Since my AuDHD diagnosis, I seem to have been continually discovering new words and labels for things I have experienced all my life.

Before diagnosis, I didn't think I needed more labels. I sometimes hear people say the same thing — that they don't want to be labelled, or that having a label won't change anything.

And perhaps that is the point. The label doesn't change who we are. The experiences were already there.

What a label can change is our understanding of them.

For me, having the right words has been incredibly important. A label gives me something to explore and understand. It helps me recognise patterns and discover that an experience I thought was uniquely mine is shared by other people. Sometimes it has even allowed me to reconsider something I had spent years thinking was a personal failing.

Rather than putting me into boxes, these labels have opened doors.

Every now and then I come across another term and think, Oh! There is actually a reason I do that.

Sometimes it explains something that has frustrated me for years. Sometimes it helps me look differently at something I once considered a failing. And sometimes it explains one of the many contradictions in myself that never made sense before.

The experiences were already there. Having a name for them gave me a pathway to understanding them.

These are some of the labels that have helped me understand how my brain works.

AuDHD

This was probably the most important term of all.

AuDHD isn't currently a formal diagnosis. It is a term commonly used to describe the co-occurrence of autism and ADHD.

I had known I was ADHD for many years, but discovering that I was also autistic — and, more importantly, beginning to understand how the two interact — changed the way I understood myself.

Suddenly, so many of my apparent contradictions made sense.

I crave spontaneity and novelty, yet I also need safety, structure and predictability.

I can become intensely absorbed in something, yet struggle to direct my attention towards something that doesn't engage me.

I love having new experiences, but unexpected changes can completely throw me.

I can be highly organised and structured, yet sometimes have no idea where to begin.

For much of my life, these contradictions confused me. I could never quite fit myself neatly into my understanding of ADHD, and I certainly didn't recognise the stereotypical picture of autism that I had grown up knowing.

AuDHD gave me another way of looking at it.

Sometimes one part of my brain seems to be saying Let's go! while another is saying Yes, but I'd really like to know exactly where we're going, how we're getting there and what to expect when we arrive.

Understanding that both can be true has been enormously validating.

Cognitive Rigidity

I can be very flexible when I have time to think about something, but an unexpected change of plans can completely throw me.

My brain has already prepared for what is supposed to happen. When that suddenly changes, I can't necessarily change direction just as quickly.

It isn't really the change itself that is difficult. My brain simply needs time to catch up with the new plan.

Learning about cognitive rigidity helped me understand why something that seems like a very small change to someone else can feel so disruptive to me.

Executive Dysfunction

For me, executive dysfunction doesn't usually mean that I can't make myself begin something.

More often, it means:

I don't know where to start.

Give me a clear starting point and allow me to ask questions until I understand exactly what is required, and I'm usually fine.

Give me a page of instructions and expect me to simply work it out and begin, and I can become completely stuck.

This caused enormous confusion at school. I had a measured IQ of 163, yet struggled enormously through high school.

The ability to understand something isn't necessarily the same as knowing how to begin it.

Interestingly, deadlines actually help me. I sometimes deliberately bring my deadlines forward because having a clear endpoint gives me the structure I need to get moving.

Autistic Inertia

Long before I knew I was autistic — even before my ADHD diagnosis — I knew I had difficulty switching what I called "modes."

If I'm in creative mode — painting, writing or dancing — I can't easily switch into accounts or maths.

If I've been socialising, I can't simply come home and switch into creative mode.

This isn't about having enough hours in the day. My brain hasn't changed modes yet.

Looking back, I can see how much this affected me at school. I was expected to spend an hour immersed in one kind of thinking, hear a bell, walk into another classroom and immediately use my brain in a completely different way.

Apparently my brain doesn't particularly appreciate bells telling it when to change direction.

These days I understand this much better and, wherever possible, structure my life to work with it.

Monotropism

This was another wonderful discovery.

When something interests me, I don't tend to just like it. I go deeply into it.

Alternative healing modalities, psychology, archaeology, ancient history, VW Kombis...

Then there are my collections.

Crystals. Books. Tools. Dragons. Boxes. Cameras. Even plumb bobs.

I want to research, understand, collect and immerse myself in the things that capture my attention.

When something has my attention, however, it can have almost all of it. Everything outside that focus can become surprisingly easy to miss.

My attention isn't necessarily lacking. Sometimes it is extraordinarily concentrated.

Alexithymia

For years I assumed that if I was experiencing an emotion, I should know what that emotion was.

Apparently not.

Sometimes I know that I'm feeling something, but I can't identify it. I may feel the physical sensations or know that something isn't right without being able to decide whether I'm angry, frightened, hurt, overwhelmed, disappointed or simply exhausted.

The understanding may come hours or even days later:

Oh. THAT'S what I was feeling.

Alexithymia doesn't mean I don't experience emotions. I can experience them very strongly. Finding the right name for them can be the difficult part.

Interoception

Interoception is our ability to notice and interpret signals coming from inside our bodies — hunger, thirst, tiredness, temperature, pain, needing the toilet and many other physical sensations.

Interestingly, I have trained myself to be very aware of my body.

In my thirties, while investigating significant food sensitivities, I had to learn to record minute physical and emotional changes every hour. I became extremely observant of what my body was doing.

But if I'm absorbed in something else, I can still completely ignore those signals.

Hours later I might wonder why I feel terrible before realising that I've been hungry, thirsty, tired or needing the toilet for ages.

My body was telling me.

My attention was somewhere else.

Proprioception

Proprioception is our sense of where our body is in space.

This one explained another lifelong contradiction.

Apparently I ran before I walked at nine months old, so movement certainly wasn't my problem. Yet I have spent my life tripping, walking into things and injuring myself.

And then there was dancing.

I could watch someone demonstrate a dance movement and understand perfectly well what they were doing, yet have no idea how to make my own body reproduce it.

I had to practise movements for hours in front of a mirror until my body learnt them.

The irony is that I eventually became an extremely good dancer. I taught bellydance for sixteen years and my school became known for its technical expertise and choreography.

Nobody looking at the finished result could see how much work went into making something difficult look effortless.

Being good at something doesn't necessarily mean it came easily.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

I originally learnt this described as "object permanence." Technically, object permanence means understanding that something continues to exist when we can't see it, so the term isn't quite accurate for what I'm describing.

I know something still exists.

But sometimes it feels rather like that old philosophical question:

If I can't see it, is it really there?

Objects disappear into cupboards. Tasks disappear when there isn't a visual reminder. And sometimes people I care about can disappear from my active thoughts when I haven't seen them for a while.

That doesn't mean I have forgotten them or care about them any less.

They simply aren't currently in my field of attention.

Finding the Words

None of these words or labels changed who I am.

I was already this person.

I was the child who couldn't understand why her brain went blank when faced with certain schoolwork. I was the dancer practising movements repeatedly in front of a mirror. I was the person wondering why a changed plan could throw an entire day off course.

What has changed is the way I interpret those experiences.

I'm gradually replacing Why can't I just do this? with What does my brain need in order to do this?

That feels like a very different question.

I don't see these terms as a collection of deficits. Some describe things that genuinely make my life more difficult. Others help explain my intensity, resourcefulness, deep interests and the ways I've learnt to navigate the world.

Mostly, they have given me language.

And with each new "label", another little piece of my life seems to fall into place.