i have had ADHD ever since i was a child. i grew into a very depressed and anxious teenager and my mental health worsened over time as a young adult. fast forward to November 2024 when i start picking at the wounds healing on my skin. i've done this before. a lot of us have. however, this time i couldn't stop. i would pick until it bled, let it heal, and pick it all over again. then i'd move on to another spot and repeat the process. weeks turned into months and i was still picking at my skin. the areas impacted were spreading. i knew about dermatillomania and assumed i was having an episode for some reason i wasn't yet consciously aware of, but being the curious person i am i did some internet digging and learned way more than i thought i would.
it turns out that skin picking, or excoriation disorder and no longer referred to as dermatillomania, belongs to a newly described category of psychiatric conditions called "Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders." much like how there are several disorders pertaining to anxiety and depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder is a spectrum not limited to classically presenting OCD.
huh.. interesting. wait. this is a form of OCD? i thought to myself.
i continued to read more about OCD related disorders (OCRD) when i made a personally intense discovery. while there are many conditions thought to pertain to the wider spectrum of OCRD there are generally considered to be four primary disorders that are unquestionably obsessive-compulsive: body dysmorphic disorder, hypochondriasis, tic disorders, and body focused repetitive behaviors. when considering the list of wider OCRD disorders, i suffer from seven of 17 common conditions. however, narrowing it down to these few four actually makes things worse for me, because i live with three out the four disorders.
it seems i have been going about the world with untreated OCD my entire life. i couldn't help but immediately reflect over past scenario after past scenario. i spent the next several hours consuming as much information as i could about obsessive-compulsive related disorders and uncovering why i was avoidant and pathologically shy and reserved around others. i was finally finding answers that i had spent 35 years working towards. i was closing in on why i was the way i am.
when i thought i couldn't possibly learn anything more significant about myself i read that people with both ADHD and OCD have higher rates of autism than the average population. in fact, it's a good indication you have autism if you have both disorders.
oh. hm. uhhhhhhhh. fuck. i have wondered over the years if i was on the autism spectrum but never really gave it much thought. things were clicking even deeper. like with OCD i looked into autism and it was like reading a summary of my lived experiences. everything felt right. everything made sense. this is what's going on with me. it's this right here.
i was floored. the very next day i made appointments with professionals who met with me and agreed that i was likely correct and set me up with a psychiatric assessment for June. i will soon be given confirmation of what i know likely to be true: i have ADHD, OCD, and autism. and it took until my mid 30s to put it all together.
if you are struggling and still can't make sense of yourself, it isn't for nothing. this could happen to you too. keep pushing forward because the alternative is to give up. the alternative is you lose.