About OddlyWired
OddlyWired is a free resource hub for AuDHD adults — people who are Autistic, have ADHD, or experience both. It exists to give you clear, honest information about how neurodivergent brains work, without the clinical jargon, the feel-good clichés, or the assumption that you need fixing.
What you'll find here
Guides
Plain-language explainers on ADHD, Autism, AuDHD, masking, PDA, monotropism, and more.
Tools
Curated lists of apps, planners, and resources that actually work for neurodivergent people.
Assessment
A free self-reflection tool to help you explore your own patterns — processed entirely on your device.
The Field Guide
A paid guide built from your own assessment answers — chapters on what came up for you, and one small first step for each.
The Planner
An undated printable planner that asks what kind of day you're having before it asks what you'll do. Free starter kit, no email.
Who's behind this
I spent years not knowing why my brain did what it did, and then my younger sister told me. She pointed at the missing friendships, the social awkwardness, the career I'd picked, and the way people's eyes glaze over when I get going about something I'm enjoying. She was right. It didn't land even slightly. I filed it under things sisters say and got on with it for another decade.
What finally landed was my daughter saying the same thing, and my son admitting he'd thought so for a while and hadn't wanted to say. Being told kindly, and a little cautiously, by the people who have watched you closest for longest is its own particular experience — and if someone has said something like that to you and you tucked it away somewhere, you're in very good company.
So I read everything I could find, went and got assessed properly, and came out of it with ASD level 1 and some ADHD in the mix. I'm being evaluated for hypermobility now as well, which apparently surprises nobody but me. There are almost certainly more of us in the family — one confirmed so far, and I'm not about to diagnose anyone who hasn't asked — but once you have the words, you start seeing relatives in them, living and dead, and quietly rewriting a lot of old family stories. Nobody warns you about that part.
Somewhere in the middle of it I did the thing I do for a living — I'm a software engineer — and built myself an assessment, because everything I could find was either a clinical instrument with no explanation attached or a listicle pretending to be one. I built it before my appointment and checked it against what the clinician said afterwards. That's one person and it proves nothing, but it's why I'm willing to put my name on it. The whole deep dive was, honestly, a lovely time. Make of that what you will.
That assessment is the one on this site now, and everything around it is the reading I wanted and couldn't find in one place: honest, practical, free, and never out to fix you. If something here is wrong, or it lands badly, I'd rather know — hello@oddlywired.com reaches me.
— Jane
How I approach this
- Visitor-focused, not clinical — written for you, not about you as a patient
- No ads, ever — flashing banners are miserable for neurodivergent brains
- Neurodiversity-affirming — ADHD and autism aren't deficits to be overcome here
- Community language — the words the community actually uses, not just the ones in diagnostic manuals
- Honest about limits — none of this is a substitute for professional support
About the assessment
The assessment is a set of questions that help you see whether your everyday experiences line up with ADHD, autism, or both. It won't tell you that you "have" anything — it reflects your own answers back to you in a way that can be genuinely hard to see from the inside, and points you toward what might be worth exploring further.
The questions draw on established research tools — the same ones clinicians and researchers use — reworded into plain, first-person language, so they describe how something actually feels rather than just how it looks from the outside:
- ASRS — a widely used adult ADHD screener, developed with the World Health Organization.
- RAADS-R — a self-report measure of autistic traits built for adults — including those who were missed as children.
- CAT-Q — looks at masking: how much you hide or translate your natural way of being in order to fit in.
- Monotropism Questionnaire — measures how strongly your attention is pulled toward a few deep interests at a time.
- EDA-QA — measures demand avoidance, sometimes called PDA: the way pressure or obligation can make even a wanted task feel impossible.
It also accounts for masking. Because masking can make traits harder to see on a questionnaire like this, the tool factors your masking answers into how it reads the rest — the goal is a fairer overall picture, not a higher or a lower score. Answering as honestly as you can is all that's needed.
It is a self-reflection tool, nothing more. It does not diagnose, and using it doesn't create any kind of clinical relationship. Nothing you enter is stored or sent anywhere — everything runs on your device, with no email, signup, or account required.
Take the assessment →