Speaking as someone raised in an evangelical household and indoctrinated into thinking the world is only thousands of years old, this tracks. The most technologically advanced version of Chick tracts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_tract) to date.
It's been a trip hearing how much testing others have gone through. IIRC, we had all of one conversation with our psychiatrist (albeit one we had already been seeing for a while) and got our diagnosis. But then it wasn't exactly subtle ADHD.
For our autism assessment a couple months ago, our therapist (whom we've been seeing for about a year at that point?) had us take one or two relatively short multiple choice assessments or the like and that was enough to diagnose us as on the spectrum. Did you know: Not all autistics struggle with eye contact? Some of us (ourselves included) are actually pretty good at it. One reason it's called a spectrum!
The previous time with our mental health professionals factored into their diagnoses, though, not just the tests. The takeaway: Book a therapist and psychiatrist both if you don't already and get those balls rolling.
Speaking as someone who only got our ADHD diagnosis in our late thirties and our autism spectrum diagnosis at forty fucking two, please consider just telling them. That could be years or decades of social, pharmacological, and even legal assistance that they deserve and need and aren't otherwise getting.
Second this too. I went through live until mid thirties thinking life just was that hard for everyone and I was just bad and shit at things, worse than others - I suffered alone thinking everyone had to be like me, because I'm normal right? It was a huge relief finally being diagnosed because I could finally understand myself better, even found community of sorts.. strategies that worked for others and most of all.. just allowing myself to be KIND to myself, not always beating myself up, being angry at myself for being shit.
Also agree with this, but want to caution: Bring this up as gently as you can
Don't accuse them of being ADHD, or insist too strongly
If you do bring it up, I would say make sure to really emphasize that you don't think they need fixing. It's something that might help them overcome their own struggles, not something to make them a better person for others, you know?
"I have always envied your ADHD hyperfocus superpowers." /h
Everything I am really good at, I am really bad at, depending on context and the wobbly compass that governs my internal motivation.
It is definitely not all bad. Without my hyperfocus, my life would be unrecognizable. I would be unrecognizable. Hyperfocus is core to so many things I am good at, care about, and have achieved.
My ever optimistic self would fail and fail and fail, create a system, fail, create another system, fail, .... at seemingly easy things.
As soon as I had a rational reason for otherwise inexplicable challenges, enormous amounts of stress evaporated.
Now I know what things are a lost cause: So I get help, delegate, find another way. Being bad at something, and recognizing it, is not the same as failing.
We strongly suspect we have SDAM as well and only more so after reading your description here. Only got diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago and as on the autism spectrum this year, here in our forties as well.
This whole topic fascinates us in no small part because we've gained or regained marked visualization capacity within the last year or so. Our change unequivocally correlates with our escape from and ongoing recovery from a long-term abusive relationship and all the dissociation that required of us and caused in us. That and no doubt some pharmacological assistance. It's been a wild ride, to remember having greater powers of visualization and then to come back into them.
Ever been lost in thought and ignored your external senses? That's what they're describing, but with visual imagery included and not just however you may normally experience thoughts.
Not really, actually, and not for a lack of trying very very hard at times. Even when we tried LSD the most it did was make us more aware of the actual curvature of our eyes' lenses, lessening the mental illusion of uniformity.
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