BlackRing

I used to, my wife’s snoring made it hard to get a word in edge wise, so I stopped.

Good.

Just wanted to say wow, so much of that sounds familiar!

As far as medication, I have not decided yet. This is all recent, within the last year. Therapy has been helping a lot for my current state, but ADHD isn’t the focus. Recovering from burnout is.

I haven’t looked into anything you’ve mentioned.

I have been described as, and willing describe myself as, a good person with a capacity for kindness. I am not nice in much of what that means.

I think my political stances sometimes highlight that. I will willingly punch nazis given the chance. No, that’s not hyperbole. I have no tolerance for bigotry. I lost a good friend who became a cop, and then said some questionable but not outright hateful things in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder.

A flawed but not altogether useless analogy is I am not the guy who waves someone on at a stop sign when it is that person who is supposed to yield. I have no patience for it, nor do I have patience for it happening the other way around.

When I recognized that a now good friend wasn’t so harsh to me out of spite or hate but out of personal struggle, I wanted to know more, and now we not only became good friends, but we are to each other among the very few people we talk openly with about therapy and how it’s really going. We both understand and respect the need to break down the stigma of seeking help with mental health. We had both peered into the void.

But in public, I wind up ignoring a lot of people simply from wearing headphones and wanting nothing to do with any of it.

“How does this (dress, shirt, whatever) look on me?” My wife gets the truth, like it or not.

I could go on, and am willing to try to answer any questions.

I have a high IQ as well as ADHD and Autism.

Out of context, scoring as high as I did really meant next to nothing. In the context of the diagnoses I received later in life, definitely made sense, and helped color a picture painted in two solid days with a psychologist.

Somehow, I think it’s important that the IQ test I took was not called an IQ test to me until after. Like, I knew I was in for tests, but more broadly told what things were about.

As a student, I had a science teacher who had been teaching many years, tell my mother he had never seen a student think in the manner I did. I was doing exceptionally well in class, but did not exceed in the fashion that would get me into an ivy league school, which at the time was supposed to be a goal. My father graduated MIT.

There are times when it’s great. When I can focus on something, I can learn a lot and get very good at it. However, I spent decades with two obstacles I could never get myself past: the inability to keep that focus or control it, and the inability to even understand other people enough to try to get along with them long-term.

The result is I am just now, at 41, starting to figure out what I want to do with my life after way too long in a profession I should never have entered, and burned out of twice. And by burn out I do not mean tired and sad, I mean hospitalization.

In summary, it can be pretty great, but in my case it’s fraught with difficulty as well.

Soul Calibur 3!!! Yeah!!!

Therapy.

I saw my need for therapy coming over a year ago, and wait was so long I didn’t get therapy started until October.

That and I am hoping to start writing. A blog of some sort. Help me think through everything in a way that might help the two or however many readers I manage to gather.

It’s not often I prefer the typo over the correct spelling…

Phone’s haunted.

Also… Google translate says hai is German for shark. So there’s that.

Also changing the color of random pawns! That one was fun!

We do. I think it can depend on where you are. In my county, it most commonly is for tornadoes, but it can also sound for blizzards, other severe storms, hazardous chemical releases, and ‘civil emergency.’

I like this much better than just for tornadoes. You could check your county government website, see what it says.

Pretty sure there is. Went for a massage recently, and ‘this is not a sexual encounter’ is explicitly in the terms of service you have to sign when making an appointment.

I had an aunt and uncle who, when I was a kid maybe 12, were not well off. They got my brother and I each this toyset that was like make pretend welding. It had a hand tool that, if I remember, let you weld with this soft plastic to make things with the parts in the kit.

It also had a chamber near the nozzle that spun and contained something that made a bunch of sparks.

Well… The thing kept zapping and burning me. Kinda hurt. So, being 12, I complained about it.

And of course, I was an ingrate for not liking the toy they could afford instead of a Lego set or something. The worst of it was I got what my parents meant, my aunt and uncle were kind of ashamed. But it burned me.

Hell I thought it was really cool, and even said so, but I couldn’t keep playing with it due to, you know, my hand being red and kinda cut up.

Just bad times all around.

And no, no one suggested put a glove on, and it did not come with one.

There are so many things that just shouldn’t be digitized. I get it but… Just no.

Prozac and therapy.

Which honestly, is working. If only I arrived at this method sanely, rather than nearly ending it all and winding up in a hospital.

Prozac.

I put a gun to my head, ready to end it all.

Woke up in a hospital. No drugs involved.

I drove myself there. The gun was in the glove compartment. Apparently, I self admitted through ED.

I remember NOTHING from gun to my head to waking up in the hospital.

Not sure if that qualifies as near death, but I think I was.

I am better now. That was years ago, I came close again recently, but this time I have answers about myself and a place to start.

Lilo and Stitch!

Nope. Not normal sounding to me. Even your doctor says it’s not normal if you think about it, he thinks it’s early. As everyone else states, second opinion time.

Everything you listed, I get, but at a mere fraction, save for the swelling, nothing here. Beyond seeing another doctor for a second opinion, it sounds like you’re physically fit, which is more troubling. I am kind of fit, and sometimes my back hurts. What makes it go away? Working out my core muscles in a regimen after a few weeks. Staying active.

I am 40 fwiw, and you sound far worse off than I feel. See another physician.

Try to take the time to care for your mental and emotional health when you need to, then, instead of stewing for years and years. I made the mistake of rolling with it, turned 35, and I’m lucky to still be here at 40.

Still struggling. Wish I’d spoken with someone years ago.