ADHD and autism, from the inside
Two settings in the way our minds settle what to do, and what makes the day easier.
Think of a decision, even a small one, as a race: several possible reactions start at the same time, and the one that finishes first becomes what you do. Everything is settled this way, from which word you say to whether you get up or stay seated, and most of the time we don't notice it at all. Two things in that race are set differently from person to person. Two of the patterns we call ADHD and autism are each one of those two, turned all the way to one end.
Two dials
The first dial is how easily something starts a race. In some people it takes a lot before a thought or an impulse even begins to run. In others they begin easily, many at once, from small things. That's the dial that looks like what we call ADHD: many things set something off, and one of the routes wins fast, often before the most sensible one has finished. From the outside it looks like acting too fast, or getting distracted. From the inside it is simply that the race was settled before the slow, thorough route made it in.
The second dial is how much gets taken in, and how much of it is allowed to belong together. In some people most of it is filtered out at once, and only the important part is left. In others everything comes in, fine and detailed, and many things feel as if they could have something to do with each other. That's the dial that looks like what we call autism. When a great many things are in at once and all feel relevant, the race gets so wide that it can't be settled. That is what happens when it all becomes too much and we stall.
The two dials are independent, and they can stand on their own. That's why many people, like me, have some of both.
When experience doesn't get pulled up
What follows from the fine-intake dial? If you take a lot in, and finely, then two situations are rarely the same for you. Where someone else sees “the same as last time” and draws on their experience, you see everything that is different: a different room, a different mood, a different day. What you learned is still there, but it doesn't get pulled up, because the situation doesn't match. To you it is a new situation.
That same fine perception is also what notices what others miss, senses differences no one else catches, and sees sides of an issue that others don't spot at all. It is one dial showing up in two ways.
“What do you feel like eating?”
A child says it's hungry. I ask, kindly: what do you feel like? And the child says: I don't know. I suggest something: you can have this, or this. And the child still says: I don't know.
An open question like “what do you feel like” opens everything at once. Every conceivable meal starts running at the same time, and the race gets so wide that nothing can win. “I don't know” is the sound of a race that can't be settled, because there are too many runners in it.
And then there is the trick some parents find on their own. On a good day they don't say “what do you want”. They say “I feel like an avocado sandwich with something on it”. And then the child often comes back with exactly that. It works for two reasons, and the trick reaches far beyond food. It does two things at once. It narrows the race, because it lays out one finished route the child can take up instead of having to invent one. And it lowers the pressure, because it is a suggestion, not a demand. It doesn't place a decision on top. It just offers a possibility.
Lower the pressure, and narrow the track
Two things help almost always, whether it's food, clothes, homework, or a hard conversation.
The first is to lower the pressure. The higher the overall pressure already is, the wider and more unstable the race gets, and the harder it is to settle anything at all. Much of what looks like sluggishness or stubbornness is simply a person whose baseline is already stretched to the limit. Sleep that works, predictability so the day isn't a string of surprises, fewer demands running at the same time. When the baseline is lower, even a wide race can close.
The second is to narrow the track from the outside. Many people already do it without calling it anything. Putting headphones on cuts the number of things coming in. Sitting in the same place, in the same chair, gives a fixed, predictable background, so fewer races are running. And the repeated, calm movements many people use, what we call stimming, do the same: they lay in one calm, predictable route that gathers the system when too much is going on. They are ways to narrow a wide race, and they work.
Some days you can do everything, other days you can't
Why does it swing so much from day to day? Some days we can do everything; other days even brushing your teeth is too much. It isn't the dials that move. It's the pressure. When the baseline is low, even a wide race can close; when the pressure is high, the same setting costs far more. So a bad day is rarely a step backward. It is usually just a higher pressure.
For you who are close to someone
If you are close to someone with ADHD or autism, there are two things that almost always help. Offer a route instead of asking an open question. “Shall we go for a walk, or would you rather watch a film?” is easier than “what do you want”. And best of all, on the hard days, is to show a possibility, the way the parent with the avocado sandwich did: say what you yourself are thinking, as a suggestion, not as something to be answered. You narrow the race for them, without laying a demand on top.
And the other thing: be careful not to be a pressure yourself. When you get disappointed, push, repeat, you raise exactly the pressure that sends the race into a stall. Your calm lowers the pressure. It is part of the mechanics. A person who feels they aren't met with disappointment every time something doesn't work out has a lower baseline to work from.
What each setting fits
The dials don't get turned to a new place for good; that isn't how it works. But each setting fits some situations well and others badly. The wide, fine perception costs when there is too much at once, and is exactly right when a task needs someone to catch what others miss. The fast race, quick to start, costs when the thorough route should have won, and is a gift when something needs to happen now.
The work lies in lowering the pressure, narrowing the track on the hard days, and finding the places where your setting fits.
The established science behind this
Where does the two-dial idea come from? It gathers threads from several known theories and is not a new clinical finding in itself. The ADHD dial sits close to what Edmund Sonuga-Barke has described about how the brain weighs reward now against reward later, and to what Gary Aston-Jones and Jonathan Cohen call the brain's own alarm level. The autism dial sits close to an idea many researchers have taken up, that the autistic brain comes to the world with fewer expectations built in and so takes more in as new; Elizabeth Pellicano and David Burr call it weak priors. The idea is debated, and several studies have not found the effect where it should be. So take the whole picture as a lens to understand with, not as a settled matter.