u/Tenebrous_Savant

Mid 40s male ASD ADHD

When I was younger, I can recall rather enjoying when a story swapped to the perspective of characters other than the MC.

For the last several months, I've noticed that has changed, to where I instead started to get irritated. I started often find myself skipping over those portions of the story, and coming back to them later. Then, I eventually stopped wanting to go back to the parts I had skipped.

Lately though, it's been getting weirder. Now, sometimes I've started entirely losing interest in the story. It's to where I don't want to just skip parts, I don't even want to read the story at all anymore even if it was something I really enjoyed.

The latest instance of this is a series that I've read several books of, all of which had perspective swaps that didn't bother me, or that I actively enjoyed. Now that has changed, because after the last chapter that had a perspective change, I suddenly had no interest in reading anymore of the story. This raises a flag for me, and makes me really wonder what's going on. When it started, it was kinda strange, and then annoying. Now, it is worrisome.

When I think about it and how it seems to affect my interest and attention, that seems to be a big clue. I get the feeling this is an ADHD thing, bleeding into some part of my ASD experience. It seems to tick something similar to Demand Avoidance, but that doesn't quite feel right either.

There seems to be a common feeling of impatience, with a lack of interest in the other perspectives and a growing difficulty to focus on them. That lack of interest has started to bleed over into the story as a whole all, because when I try and skip over those parts, there's a dissonance.

The dissonance is this feeling that I'm missing out on what I'm skipping, and the inability to continue on without reading it, but an utter lack of interest in doing so, which just shuts off interest in reading any more of the story at all. This is where it feels kind of like Demand Avoidance, because in order keep reading the story, I would have to do something "arbitrary" that I feel like I don't want to do.

This is a very strange emotional regulation thing to be popping up at this point in my life.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this?

For a while now I've had a great deal of issue with the common interpretation of Discipline having the connotation from Old French where it is inherently punitive. Off and on I revisit playing with the Latin roots, and exploring different perspectives. I wanted to share some notes I made for myself and get any thoughts or feedback.

Can you see where my thoughts are going with this?

Discipline: disciplina (latin) "to teach" from discipulus "student" and discere "to learn"

Disciple: discipulus (latin) dis- "separate/apart" and -cipulus (from capere/cipere "to grasp, hold/to take")

Discipere (latin) "to grasp intellectually" dis- "separate/apart" and -cipere "to take"

Discern: discernere (latin) dis- "separate/apart" and -cernere "to see"

Discernment: discretionem (latin) "discretion" OR "seen OR grown/born separate/apart" from dis- "separate/apart" and -cernere "to see" AND -cretionem "growth" *see also cretionem "declaration of acceptance of an inheritance, heritage"

Discrete: discretus (latin) dis- "separate/apart" and -cretus [from cerno/cernere] "seen/to see" OR -cretus (from cresco "I grow") "grown/born from; visible [bigger]" *see also excretus

Discere (latin) "to learn"

Discere ~ IF sincerus (latin) "sincere, pure" POSSIBLE "grown/seen positively" from sin/sic- "yes" and -cerne "see" and/or -cretus (from cresco "I grow") "grown/born from; visible [bigger]" THEN discere "to grow/see apart [beyond]"

NOT sincerus from sine- "without" and -cerus "wax" AND discerus from dis- "separate/apart" and -cerus "wax"

*see also sincretus ~ syncretic