When a post describes you 500%

The other day I saw a post that described exactly how I work. Not 100%, but 500%.

There were several images with phrases that described me almost completely.

For example: "there is no silence in my head," "being autistic + ADHD is not thinking a lot, it's never being able to turn off my mind," "my ADHD side is like having 20 tabs open at once, and my autistic side analyzes each of these tabs in depth," "it's mental chaos and order at the same time, but not constantly," "thinking about nothing has never been a human experience for me."

And that's exactly it. Often, when ADHD or autism are discussed, they're treated separately, as if they were two distinct conditions that simply coexist. But when you have autism and ADHD, it's not just two conditions that coexist. It's a completely different profile than simply being autistic "only" or ADHD "only".

The feeling is like living inside an internal system that never stops, that activates itself and, moreover, constantly analyzes itself.

ADHD isn't hyperactivity. In my case, it's an overabundance of attention. So many ideas are presented to you at once that it's impossible to keep track of them all. It's not that I don't pay attention, it's that there's just too much going on at once.

Ideas, memories, tasks, worries, future plans, past scenes, possible mistakes, things I should do, things I don't want to forget, things that haven't happened yet but that I'm already anticipating. It's not an orderly train of thought. It's a simultaneous multiplicity.

And that's where the autistic part comes in. He doesn't just let these ideas slide as background noise. He analyzes them. He reviews them. He questions them. He asks himself why that thought appeared, what its logic is, whether it's coherent, whether it's the best option, whether there's a more efficient or less harmful way of doing things.

It's not just that there are many tabs open. Each one of them becomes an analysis process.

That's why, from the outside, it might seem like I "think a lot." But that's not it. Thinking a lot doesn't accurately describe what's happening. This is a system that generates thought, multiplies it, revises it, and generates it again in a loop.

It's not a lack of control. It's not a lack of will. And it's not a choice either.

Often, what I really want is the opposite: to stop. To experience silence. To have a real pause. Even if it's just ten minutes a day. But "not thinking about anything" has never been a natural experience for me. My mind doesn't run on its own. It branches out, repeats itself, and analyzes itself endlessly.

This has real consequences.

It can be physically and mentally exhausting. It can mean that even when your body is tired, your mind remains active. More than once or twice I've tried to sleep, and my brain has decided that was the best time to think about absolutely everything.

And there comes a point where it's not just tiredness.

It's longing for something I don't have: mental rest. A real pause. Inner silence.

There are times when what I want isn't to die. If that were the case, I would talk about it and work through it with a therapist. What I want is to stop feeling this way, even if just for a little while. To stop feeling like I can't stop.

But that state doesn't turn off easily.

Because it's not just chaos. Nor is it just order. It's chaos and order at the same time, constantly.

It's having many things open and, at the same time, the need to review them all. It's wanting to move forward and, at the same time, needing to understand everything. It's trying to rest and noticing that the system continues to function the same.

That's why, when I saw that post, I didn't just hear identification. I felt relief. Because putting this into words doesn't solve it, but it does help to understand that it's not an exaggeration or poor personal management. It's a concrete way of functioning.

Being autistic and having ADHD, this way of functioning can be so intense that, from the outside, it's hard to imagine. But from the inside, it's very real.

It's not that I don't want to stop. It's that the system doesn't have a working pause button.