dumptruckdan

I post a picture using the embed picture feature and it doesn’t work right. A while back I posted a comment breaking down some math about some kind of employment/cost of living/rent issue and my math was all wrong and I couldn’t make my brain work enough to fix it. Etc. Just frustrating and embarrassing.

Man I give up trying to comment here, everything I do on the fediverse ends up messed up somehow. Despite my family’s insistence to the contrary I may actually be stupid.

deleted by creator

Yes exactly. Apologies for the wordiness.

It made more sense when I started thinking of humans as animals. In that context it’s like dogs sniffing butts or ants touching antennae when they meet. I eventually settled on a few generic responses that felt less fake than “fine” (idk why “fine” rankles me so much but “not too bad” doesn’t, but eh) but didn’t elicit further questions, and that made it slightly easier.

I agree with the other commenters that you should spend some time outside your comfort zone but pace yourself very carefully. The article mentioned a proximal zone that’s outside but adjacent to the comfort zone. I think it’s good to mostly shoot for that with occasional planned forays further out just to test yourself.

IMO nobody should be telling you when to go outside your comfort zone or how far, or whether you’re doing it enough, unless it’s someone close to you whose opinion you can trust and who you know will hear you out when you say you’re overwhelmed. And even then you still have veto power because you’re the one who has to deal with the fallout if you push yourself too far and melt down or burn out. I don’t ever see any NT folks volunteering to help people clean up their life after that except maybe social workers and therapists.

The flip side of this is that since nobody can tell you how much is too much, you’re responsible for monitoring that yourself and communicating or removing yourself before you get overwhelmed. That’s a good use for the proximal zone - testing your boundaries and keeping an eye on your mood so you can learn to spot when you are approaching your limit. Easier said than done, but I’ve found it worth the effort. And it gets easier with time.

The other thing to recognize is that some days your comfort zone is pretty big and other days it’s about as big as your bed. Asking yourself “how big is my comfort zone today” helps you give yourself some grace. If it’s a bed day and you got out of bed, you already exited your comfort zone and should factor that in when you plan your day.

Tom Waits - Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis

When the going gets weird, the weird go pro.

Being a responsible adult with ADHD means kind of doing both in a controlled way. What I mean by that is, ADHD gives you some deficits and difficulties. On the one hand, you can’t use it as an excuse to not work on those difficulties and do your best. On the other hand, you also shouldn’t be hard on yourself if your best sometimes doesn’t measure up to other people’s expectations. And for your sanity you should always give yourself breaks from working on yourself.

Only reason I can think of is to get in on the ground floor of the fediverse and eat its lunch.

I prefer to journal by hand, mainly because journaling on the computer feels unnatural somehow. But I can’t write more than 1-2 pages before my hand cramps up.

Or me, who arranges them as close to rainbow order as possible (brown is sorta close to purple right? No? Oh well), eats the extras, then eats the rest in rainbow order.

Froot loops are a whole other story.