I'm AuDHD. Late Diagnosed. And I'm Finally Done Hiding It.
Moving too fast. Talking too much. Speaking too loud. Being too intense.
I've heard all of them. As descriptions of me. The strange part is none of them bother me. They may all be exactly right because they describe how someone experienced me. Not who I am.
That distinction took me decades and a diagnosis to understand. And a few years ago, later in life than most, I was diagnosed with AuDHD: Autism and ADHD, together.
This is my coming out party!
What is AuDHD and Why So Many Women Were Never Told
AuDHD means a person carries both Autism Spectrum Disorder and ADHD simultaneously. In my case: high-functioning autism plus both inattentive and hyperactive ADHD. Research suggests 50–70% of autistic people also meet the criteria for ADHD, and vice versa.
For a long time, you couldn't even be diagnosed with both at once. And for even longer, girls weren't being diagnosed with either because the research was built around boys. Girls didn't bounce off the walls. They sat quietly, watched, and learned to perform aka mask easily compared to boys.
Which means an entire generation of women were missed. Told they were "just anxious." "Too sensitive." "Not trying hard enough."
I was one of them.
Two Nervous Systems. One Body. No Instruction Manual.
Here's the part most people don't understand about AuDHD and the part that made my 30+ years in corporate environments so quietly exhausting.
I have two separate operating systems in my body. The autism part needs predictability to feel safe. Routine is oxygen. The ADHD part cannot tolerate predictability. It craves novelty and something new to chase. Routine is suffocation.
Put those two things in the same body and they fight.
All day.
Every day.
My brain is constantly negotiating between what it needs to feel safe and what it needs to feel alive, and neither one ever fully wins. That internal conflict runs like the hum of an engine. Most of the time I didn't even know it was happening.
The exhaustion that creates isn't "I didn't sleep well" tired. It's a bone-deep, what-do-I-even-need-right-now exhaustion. And most people around me never saw it — because I became an expert at making sure they didn't.
That's called masking. And I did it for three decades without realizing I was doing it.
When the Mask Cracks
Masking becomes automatic. Like walking. You don’t think about it. I watched how people moved through rooms and I mirrored it. I managed everyone else's comfort in every interaction while barely having access to my own experience.
Until I didn't.
The mask always cracks eventually. And when it cracked for me, other people got to decide what it meant. Without the full picture. Without any understanding of what was actually happening in my nervous system.
That cost me more than I understood at the time.
The diagnosis came later, after years of parenting two neurodivergent teenagers and slowly, unmistakably, seeing myself in them. I got assessed. And there it was.
So here I am: Marlo Lyons. Executive coach. Podcast host. Wife. Mom. And now, neurodivergent. I didn't cry when I found out. I went completely quiet — probably for the first time in my life — because some part of me already knew. The diagnosis didn't change my circumstances. It changed the frame. What I had spent years filing under, “What is wrong with me?” had a different name.
And it no longer felt like a character flaw.
It’s simply wiring.
I am not broken. And if any part of this sounds like your story, neither are you.
A Work Unscripted Episode That Goes Where This Blog Can't
October is ADHD Awareness Month, and I opened it the only way that felt honest, with my own story, unfiltered. The blog gives you the frame. The episode gives you the full picture.
Here's what's waiting when you press play:
Why I went completely silent when I got my diagnosis, and what 30 years of corporate life had to do with it
A story I've never told publicly that happened early in my career and what I now understand my brain was doing in that moment
What happened every single time my mask cracked in front of a boss and the line I used every time to make the room comfortable again
Why vague feedback like "be more strategic" or "slow down " doesn't just miss the mark for a neurodivergent brain it lands as something far more damaging
The profound irony in why I became an executive coach and why I could see everyone else's blind spots but not my own
This is the most personal episode I've ever recorded. I hope it gives someone a framework for themselves they didn't know they needed.
Listen to Work Unscripted "What Does AuDHD Look Like at Work? My Late Diagnosis Explained My Career" here.
Comments