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I’m currently working full time in web development. Cost of living is just crazy compared to what I’ve been able to find for suitable employment, and while it doesn’t help that the types of work I tolerate well are perhaps limited by neurodivergence, I don’t think it’s the primary factor.

But that’s beside the point. I was more just saying that there are definitely people who can present as though they’re doing about as well as you could expect of a person with their background without considering neurodivergence, but still qualify for a diagnosis. Or put another way, it’s possible, in some cases, to work hard enough to fly under the radar and not even recognize it yourself. I didn’t have any issues with independence, really, until I hit an intense burnout from extreme levels of overwork and overall stress. I wouldn’t be shocked to learn of others in my position, so I’m hesitant to suggest someone may not resonate fully with the experience just because they haven’t hit their limit yet.

If you are able to function independently, then you probably won’t be clinically diagnosed even if you have some struggles here and there.

I disagree. I have official diagnoses for both ADHD and ASD and am mostly functional most of the time. If I earned enough, I’d be living on my own. I was diagnosed as an adult within the past few years while working nearly full time and I made it on time to each of the several appointments that went into getting that diagnosis. If what you say is true, I doubt the assessor would have been willing to give a diagnosis.

You know, I hadn’t thought about it too much in this context, but I do more or less the same. When I’m around anyone at all, I’m conscious of all my behaviors. The only way I can really turn it off is weed/alcohol, and even then the instinct is just dulled a little, not switched off. I don’t think the majority of people are nearly that aware of how each movement or sound they make might be perceived by others. It’s largely unconscious for most. And I don’t think it’s an inherent wiring difference either.

I think growing up different and constantly having it impressed upon you that every single way you’re different is wrong takes a toll. Other people are pushing you into a box and demanding you behave this way, not that way. Until you either learn to reject (at least some of) those rules or are pushed so far you burn out and can no longer conform, it’s constant stress. And it’s so constant that you probably aren’t even fully aware of it, particularly if you’re also alexithymic and generally have to work harder to identify your emotional state/response to a situation under the best of circumstances.

This leads me to another aspect. If we’re viewed as too rigid, then allistics’ intrinsic/core selves are perhaps comparatively more malleable. Their core underlying personality is perhaps more ready to adopt the behaviors and beliefs of the group. Quicker to be guided by faith. In which case, perhaps for an allistic person, this pushing and prodding doesn’t create this emotional/mental tension in the same way it does when it pushes an autist to mask. Granted, this feels like it’s painting an unreasonably broad brush, but maybe there’s something to it.

Also, the most solitary jobs I know of are in the tech industry. Otherwise, for really isolated jobs, maybe fire watch or possibly lighthouse work if there are openings. If you have relevant skills, you might be able to work in web design, system administration, or as a programmer (“individual contributor”) with minimal public interaction. I’m lucky enough that my managers have more or less recognized that I’m very reluctant to deal directly with customers, so I only have to interact with my small team for the most part. This likely would hurt my ability to progress to higher pay, but certainly avoids certain types of stress, and with the way the last half a decade has gone, I’m only just now reaching a point where I might have energy for that broader social interaction again.

So I designed the company in a way that makes my personal limits less of a problem…

Interesting. It sounds to me like you used your strengths to streamline your process such that your limits don’t come up as much. By working towards solutions that accommodated your limits, you built software that would make life easier for anyone (provided they can figure out the software). The same approach would probably work well for me.

they found a flaw in our contracts and took off with like 50k [+250k in damages]

Ah, that would make me hesitant to take on partners too. I’ve had some small setbacks from trusting people, but never quite that much (granted, I’ve never had that much to lose). Sucks you had that happen. Crazy that it was a previously reliable employee who turned on you like that too.

I don’t know that I would be able to work with partners I couldn’t trust. Even if I could keep them at arms length and remain suspicious, the added effort of having to handle that on top of everything else wouldn’t be worth it, not to mention there would be too high of a chance they’d eventually stab me in the back. If it’s a choice between working with someone I can’t trust or trying to go at it alone, working alone is definitely a better choice. I agree with you there. I’ll keep that in mind as I continue working on this problem. If I do look for a business partner, I’d be looking for someone who comes across as unflinchingly transparent, and whose transparency reveals strong integrity and a collaborative spirit.

Thanks, listing out some specific experts to talk to and describing the overall process is helpful! I suppose I’ll need to return to that project and work out the remaining bugs, revisit my business plan, talk with some consultants, and then look into funding. Given that my project requires custom-manufactured hardware, the upfront cost could be eye wateringly high, potentially > $100k if I needed to start generating revenue quickly.

Sounds like you might have gotten a gray hair or two already dealing with this stuff, prepare for more.

It was definitely a challenging few years, between that and everything else going on in my life. I don’t mind hard work. I’d rather spend my time doing something meaningful to me than working on whatever a manager dictates I should do. I do need time to relax and recharge, but there’s nothing saying I can’t do both.

Partners were what nearly brought me down.

Could you expand on that a little? I’ve been looking for partners because I’ve come to understand that certain tasks burn me out quickly, which leads me to think one or more partners will need to take on those tasks in my case. Did you have a bad experience with a partnership? Couldn’t find anyone who was competent and interested?

It’s hard to find examples of autistic entrepreneurs, and neurodiverse-friendly resources for starting a business are hard to find online. If you were so inclined, I think sharing your experience in a book/website could help a lot of aspiring innovators. (How did you research? What business structures have you tried? What roadblocks did you hit/what solutions did you find that worked for you? How was your experience convincing people to trust/work with you?, etc.)

Mind if I ask if you have any advice for an aspiring entrepreneur? I had an electronics project that I tried to get off the ground. I managed to teach myself what I needed, but I’m stumped by lack of funding, time, and an aversion to the social aspects. I figure I need to find cofounders who can take on that work, but no one I know has the time, and few if any have the skills. Plus as a self-taught electronics designer, I can’t ignore a concern that there could easily be a major mistake that’ll affect reliability/lifespan of whatever I produce.

I have ideas in varying stages for electronics and software. Not many I’ve started on, but a few I’ve at least started basic planning for.

(This turned into a bit of a wall of text, so I hid the longer paragraphs in spoiler tags with a “TL;DR” as the label)

Definitely sounds like a tough one to find, unfortunately. The one I found was willing to assess me as an adult white man for AuDHD, and I believe he had some adult women as patients, but I don’t know if he would know how to approach an adult diagnosis for a high masking woman.

On a related note, if you haven’t seen this list of resources linked in the sidebar yet, there’s some interesting stuff in there. I know that Yo Samdy Sam, the last YouTube channel linked there, is an adult-diagnosed AuDHD woman. Her experience might be relatable/a useful reference point.

For what it’s worth, you seem genuine to me. And from my understanding, the vast majority of people who seek a diagnosis in good faith and put forth the effort to understand the condition well enough to tentatively self-diagnose are correct in their assessment. With or without diagnosis, if you have done the legwork and feel it’s a strong possibility, you’re welcome to consider yourself included.

Yeah, it’s frustrating how expensive those evals can be. I couldn’t even get them to give me a price when I was looking into it. Because I couldn’t agree without knowing the cost, they suggested someone else who wouldn’t do a full psych eval, but would bill it (mostly) as a normal psychiatrist visit and give a more general “yes or no” answer. Maybe that’s an option? Insurance might be more willing to cover that too.

Thought it might be helpful to compare the USSR to Wikipedia’s definitions of fascism and communism. These definitions can be wrong or could be different than what they were at the height of the USSR, but perhaps it’ll help with finding common definitions. I’ll admit that my knowledge of USSR culture/governance is limited, so feel free to critique/refute any of my interpretations.

Fascism:

Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement,characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.

It hits 4/7 pretty firmly and the remaining 3 are plausible.

Communism:

is a left-wing to far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology… whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered around common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products to everyone in the society based on need. A communist society would entail the absence of private property and social classes, and ultimately money and the state.

Hits 2/8 at best, but I would be surprised to learn there wasn’t money in the USSR.