Check recovery speed, not just organization
Being organized isn't evidence against ADHD. Order can be effortful ADHD scaffolding built over years, or natural autistic order. Tell which by what happens when the system collapses: a fast rebuild points to natural autistic order; a very slow one (sometimes years) points to effortful ADHD scaffolding.
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Visible organization is often taken as proof that someone can’t have ADHD, but that inference is wrong, and the more useful question is where the order comes from. In an ADHD person organization can be ego-dystonic scaffolding — a system built effortfully over years through stress, sitting against the grain. In an autistic person order can be ego-syntonic — natural, comfortable, the way the mind already wants the world. The tell is what happens when the system shatters. Autistic people are distraught when their order collapses but rebuild the mechanism quickly, because order is natural to them and they simply re-establish it. ADHD people take a long time to rebuild, sometimes years, because the inclination isn’t there and the scaffolding has to be effortfully reconstructed. So when an organized person falls into chaos, watch the recovery speed rather than the fact of the collapse: a fast rebuild suggests underlying autistic order, a very slow rebuild suggests effortful ADHD scaffolding — a useful clue for telling the profiles apart and for knowing how much support a rebuild will actually take.
