Sombyr

For me, it's the complete and total inability to focus on anything without caffeine. I can't even do something I enjoy for longer than 10 minutes before I'm off the rails doing something completely unrelated for 2 minutes before I'm on to something else unrelated for another 2, never getting back to the original task.

Having a fixation on a hobby for me, instead of meaning dedicating myself to it, means thinking about it constantly in between goofing off, and never being able to actually get myself to do it, to my own immense frustration.

Writing is probably my biggest fixation I have, and I have dozens of 40 page long plot skeletons for series I want to write, all written a single paragraph at a time per day, and exactly one novel where the first draft is half finished after 3 years of work, and I haven't written a single word in about a year because every time I sit down to write, I literally immediately get distracted. Forcing myself to do it in various ways instead of goofing off results in feeling horrible, and writing horrible quality writing I have to delete the next day, all because my brain could not engage with what I was doing, even though I absolutely love it normally.

And the biggest indicator that I have adhd, besides being actually diagnosed with it, is that all these issues vanish when I drink absurd amounts of caffeine. I can write and enjoy it. In fact, I can write 10,000 words in a single day and absolutely love every minute of it. Albiet, it tends to be 10,000 words into a novella I end up trashing, but that's still productivity.

As for autism, well, I have difficulty communicating, can't talk to somebody about anything without looping the conversation around to me (how do you even talk without talking about yourself? Still can't figure that out,) and also have extreme sensory issues. If my hands are even slightly dry I retch, if my fingernails are too short, same thing. I also can't be around large groups of people because it overstimulates me immediately and I forget how to everything.

I can agree with that. I've been part of a cult before (was born into it) and I can recognize a lot of what I went through there in far right people. I guess I'm just a little sensitive to people calling these people idiots and hateful people due to seeing myself in them. Like, to me, they're (usually) just good people being manipulated into thinking the awful things they say and do are good, and they need a rational and caring person to pull them slowly out of it, the same way I did.

Obviously, it takes more than just talking usually to pull somebody out of a cult, but I think it's still a big part of it. They've been fooled into thinking that things that are rational aren't, and unless they're confronted with the actual truth and the facts to back them up, they're not going to even start to question their beliefs.

I'm also not suggesting that every person needs to debate every republican about every issue they bring up. If you can't or even just don't want to debate somebody, you don't have any obligation to, but I don't think insulting them over it is almost ever the right response.

There's also the angle of how every cult teaches you that you're going to be persecuted for your beliefs, and brainwashes you into thinking that should reaffirm you that you must be correct. That is one major reason I think labeling all conservatives as irrational and hopeless is dangerous. When somebody who's been taught that the world is going to hate them for being "right" finds that the world does not, in fact, hate them, but instead just displays genuine concern, that's when you fully start to question everything.

I don't think every right winger is going to fling left when presented with this view. In fact, I think the vast majority won't, but it will make them a little more understanding, and a little more understanding over the course of many years and generations adds up.

I like listening to multiple songs at the same time. Like, playing a video game, while listening to music, but not also muting the game's music, so I hear both at once.

I'm not sure if gay men have to deal with that more, or if it's me specifically who's weird for never having anybody do that to me when I mention my wife.

The one time anything like that did come up, I was the one who brought it up and the dude was just like "Yeah, I knew you were into women before you even said anything. You've just got that vibe."

Point is somebody took the door off my closet.

lol, never even been to a real city in my entire life. Literally the most populated place I've ever been to doesn't even crack a population of 50k people, and the most populated place I ever lived was a tenth of that. Been a small town girl my whole life.

Definitely heard the trees thing as a kid though, I'd just already been told that trees were being blown around by the wind, but nobody could tell me that cars were being blown around by the wind I felt when I saw them, so that's why I concluded it must be the cars that were responsible for the wind.

I noticed there was always a gust of wind after cars passed, so I concluded wind was caused by invisible cars driving by. Storms were caused by the invisible drivers driving too fast.

I used to go outside during storms and yell at them to slow down. I was convinced it was working.

Fixed typo resulting in ticks giving lyme disease instead of limes diseases. Ticks now properly feed on fruit juices instead of blood.

Interesting. I suppose they're both objects with pointy bits much larger than the holes they're trying to pass through. On that note, I've been through very severe anal stenosis and THAT I would say was closing in on the most horrific pain I've ever been through. Before I could go to the doctor about it my wife basically had to spend all day and sometimes night keeping me occupied so I had something to do other than cry.

Huh. I'm guessing the pain of kidney stones comes in varying levels, because the one time I had them I wouldn't have called it the most painful thing in the world.

Then again, I could also have inherited my mom's pain tolerance, who gave birth multiple times without any kind of pain relief and without flinching.

That's basically how I was. Honestly, the reason I enjoy movies nowadays isn't really because it's my thing, but because my wife is always so excited to show me the movies she likes, and I can't help but enjoy myself when it's making her happy.

I rarely watch movies on my own, or with other people besides her, but when I do, it's usually because I think it'd be fun to tell her all about it, and maybe watch it with her too.

I'm also bigger on reading, but I have really severe, unmedicated ADHD, so I can't sit down with an actual book for longer than a few minutes. Gotta have pretty pictures, like a manga or graphic novel or something (and even then it's hard.)

Every time that comes up, I think to myself "Something I've gone through must be more painful, right? I've gone through some pretty hellish things, and you're trying to tell me something MORE painful exists? Not just a little more, but dramatically more? For my own sanity, I'm gonna have to live in denial of that."

I used to be like this, but with movies. When I first met my wife, she was utterly baffled at the concept of somebody not enjoying movies, and she made it her mission to make me enjoy them.

Come to think of it, she actually doesn't like music much. I've failed to change her opinion on that though because my taste in music is shit (and I'm proud of it.)