Can I self-diagnose myself with ADHD?

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My son's "official" diagnoses are NLD and ADHD. I should note his neurologist considers NLD to be on the ASD spectrum. To be honest, I don't think he has NLD or ADHD. I think he has something that is yet to be labeled. What I notice is that there is more than one subtype of ADHD, just as there is more than one subtype of ASD. I have known many with a diagnosis who have little, if no, overlap with ASD, and others who have significant ASD overlap.

I question whether the label itself is important. I think what is important is what understanding you gain from the label. Look into things that help people with AS and things that help people with ADHD and create a plan to help you.

That's ok. It's just that I've come a long way to help myself break out of severe depression I had, and it upsets me when people here keep bringing it up. My negative posts must be very memorable.

But anyway back to the topic. I just feel that having a diagnosis for ADHD will help me a lot, because it describes me very well, and I feel I can get more understanding out of people by explaining that to people. I just don't feel in the least bit Autistic.

More general minded - may get hung up on details, but generally more focused on the big picture May enjoy multitasking. Some will find it overwhelming while others may excel at it
Have difficulty with schedules and routines
Generally poor at planning and time management, prone to procrastination
Good at improvisation and doing tasks "on the fly". Scripts will likely be ignored.
Can pick up social cues, but may miss them due to not paying attention
Can understand tone of voice
Can recognize facial expressions Can understand most body language
May ramble, seemingly with no purpose
Aware of emotions, but may find them difficult to regulate or manage
Impulsive- possibly a compulsive buyer
Impatient- may finish sentences for other people, have trouble waiting in line, etc
Disorganized, may lose things on a regular basis
May be chronically late, unable to show up on time
Language processing generally OK, but may have difficulty with word retrieval, organizing thoughts into coherent sentences, etc
May have difficulty staying on topic, easily distracted
Has theory of mind, though possibly underdeveloped
May have intense all-encompassing interests, but those interests will likely change from day to day, week to week, month to month, etc
May have difficulty with activities that tax working memory, such as reading or keeping strings of information in mind
Can do small talk, but may not enjoy it
Honesty is important, but may tell white lies if the situation calls for it
Symptoms are likely to respond to medication, usually stimulants (Adderall, Concerta, etc)
Can exist without hyperactivity symptoms, though some combination of both are common - women frequently have more symptoms of inattention

I found this. I literally have ALL of those.

I'm not trying to be disagreeable, Joe, nor am I trying to say you have AS, not ADHD, but many of those things can be true of people on the spectrum as well.

But I do understand your point about what to tell people. Saying either of my kids is on the spectrum is confusing to people because they just don't see it. They are not "typical" people on the spectrum. My son has ADHD, too, so that is an easy one. That's what we say (though not all of his issues can be explained by ADHD and that's important for me to remember). I do not think my daughter has ADHD. She has some symptoms of it, but I think they can also be explained by ASD, and she is just...different than my son. We often don't tell people anything about her these days, but when we do, it seems to work best to say she has "very mild" ASD. I know many people on the spectrum do not like the description of "mild" attached to ASD because if you have ASD, your issues aren't "mild" and I get that and agree, but insofar as other people need to have information to make sense of some of her behaviors, "mild" works way better than HFA.

As a kid I was diagnosed with ADHD and a Auditory Processing Disorder by a doctor. I grew up in the 90's-birthdate is 1979. I spent my highschool years loaded up with all of the various amphetamines of the time. The only thing that really helped me was theater, and swimming. I felt like a lot of what got me through school were activities that put me back in my body.
As a young child-I was totally obsessed with cars. I could name every type of car, with an interest level that I could actually match peoples keys to the sort of car they drove. My mom says my fist word was Toyota. So I have always identified with the interest level of my autistic peers and colleagues-even as my own interests changed.
I've done a lot of work and created with autistics through the years, and I find that yes autism and ADD are both medical diagnosis, and it's important for families and individuals to get services, therapeutic and other kinds that can help (but I know that many services that autistics receive can also be detrimental to their mental health and growth). But on this site (which I joined today because I wanted to start a dialog about the movie I am directing Big Daddy Autism (shameless plug) when choosing between neurotypical, and other asd, I chose other asd-because I am certainly not neuro-typical, and I don't think my friends or family perceive of me as neuro-typical. So self-diagnosis is interesting....and difficult. Glad to be part of this online community!

I am both ADHD and ASD. If you are anything like me, way before you yourself suspected ADHD, everyone around you already knew.

Oh-absolutley. I respect the diagnosis, but sometimes I also feel it was of a certain time and place...the 90's, as well as the treatments. I read the whole ADD is fake thread. When I was diagnosed, I was immediateley put on meds, even though I am pretty sure they didn't help me at all. Not to say I don't have ADD (I certainly have an auditory condition that makes it very difficult for me to process language), but as a young child with my car perseveration-maybe in today's world I would have recieved a different diagnosis. Sometimes I wish anyone could receive therapeutic support, if you, or your family needs support-but that would be dependent on a community based model. And maybe it would also open it up to therapeutic support that is not necessarily approved by the APA (but there are issues with that). DSM based diagnosis is a tough bag of worms to crack-so much variability. I believe the goal is for insurance to be able to reimburse for services within the limits set by the psych community-which is valuable, and confusing.