ADHD memes

ive never understood when my friends decline something because it "sounds boring" i just cant think that way at all

ADHD: how to get more out of life and less out of life at the same time.

Nonsense. I’ve had myself certified to be riddled with ADHD by 5 separate psychiatrists, and I’ve lost count of my hobbies/interests. And I have every intention of returning to leathercraft one day… just as soon as I dig my bed back out and get a good nights sleep.

Part of me really misses the certainty of the old school psychiatry. It seemed to hold the promise of answers and ultimately solutions. For if conclusions cold be reached problems could be identified and solved or otherwise compensated for.

Unfortunately this was never the case. It was just well meaning folks making it up as they went along. If they could convince their colleagues to buy in and do a bit of limited research… bingo, accepted theory.

Now we just get an endless wash of statistics and papers loaded with so much domain specific language they are practically indecipherable.

My interests tend to rotate, thankfully. I try to decorate my room or have things that will physically remind me of old hobbies and get me to jump start them back to life.

You suck all the dopamine out of something and move on leaving the drained husk of your former hobby behind. Hopefully the dopamine runs out before you put money into it.

I swear as soon as I put money into a hobby, I lose interest. I got a guitar I can't play, a hackRF I can't be bothered to relearn, a box of half built eletronics, an unknown amount of Raspberry Pis and Arduinos with no purpose...

Yup, that's me. Only have a handful of active interests at a time. But a couple of those are free floating interest slots that I'll swap out every month or few as I really dig into something new. And then everything else gets moved into passive interest territory, where I'm not seeking it out but can still relate or engage if it comes up again. So that's how I live with it.

Uh, I was never diagnosed with any type yet I have fuckloads of different interests, though I very rarely devote enough time to any of them. Maybe I should recheck? Or is it just a case of internet rabbit holes? I mean, you start perusing wikipedia and you have no idea how you went from vector graphic formulae to chemical composition of certain drugs to baryon asymmetry.

I prefer the term "renaissance man".

Huh. I used to write notes to myself a few years ago when I was still in school and would get super drunk. "Look up modular synths," was one of my notes and I never went and actually did it. This is probably my calling to learn about them 🤔.

As someone who switched meds, didn't sleep much for about 14 days and discovered modular synths: I'm in this picture and I don't like it.

Disclaimer: let's face it, I actually love it. Like others in this thread, I can't even imagine how boring I'd feel not discovering a completely new interest / hobby / aspect of life all the time.

Hell, I know so many people my age who simply seem to stagnate and are simply not interested in anything any longer, and I feel "protected" from that. Life is fucking exciting, let me try all the things!

There are definitely layers to this though, I have core interests that are more aligned with my personality, and I feel that governs how invested I am into each particular hobby. That doesn't keep me from having wildly varying interests, though.

As a person with no diagnosis of any type, I too feel confused by people only having ‘a few’ interests and hobbies. If my time were not so finite, and I had the financial means, I’d be pursuing a lot of random things

Can you imagine how specialized you would be if you only had one interest? Like the example non-ADD person just into politics... They must know the name of every representative at every level from city to country where they are living, know the detailed history of the political parties, and have a deep knowledge of political movements and their history.

NT: "So what are your interests?"

Me, inside: "Software development, compression algorithms, binary file processing, scripting in Bash and Powershell, web development, networking, homelab/selfhosting, household automation, 3D graphics and modelling (and a particular fascination with Geometry Nodes), shader programming, video game development, video games..."

Me, outside: "... ...I like computer? Like, all of computer?"

Yeah, this sounds about right. I think this is why other people (without ADHD) often identify me with only one or two of my special interests instead of the full variety of all those interests. The other day I had to introduce me in a certain setting to someone where everyone had to mention their hobbies as well. I was struggling at first how to cram so many hobbies in a short time or how to prioritize them. Then a friend, who was also there, said to me "Oh, you like to upload pictures on iNaturalist!" This is true, but I did not really feel seen because of all the other hobbies that seem similarly important!

wonder if this has anything to do with an inability to say youre not interested when someone starts talking to you about something (at least in my case because i perceive it as being rude and i absolute hate feeling like ive been rude) leading to the actual development of a larger range of interests

People: what do you do in life? Me: video games. that's it, just videogames. A LOT of videogames

I mean, I wouldn’t call it living. Maybe rather existing. :D

Only historical materialism can placate their rabid curiosity now