopamine jackpot. I chase it with the fervor of a kid at a candy store. But then the doorbell rings? I freeze. Total system lockdown. Suddenly, it’s a horror movie and I’m the jump-scare victim. 

I can be the life of the party, radiating joy and energy, laughing loud and lifting up others. Then, two minutes later, I’m curled up in a corner, heart racing, gasping for breath because my internal battery wasn’t just drained—it was shattered. 

 And then there is the wild beast of hyperfocus. I can throw myself into a passion project for eight hours straight, ignoring food, time, and my very existence. But folding a single load of laundry? That’s a seven-day saga that ends in existential dread and a full-blown crisis. 

It may look illogical from the outside. But from the inside, it’s just how my brain runs. This isn’t broken software—it’s a beautifully chaotic, fiercely feeling, endlessly creative operating system. 

It’s AuDHD. And somehow, through all its contradictions, it’s me.