A Girl Living with AuDHD: A Journey

What is a boundary ?  A boundary is a limit that is set between one or more parties.  I know that I have struggled with this, but recently, I feel like I have been better at doing so.  For someone who is on the Autism spectrum, sometimes it can be hard to set a boundary or respect a boundary that someone has set up for you.   WHY ARE BOUNDARIES IMPORTANT? We all know that as humans, we need social interaction with people.  Here’s the thing, we’re not all going to agree on certain topics.  If you live in America you can argue that we have the freedom of speech as a right, but rights are privileges and most of the time they can come with consequences.  Words are powerful no matter what language.  Yes, you can look at them as just sounds or weird shapes, but mankind has been around for thousands of years and has used words as ways to express feelings and thoughts and ways to describe actions, objects, people, places, and basically anything else....

  “I’m hopeless, and awkward, and desperate for love!” (Matthew Perry/Chandler Bing, 1994-2004).  One of my absolute favorite quotes from Matthew Perry who played the beloved Chandler Bing on the hit 90’s sitcom Friends (1994-2004).  Anyone who knows me, knows that my comfort show since 2012 has been the show Friends (1994-2004) and the characters that I relate to the most right now are, Chandler Bing and Phoebe Buffay, played by Matthew Perry and Lisa Kudrow.  If you have been up to date on the news this past week (October 23-29), you know that there is a war going on in Israel, there was a mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, and by the way Matthew Perry suddenly passed away Saturday October 28th at the age of 54.  As devastating as the other top stories in the news from this last week are, the news of the sudden passing of Matthew Perry hit me the most. Being on the spectrum, like I talked about for FanX, you might have a hyperfixation (or more).  I’ve bee...

Have you ever had a day where you feel like you are just too unmotivated to do anything? Mental health can do that to you. For years, society has been known to keep issues like mental health on the down low by basically ignoring it. We as humans are born with basic emotions. As we grow, develop, and become a member of society, those emotions grow and develop too. We also have some emotions that become an additional part of our lives as we go through different kinds of experiences. We are all born with different areas of health in our lives, such as: our physical health (the part of our health that has to do with our physical bodies like what we eat, our looks, our heart health, etc.), our spiritual health (the part of our health that we use to connect to whatever higher power we believe in and how we practice those beliefs through prayer, meditation, etc.), our sexual health (this is the part of our health that involves our reproductive organs and how we take care of them–even i...

  Imagine a world where everyone liked and was fascinated with the same things as you.  Hard to imagine, right?  As much as we all wish for there to be someone who is just like us, that isn’t the case.  In my 25 years of living experience, I’ve noticed that humans and and will attract those who are similar to them.  There are psychology and communication theories that support this argument.  We all have at least one similarity with someone out there.  Even if they seem like they are complete opposites of us.  We tend to make friends with people due to common interests and common life experiences.   What does this have to do with being autistic or having ADHD?  Well, since the autism spectrum is nowadays viewed as a circle rather than a straight line. The image below is a visual of what the autism spectrum looks like. One of the areas that is common in autistic individuals is hyper fixations .  This is when you are completely im...

  Who am I?  A question that everyone has asked about themselves at certain points in their lives (or all the time).  This has been a question that has been on my mind for a while, especially as I have started a new chapter of my adult life after getting my college degree.  After I graduated college, I struggled with transitioning into adulthood.  I spent about three months after I graduated unemployed. Then, once I thought I had a job secured, after almost two months into the job, I lost it.  Then, in one month, I had gone through two more jobs.  Two months later, I had two other jobs that I had lost (one of them was a scam and I didn’t get paid, even though I was promised I would be).  This caused me at the age of 24-years-old to really ask that question to myself, “who am I?”.  By the end of that year, I was able to keep a job for 3-4 months, which was a small victory. Who am I?  That question would end up becoming the defining questi...

  Wow!  It’s been a long time since I posted here!  A lot has happened since 2020 (obviously).  I am going to reintroduce myself and share the purpose of this blog that I have restarted. My name is Alyssa.  I turned 25-years-old in April (I don’t want to talk about the fact that I am one year closer to 30, thank you very much).  December 2021, I received my Bachelor’s Degree in Communication Studies from Utah Valley University. (I’m considering getting my Master’s in Psychology)   I have lived in three different apartments since 2020/2021.  2020-2021 school year I was blessed with the best roommates ever!  We didn’t get along well at first, but as time went on, we bonded so much.  From July-August 2021 I lived in Orlando, Florida to work at Walt Disney World. Other than the horrible roommate experience and severe homesickness that led to depression, I had a great time and experience.  I learned so many things in such a small time. (...