u/SwoozieHunterYT

Hello everyone!

I (21M) have ADHD (Strong) and Autism (Mild, likely Aspergers) both self-diagnosed/suspecting for the time being

I have this (mostly) constant desire to just become a master at something, i will focus on a certain topic/field for a few weeks completely engrossed in it and after a while it suddenly I just start feeling repulsive to it, I know that I can become great in something or some things, I have this weird desire to shut myself off from the world and study a certain topic for every waking hour or produce something, create a business, whatever it may be specifically, I’m talking more so about the underlying feeling, that striving for something so big, simply for the sake of it, not necessarily the success that is associated with it, although it’s not an irrelevant factor, that pursuit, the building towards something, the becoming something. Sort of like how Bill Gates in his early years would just spend all day programming and working in the garage completely.

But I am never ever able to stick with any of it, ever! Usually because of one of the following reasons:

• ADHD Paralysis (I keep thinking about doing or starting something, never actually starting)
• If I start something, maybe the first day i can hyperfocus in it and make good progress, but after the first day, i will get really bored of doing that thing within 30 minutes, deeply under-stimulated.
• Cannot stand doing that same thing every single day, the difference here being the routine/monotony of it.
• After about 2 or 3 weeks suddenly that deep-interest just fades away to complete utter disinterest.

Now, additionally I tried ADHD meds recently (2/3 weeks ago) as my friend gave me a weeks worth extra of his Elvanse to try out, which i had been avoiding trying for a while but at a certain point I just got so curious and decided to do it, and oh boy did they work! I was at the time starting to learn German on my own as languages and language learning has always been a thing of mine and that I pride myself on, I swear to god I spent like 6-8 hours every day for that week just practicing german on Duolingo for the most part with usually a bit of that dedicated towards consuming media in german and talking to AI.
And I could just sit there and do those extremely repetitive things hour after hour, it never got boring to me, i always had an interest in continuing, every day I woke up first thing I did was hop onto Duolingo and I was living my best unemployed life ever just doing that same thing for a massive chunk of the day.
Now I’m sure the ”honeymoon” phase of the adhd meds might have exaggerated a bit how capable I was, but still, now I know what life can sort of be like and it has opened a pandoras box where I get even more frustrated at the fact that I can’t satisfy my autistic side, because now I know that I can be like that.

I’m aware that dedicating your entire life/waking hour towards one thing is not ideal, and I do not plan on doing that as life is not one-dimensional but I at least would love to be able to choose when I go all in on something or not.

I’m not really sure if this is more of a vent or asking for advice but I would really appreciate some input from y’all if you feel the same way, it’s just so deeply frustrating and depressing that I’m always having such demanding cravings yet such a high propensity to fail at them, it just makes it so much worse because it causes higher expectations which makes the ”failure” feel so much more infuriating.

Any advice/help/guidance is greatly appreciated!

Hey, first post here!
I’m (21M) very very confident in my belief of having AuDHD (suspect Aspergers, no learning disabilities) which definitely tilts more towards the ADHD side.
Still self-diagnosis for the mean-time!

I’m wondering if you guys/girls have any frameworks on how to approach anything in life regardless of what it is, such as to optimise for the AuDHD, I mean like at a fundamental level how should I interact with the world, I know this is extremely vague way to present this question, if you have an answer for relationships specifically (ideally for a guy), or career/work specific, that works too, i’m essentially looking for the manual to my ideal functioning in sort of a ”Theory of Everything” type of way, but obviously I’m not expecting all of you to have it all figured out if even any of it at all but I’ll still ask the question since I’m interested in hearing what works for you all

Essentially something you/I can use as first principles to draw from and craft responses/mechanisms accordingly.

Sorry if this is a bit vague or confusing lol.

Thanks!