u/marrowbuster

I'm talking about real-time visual effects in TUI games, demoscene programming, dashboards with cool animations, 3D graphics, and other feats, but these feel like they require a lot of prerequisite knowledge, mathematical intuition, and a deep understanding of efficient systems architecture or a megadose of high octane psychedelics to even write and debug the base framework. I'm wondering what the secret sauce is and how I can add back those IQ points to my brain because I feel I lost quite a handful of them due to being relentlessly bullied for being a nerd growing up.

24M and I'll keep this short.

I had to deal with lots of ableism and religious psychosis throughout life. I was frequently othered and treated like I was "less than" my peers for being autistic but weirdly at other times was "too abled" to be afforded basic comfort and care. I was forced into family gatherings in an attempt to "make me learn how to socialize". My special interests which were based around computers were frequently taken away and pathologized.

Things took a really bad turn when a friend of mine many years ago was learning how to code but I wasn't able to because of having my computer taken as punishment and when I pushed back enough to the point of crying my eyes out and being hopelessly distraught that I wasn't allowed to, I was quasi-institutionalized by being taken to the hospital, put on Prozac then Cymbalta and risperidone, and forced into therapy to "work out my issues" when all I needed was the freedom to explore my special interests. If I tried sneaking my computer back to learn how to code, I was further punished and threatened with the cops or foster care. This is just ONE aspect of how I was treated like trash, there was emotional abuse, being forced to be a slave, and the aforementioned forced socialisation.

I was on the meds for 4 years of my life. It ruined my brain, motivation, and executive dysfunction. It worsened my OCD and other mental illness and caused me to have some rather delusional thoughts about the world, about relationships, what I wanted to do in life or lack thereof, about a bunch of stuff. It literally made me dumber, and I was made to think it was my fault. These clinics that they took me to were built for kids. I was 15 or 16 at the time And the practitioners in them should not have been allowed to practice. It ruined the ability for me to see how abusive this was and actually do something about it.

It affected my ability to study computer engineering. I had to meet folks who were allowed to code since they were 8 and weren't fucking roofied when they pushed back against asinine parental limitations. I had to deal with burnout, executive dysfunction, OCD, and possible brain damage from how drugged and dysregulated I was.

Now that I realise all the time lost to it, and how other autistic folks had their lives ruined by being forced on risperidone, I'm just mad. Relaying my experiences my peers, they all agreed what happened to me was fucked. Relaying what they said to my folks, they always make justifications and logic about how at the time I was "too out of control" and "they didn't want to medicate me but they had to", and as of recent tension between my folks and I is really high, so I'm wondering if I'm overreacting or justified in my feelings.

I'm 24M and was diagnosed with autism at a very young age which I feel led to a lot of maltreatment from both my folks as well as society in general, everything from improper medication and effectively being treated like a slave, to having the belongings and interests I loved dear constantly taken away and pathologised for minor transgressions, to being yelled at all the time and there was also quite a bit of physical and spiritual abuse thrown in. I wasn't really allowed to code growing up and didn't have the motivation to practice things beyond the basics. I had boomer parents who effectively tried to punish the autism out of me and I wouldn't be surprised if it led to the whole alphabet of mental illnesses that haven't really resolved until now. I didn't get an ADHD diagnosis until I was 18 and even then they were hesitant to diagnose it as such because it presented as the "inattentive type" and "I was too smart to be diagnosed as such".

Adderall and Ritalin made me really anxious and Wellbutrin didn't do anything. I completely discontinued my antidepressants and antipsychotics about a month ago; the only thing I take now is Strattera. On top of that, I've gotten into nootropics and diagnosed with sleep apnea for which I've been prescribed a CPAP machine, and I have a job as a data engineer now.

I feel these changes have improved my life. I was a heavy gamer and stoner throughout my college years but have now given them up almost entirely, limiting them to short reward sessions in between long periods of work. My focus and awareness of my surroundings and what I'm doing has greatly improved. I'm not as chronically tired and out of energy as I used to be. Speaking of which, my job did indeed make me realise that I can hyperfocus for hours a day, and with it I decided to get into Vulkan to create my own overengineered bullet hell game engine.

Vulkan is a prohibitively complicated graphics programming API but this time around, I feel like I'm actually understanding and visualising what the tutorials are saying. Previous times I tried I couldn't, but now I do. I look forward to working with it more and more and applying what I'm learning to other interests of mine such as embedded systems and other low-level paradigms like FPGAs; I really enjoyed those in college.

All of these life-changing improvements are unfortunately not without a lot of grief for what I thought was ADHD but in retrospect I now feel might have just been an emotional and chemical assault on my brain, and now that I have it back, I just really don't wanna relapse into old habits. I grieve the time lost and what could have been had I not been so mistreated, made to think it was ADHD, or given in to the many mental illnesses I had. And in an age of AI, I want to be able to understand all of this stuff innately to prove I "still have it in me" without needing to outsource my problem solving to a machine.

Lemme know what your thoughts are, just kind of shouting into the void on the train ride home after a mind-stretching week at work.

I'm AuDHD and for almost 10 years I was on various mixtures of prescription drugs to try to "manage it" which turned out to be thinly veiled medical abuse, on top of all the other maltreatment I had to survive. I was on Prozac first then Risperdal and Cymbalta for 4 years, then for a time took Adderall and Paxil, as well as Ativan for anxiety, then it was Wellbutrin and Zoloft and then Ritalin in college, and then there was Strattera and Abilify. The only thing I take now is Strattera; I discontinued any other meds around 6 weeks ago.

I feel this cocktail of medications really messed with my ability to be an effective software engineer and solve problems with a high cognitive load or really understand maths and all that; it's really hampered my motivation and drive to do things, and I just want to be "normal" and have my brain back. Right now I'm dealing with ambient anger and shame for effectively being overmedicated almost half of my entire life and I turned to nootropics to try to reverse it.

My current stack is Alpha GPC, fish oil, and mushroom complex (lion's mane, turkey tail, cordyceps, reishi, maitake, chaga) in the morning, NAC at midday, then Uridine at night. The biggest change I feel was Semax nasal spray; started it today and it's made the biggest difference by far I feel. I got a lot of work done today and still have energy to get more done. I've also been looking into psychedelic therapy as well since it's been legalised where I live.

I've been getting into Vulkan, which is a very verbose graphics library for creating video games and harnessing the raw power of GPUs, and holy shit I actually understand it now. I've been on the rest for about a week.

How does this sound to y'all, and what recommendations do you have?

I'm AuDHD and for almost 10 years I was on various mixtures of prescription drugs to try to "manage it" which turned out to be thinly veiled medical abuse. I was on Prozac first then Risperdal and Cymbalta for 4 years, then for a time took Adderall and Paxil, as well as Ativan for anxiety, then it was Wellbutrin and Zoloft and then Ritalin in college, and then there was Strattera and Abilify. The only thing I take now is Strattera.

I feel this cocktail of medications really messed with my ability to be an effective software engineer and solve problems with a high cognitive load or really understand maths and all that; it's really hampered my motivation and drive to do things, and I just want to be "normal" and have my brain back. Right now I'm dealing with extreme anger and shame for effectively being overmedicated almost half of my entire life and I wish there were a way to reverse it.

I'm AuDHD and for almost 10 years I was on various mixtures of prescription drugs to try to "manage it" which turned out to be thinly veiled medical abuse. I was on Prozac first then Risperdal and Cymbalta for 4 years, then for a time took Adderall and Paxil, as well as Ativan for anxiety, then it was Wellbutrin and Zoloft and then Ritalin in college, and then there was Strattera and Abilify. The only thing I take now is Strattera.

I feel this cocktail of medications really messed with my ability to be an effective software engineer and solve problems with a high cognitive load or really understand maths and all that; it's really hampered my motivation and drive to do things, and I just want to be "normal" and have my brain back. Right now I'm dealing with extreme anger and shame for effectively being overmedicated almost half of my entire life and I wish there were a way to reverse it.

I'm AuDHD and for almost 10 years I was on various mixtures of prescription drugs to try to "manage it" which turned out to be thinly veiled medical abuse. I was on Prozac first then Risperdal and Cymbalta for 4 years, then for a time took Adderall and Paxil, as well as Ativan for anxiety, then it was Wellbutrin and Zoloft and then Ritalin in college, and then there was Strattera and Abilify. The only thing I take now is Strattera.

I feel this cocktail of medications really messed with my ability to be an effective software engineer and solve problems with a high cognitive load or really understand maths and all that; it's really hampered my motivation and drive to do things, and I just want to be "normal" and have my brain back. Right now I'm dealing with extreme anger and shame for effectively being overmedicared almost half of my entire life and I wish there were a way to reverse it.

I'm AuDHD and for almost 10 years I was on various mixtures of prescription drugs to try to "manage it" which turned out to be thinly veiled medical abuse. I was on Prozac first then Risperdal and Cymbalta for 4 years, then for a time took Adderall and Paxil, as well as Ativan for anxiety, then it was Wellbutrin and Zoloft and then Ritalin in college, and then there was Strattera and Abilify. The only thing I take now is Strattera.

I feel this cocktail of medications really messed with my ability to be an effective software engineer and solve problems with a high cognitive load or really understand maths and all that; it's really hampered my motivation and drive to do things, and I just want to be "normal" and have my brain back. Right now I'm dealing with extreme anger and shame for effectively being overmedicared almost half of my entire life and I wish there were a way to reverse it.