It gets more fun when you get older and you realise you're mostly just a tired person.
I woke up tired one day at 28 and it's been like this ever since.
And poor, so I can't do the things I want to, and hate myself, no matter how I'm identifying.
People without ADHD apparently only have a "few" interests, like for example are just into politics and rugby, as opposed to the rest of us who are into politics, rugby, needlepointing, jet skiing, bread baking, Formula 1 racing, ska, tubas, and Sailor Moon until we pick up learning Thai next week and discover modular synths. tbh I found this quite shocking. I cannot even imagine what that is like. No wonder they have so much time to do their laundry.
What
How do they live like that
Oh my god is this why so many immortality plots in fiction have the absolutely nonsense moral of "be glad you're mortal because you'd otherwise run out of things to do" like try me
Seriously. My video game backlog is already several eternities long, not to mention all the other shit I do. Surfing is an all day activity.
I often say I'll never be bored on my own. I cannot relate to people who complained about having nothing to do during the pandemic. Being holed up at home? Yes please, suited me fine.
It does make it suck more when I have so many interests I'd like to do, but go through a big dip in motivation.
Someone I work with has no hobbies. So he just works constantly. I cannot fathom it!
As I get older and my pile of interests continues to grow, I value my own time above most else. There's so much I want to be doing!
I look at different people and think “how do they do so much, all these different things”.
Then I take a step back and realise that each person often only does one thing, and they put so much time and effort into it.
Constantly. And then when I'm not good at something (even if I might enjoy it), I dread doing it again
It's the lack of flow.
When I'm good at something, I can switch my brain off (even for mental tasks like programming; it's weird how ADHD works) and happily do it for hours.
When I'm working on something I'm not good at or am new to, I need to stop every few minutes to think or research and that gives my ADHD brain an opportunity to attack.
When I'm medicated, I can maintain that flow state with nearly any task - just with zero control over which task gets priority.
Yeah, I really should look into getting medication. Even if it does work, I still wanna try it. But there's always a reason not to make efforts for it
I don't know if it might be due to ADHD (or something related) since I'm still waiting to get tested but I feel the same.
The moment I notice I'm not good/best among my peers at something I don't want to touch it even again.
On the other hand this might be just me acting like a five year old I don't known. I just related hard.
I feel you. What helped me was learning about growth mindset and fixed mindset. It doesn't magically cure it, but it does help to know why you feel that way and how untrue that reason is.
I didn't read the whole book of course, but there's tons of exec summaries and short talks on it that can help to understand it.
Does anyone here find they really enjoy groups of things, collections, arrays, assortments, varieties? I can't really explain it adequately, but I've always somehow enjoyed collections of various things. One of the things i always think about that I've enjoyed since i was a kid, was the way a building in a city might have a set of signs in a vertical column with different logos for all the different stores/businesses within. Somehow i just found it satisfying to see all these different self-contained designs, all representing a variety of products or services. I also have really heavily enjoyed collectibles in my time: action figures, trading cards, video games, etc.
I also remember having a couple posters above my bed years ago that each had a grid of like 100 different smiley faces that said "Have a day" and each smiley had a different expression/look and it said under it "Have a happy day" or "Have a broken day" or "Have a plaid day" and eventually i got a sequel poster that said "Have a night" with 100 different night-theme smileys each with their own "Have a _____ night"
Just wonder if that's a common trait anyone else here can relate to 😅
I have a similar odd thing that I can only descibe as being fascinated with articulation.
Robots, skeletons, suits of armor, dolls, gears, some insects.
Something made of distinct pieces moving in articulated ways, it's a downright core desire.
I also like things separated but still connected like by a string, cable, or wireless. Like kites, security cameras, or drones.
I used to have a toy fishing rod with a rubber fish at the end that I love just throwing in the lake and realing back in. It just tickles my brain.
And more similar to yours, I really love spreadsheets! They can do so many things!
I love mechanical computers and typewriters. I cannot explain properly why but when I see one I'm always amazed.
I don't have the energy right now to try and express myself in English but some of what you have said has resonated with me.
I think I experience something similar to the toy building feeling. Dunno if it's related to ADHD but still.
Get into something - hyperfixate, become part of community, wake up one day with zero interest in thing, become lonely as you no longer enjoy thing with other people, cry, find new thing and repeat... Look back and realize you have no foundation other than this cycle- now too traumatized to get into anything new and feel completely gray.
Opposite for me - I do so many things that I don't strongly identify with any single one. Get a tattoo?? Nah, I'll probably be bored of the subject in a few months!
A tattoo take up less space than a drum kit, though.
Yeah, but a drum kit is much easier to sell on ebay
That's why I got a harmonica.
And at the same time I'm actively doing nothing... Great progress
Except maybe dreaming, I sure do a lot of that
And also don’t feel like I’m good enough to be or do any of them… yep same here.
I relate to that ten dollar dude from the Hamilton musical singing „Alexander Hamilton. My name is Alexander Hamilton. And there‘s a million things i haven‘t done. But just you wait! Just you waaiiit!“
That sounds so much like me! I would still add this on top: The constant rejection from my surroundings made me mask to the point where I refused any identity and tried being faceless. So that nobody could judge me anymore. In retrospective, this way of life has always been a failure.
damn, hearing it from someone else hits different. sometimes i yearn for the closeness of intimate friendships but the anxiety at the vulnerability of expressing a genuinely held opinion wont let me do anything else
Straight up me right there
I want to do so much more and be so much more but here I am
Though it's gotten a lot easier to be me and be happy with the progress I make towards my goals, there's still things I wish I could improve on easier
This is the first one of these that makes me not feel like I have adhd.
Just wait fifteen or twenty minutes.
im like the opposite. super sameness man. Im pretty sure people who knew me at any time since high school would likely recognize me. Sure I go down rabbit holes like anyone on the internet nowadays but my likes and dislikes have been pretty steady.
I agree with this, and I'll add that I often have a bit of paralysis around getting into things that I've been putting off for years, not because of procrastination, strictly, but because of my fear of failure. 9/10 times, I end up succeeding at the task far better than I could have expected to and I chide myself for doubting my abilities. Rinse and repeat...
As I like to tell myself, "Maybe next time!"
I don't hook my sense of self to what I want to be. What works for me is having some fix points on my moral compass and I go from there. Just about everything else kinda falls into place. (And I also plan everything ahead, so I know how I want to act..)
Dud u mean "yep"?
I would say I struggle not because I want to be so many things but because I am so many different things. Mostly, though, I am just one thing and that is a person. Apparently, identifying as person who likes to sleep, though, isn't good enough for any of you.
I identify as omnipotent. Problem solved!
No, I don't feel like that.
100%
I'll say, one thing that helped me here was starting to see the "depth in the breadth", so to speak, and recognizing this jumping around for what it was. A lot of novelty seeking and bouncing between hobbies to avoid conscious regulating, which was tiring.
Now, in things that I consider important, I try to find the novelty and breadth that comes with sticking to it for a long time - stare at a hobby / occupation long enough to see the big world inside of it and realize it's more than you can take in and take time to put up some blinders so you can hone in there and see it as lots of cool novel things within a smaller space.
Also, realizing that bouncing around to all kinds of things... well, that's my form of relaxing. If I'm totally depleted, chances are what I need isn't to sit in one place and "rest", or to focus on one thing, it's to schedule time to completely not focus on one thing and allow myself to bounce all over the place and do whatever feels good (within responsible limits). It's usually a chaotic mess that amounts to no long-term benefit, but it's much more resting that trying to relax. Trying was the problem, after all.
