My AuDHD brain used to do both as a kid…
this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2025
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As a kid I was enthralled. As a current adult, I do both, and the battle is tiring.
Ditto
...Au as in Gold?
AuDHD = AU-tism + ADHD
It’s not a spectrum, it’s ELO
he’s a gold tier
It’s not a spectrum, it’s ELO
For many of us, it's a living thing. We suffer from a lot of confusion, but sometimes we seem to have a strange magic that makes others wonder how we did something.
As someone with both, it's either feast or famine, depending on how interesting my brain finds it.
I read nearly cover to cover the National Electric Code because I wanted to rewire my house and I found the standards fascinating.
I could not read through my AWS training materials because AWS is boring AF.
i love how it wasnt a catchy book, romance, or whatever that peaked your interest.
It was the National Electric Code.
The national electric fucking code.
this is autism in full effect.
- Someone who is reading "Excuse me, sir, would. you like to buy a kilo of isopropyl bromide?", the biography of a man who started a chemical company. I know, thrilling.
Lol yup. Peak 'tism moment.
I don't know if I want to buy a kilo of isopropyl bromide mr chemical man, but I am interested, why should I?
Piqued your interest, FYI.
the misery of searching for stories that catch your interest, finding a rare nugget of gold, reading the entire fucking 400 chapters in a few days, and being unceremoniously dumped back into reality and faced with the ocean of absolute dogshit that people somehow find amazing.
Yeah you've basically described how I read books I enjoy.
Harry Potter, Red Rising, The Lunar Chronicles, The Hunger Games.......all books I blew through in days and immediately had that "it's all over" funk afterwards where the world feels so much less interesting than the one my head was in for the last glorious 72 hours.
And the better it is, the harder the fall. I'm five months into a very long RPG series, but starting to approach the end. The hangover from this one is going to be absolute hell.
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If you want a wild ride, read the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Not only will you reread the same sentence for over 40 minutes, it’ll never make a lick of sense. Ever.
Funny that you mention it, I was reading that book mere minutes ago! Always loved the movie as a kid and only recently got myself the first book. The style is so... odd, wacky, absurd, hilarious, that I just gotta keep reading
Highly recommend checking out the original BBC radioplays. I wanted to work in the now defunct Radiophonic Workshop so bad as a kid because of them and their LotR. HGttG is my favorite case study in adaptation cause there are like 5 different tellings of the story across 4 different media all primarily written by the same author and they all have their fun quirks and idiosyncrasies.
Just wait until you start reading The Restaurant at the end of the Universe, and he starts talking about the Time Traveler’s Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations.
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What? There's a few paragraphs in he first book, where Arthur and Ford Prefect are trapped inside the machines of the Heart of Gold's improbability drive, that is really just bonkers and confused the hell out of me. But the rest of the books was perfectly fine to read.
You’re much smarter than I am then. 🤣
If you read, specifically the second book by Kaloophid, Some More of Gods Greatest Mistakes the main series starts to make a lot of sense.
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I mostly listen audiobooks for that reason. Oddly I have friends that are ADHD that can't focus on an audio book but can read without a problem.
I use audio books to take up bandwidth when I'm working. A lot of what I do on a daily basis is pretty routine so they keep me on task like nothing else
That's a lot of what I need to do. I need something to keep my mind busy while I do stuff or I become overwhelmed with task management.
Yeah I'm that way. My brain tunes out the speaking but if I'm actively engaged in a book I can do it. Depends on the book too.
The nature of these spectrums never ceases to fascinate me. I'm on the other end - unable to filter out speech even when I'm trying to concentrate on something else (yay for AuDHD I guess.) An audiobook and a long drive/ride make perfect companions for me.
I used to do that but i noticed that i remember almost nothing from audiobooks compared to reading since i'm always doing other stuff while listening and a book locks me in that moment cause i don't have a choice but to give it my full attention. Also i always put a song on repeat for each book or series to really connect the memory of the book to a song and i can listen to it years later and everything comes back :)
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I'm currently studying for a network certification: 540 pages where I alread know like 70% of the content but am missing some specific (and important) details. Having to go through all of this without loosing focus and thus missing those details is... challenging, to say the least.
i have my security+ test tomorrow and despite all my free time i absolutely cannot focus on filling those gaps either
Sec+ was kinda doable for me (passed with 84% a month ago) but only because its a topic that actually interests me. Networking, especially subnetting, however has been an achilles heel of mine for 20+ years though...
I wouldn't know how/where to evem start if it wasn't for some pretty amazing youtube tutors (looking at you, Professor Messer^^). Reading is a nightmare but watching videos and doing practice questions/exams kinda works for me... I basically:
- watch the whoöe topic once
- do all the comptia practice questions
- identify the areas where I drop under 80% success
- watch those (and more) videos again
- rinse & repeat until the last week
- switch to practice exams for the last week
- hope for the best
I'll only know by the end of next week if this works out, though...
I really need to do the same tbh. I've had my Sec+ (going to be renewing it for the second time here soon) but i just have absolutely zilch on the networking side of the house and I'm not happy about it
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My ADHD makes it so I can't read books for shit anymore, even though I would go through several every week as a kid. For anyone else having this problem, one thing that sometimes helps me is to listen to someone read the text while reading along. This could be an audiobook, but there's also an extension for Firefox called "Read Aloud: A Text to Speech Voice Reader" to get through pdf files.
I love The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I read it through as a teenager without an issue. Then as an adult, I "re-read" it again through audiobooks.
I've been trying to read the book itself again, but I keep losing track and thinking back to the audiobook, surprised at how easily I followed the story when I heard it read out loud. I may have to try using the audiobook while reading along this time. Thanks for the tip!
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I notice that once I start reading I really enjoy it, but it's always a chore to even bring myself to pick up a book. Even ones I've already started reading and enjoyed, I find difficult to pick back up. I'm not doing anything useful with my time either, my attention keeps getting hogged by YouTube et al :(
If you'd like, two strategies:
I always keep a book on the John, and will pick it up any time I'm in the room. Gets me through that "first half is dry build" some books have, even if it's a paragraph at a time.
Other is audiobook+mindless game. I spend a decent chunk of my afternoons when I'm in this mode just playing Peglin or more recently Haste muted while the book goes.
This book on the John I've done since childhood, it's got me through some dense stuff, I'd definitely recommend it. Hope it helps!
always keep a book on the John
Then when do you Lemmy?
I've can't remember how many books I reread and stopped half way through because I read it 4 months ago and remembered it wasn't that great then either.
Reminder, it’s a spectrum. Like anything else
Now try having both at the same time while only being diagnosed for one. What a wonderful childhood that was.
The experience of AUDHD; sometimes reading entire books in one sitting while other times not being able to read a sentence without having to reread 40x
My ADHD brain never forgets a thing read but yeah I read the same sentence 14 times.
Team Fortress Classic is best Team Fortress
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