It's importance to use "scale" to mean severity and "spectrum" to mean presented traits: autism has the same issue with conflated terms.

Both ADHD and autism can present at any IQ level, so it's not the case that "sometimes ADHD can co-occur with learning disabilities", it's that they both might happen to appear in the same person.

When ADHD and/or autism happen to present in a person with a high IQ, we call it "giftedness": assuming that the impairments are not too severe, they are more easily able to leverage and wield their traits.

I see the disability/superpower idea as a false dichotomy: for some people, it's like being blind; for others, it's like being colourblind but you can also see infrared and ultraviolet. As you say, environment plays a big part: I was labelled "creative", as were my grandparents before me, but in another home or school, I might have been called "naughty" instead.

What a diagnosis has done is equip me to push back on unrealistic demands. Yes, I leave stuff in little piles around the house that might stay for many months, but that's the price for me performing all the other tasks required of me.

I cook meals, take care of most of the household admin and deliver projects in a high-pressure job: you don't get to have that and a house that meets more than the minimum standards of hygiene and tidiness. Instead of berating myself for "laziness", I now accept that I work up to my reasonable limit and no more.

Aside from starting medication, one of the best things I ever did was call Bupa in floods of tears and get a decent therapist. Through CBT, she taught me to value myself for what I am rather than what I do, and to replace my inner drill sergeant with a benevolent coach.

My therapist recommended a book - 'The Compassionate Mind' by Paul Gilbert - which has been sitting on a pile behind the sofa for several months.

I'll get to it soon, I promise ... but I'm not going to beat myself up about it.