You’re the one that’s supposed to be doing that job 😉

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080609195604.htm

Very Boimler of you. This would stress me out way too much lol

lofi.cafe

I definitely feel this. It was worse before I was medicated too. One thing that’s helped me, is getting on a schedule I like at work. It won’t be possible for everyone, but I work 4 ten hour shifts, 9-8, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. It means I never end up tied up in the same thing too long, and gives me more breaks, and an easier first day of the week.

This sounds pretty similar to my experience. I have a hard time looking at just one thing for any stretch of time, and eye contact is especially difficult, because it makes me think about what I look like, which is another distraction from the conversation that I’m probably already missing

This is definitely how I improve my writing. I have a ton of different projects, books I’m reading in different genres, and other media I’m absorbing

I think the amount will depend on you. Are there any hobbies you have put down and come back to before? I’d start with those, and expand as necessary. I’ve also found it helps to have hobbies with different levels of energy requirements. Writing, for example, take a lot more mental energy than watching Star Trek, so Star Trek is a good fallback for me. Often watching an episode or two will be enough to get me in the mood to read, or write myself.

TTRPGs are high energy investment as well, but they have the added benefit of being a group activity, so there are other people I’m motivated to not disappoint by flaking. I would definitely recommend a regularly scheduled social hobby. It can be a lifeline when everything else is chaos

There are definitely things AI is good for. Archival search is obviously the biggest, because that’s what we’ve been using it for decades. It can also be helpful for subterranean and medical imaging, and art restoration. But the companies selling it want to sell a Magic 8 Ball with ads

I agree with everyone else. Having a bunch of different hobbies that I can bounce between keeps things fresh and exciting. They can be related though. For example, I enjoy writing, I also enjoy reading. And I love sci-fi and fantasy in television, movies, and video games as well. And I play TTRPGs in various genres. Oftentimes, because of how related a lot of my hobbies are, by the time I start losing interest in one specific thing, I’ve already been inspired in something adjacent. So overall, it’s like one big hobby that I slowly work theough

The zero sugar versions of things are not any healthier. In fact, artificial sweeteners can be less healthy

You and I must have different hobbies

I am right there with you in games. I’ve been playing Enshrouded with my partner and some friends recently, and we’ve gotten into arguments on continuing the quest, versus exploring, versus building lol

It’s very interesting to me to see how other people can just walk past something without looking into it, or, even more foreign to me, remember it, and come back later. I, personally, have to completely explore an area outright the first time, because I know I will not be interested in going back through it in the future

Turns out safety regulations are written in our blood

So if you ever wonder who it was that figured out you can eat something weird way back in history, sounds like it was probably someone with ADHD lol

Monkey-see, monkey-do is a powerful survival skill. For neurotypical people, it’s easy to just reproduce learned behaviors, without the reasoning behind them. I find interesting parallels with generative AI. You see it a lot in creative pursuits especially. So many people totally miss subtext. I think you also see it a lot while driving.

And it’s largely an education problem. There’s no reason neurotypicals can’t think critically, but it’s much easier to teach them to just slot into a role without any real understanding (Religion is very good at this). I think that’s also the reason conventional education can be so difficult for people that aren’t neurotypical. It’s meant to teach you what to do, not why

I definitely find myself to be at an advantage compared to most neurotypical people I have worked with. In aggregate though, the ease they have moving with the flow can end up being more of an advantage in the long term, especially in largely neurotypical spaces. It can be very frustrating

A story? I’m currently writing like 5 lol

I have a novel that I’m through like 1/5 of, though I have it mostly outlined. It’s a fantasy story set on a world where the sun heats the surface of the planet beyond habitable temperatures during the day, so the people live in caverns. The main story is about two civilizations that separated hundreds of years ago after a cavern flooded, the differences that grew up between them, and the conflict when they finally meet their forgotten cousins again.

I’m also working on a fantasy novella about a construction worker that got trapped in a dungeon he was helping to build, when the enchanted defenses were activated before it was complete. He spends the first section, over 80 years, trapped in complete darkness within the small antechamber inside the main gates. The magic keeps him alive as basically a skeleton, so the story is about his experience feeling his body rotting away around him, the mirror of the dungeon that deteriorates over time, due to environment, and adventurers, and what he does to cope.

I’m also working on a sci-fi novella, inspired by Dr. Who. It’s a space mystery about a hospital ship with a monster on board, and the main characters are a maintenance worker for the hospital, and a multi-dimensional alien that manipulates events throughout time, on the basis of the quantum uncertainty principle. Basically, the idea is that there’s wiggle room in Time, and you can take advantage of that, as long as you don’t get spoiled for what’s supposed to happen.

And I decided it would be a good idea to not just write a fanfic, but to completely rewrite one of my favorite sci-fi novels, Skyward, by Brandon Sanderson. I’m working on the outline for that right now. The idea is basically a What-If, where the main character decides to listen to everyone around her, and give up on becoming a pilot. If I do it right, I should be able to rewrite the whole series, with the same beginning, and the same end, but with extremely different events in the middle. It should be fun.

And as if all that wasn’t enough, I’m also doing a ton of writing to create a Westmarch setting for a D&D game with some friends. I’m setting it in the Forgotten Realms, and trying to use as much official lore as possible, so this has required a ton of research, but has been really fun. Between Evereska and Cormyr, at the headwaters of the River Reaching, stands the perfect mountain to hide a dwarf city built in the upper reaches of the Underdark. Players are going to have to adventure through the abandoned dwarf city, to get into the darkness below

My PCP recommended me to a specialist office that does neurological testing at scale, so I was able to get through it all pretty quickly. I asked about it at my yearly insurance physical in March, got an appointment for online testing on the 3rd, and got my results two weeks later. I was surprised by how easy it was. I have pretty good insurance from my job.

Here’s the specialist I used

I’m not sure if they take patients outside Michigan or not, but everything I did was remote, so I don’t see why they couldn’t. Their reviews on Google are bad, but my experience was great, and I’ve had friends say good things about another doctor also at this practice

I’ve definitely found that I do better when I can keep 100 different things balanced against each other. It gives me somewhere to go when I hit a wall. It can obviously get overwhelming when something goes wrong though

I feel this big time. I go to sleep with an audiobook on, so I have something to focus on. Otherwise, it takes me forever to sleep, because my brain keeps distracting me

It’s not a cheat code, you’re enriching yourself! Could very well be exactly what your anxiety needs!