I’ve got a degree in engineering. I love engineering, programming, electronics, CAD and physical prototype design. I love identifying problems and figuring out requirements and designing something to solve it. I know I’m really good at it, but I can only really perform what feels like 20% of the time.
I’ll get into some hyper focus for some problem, learn some complex technology, solve the problem, then not be able to look at tech for weeks. This is cool for hobby stuff but man I gotta work too.
I find it nearly impossible to work on things which I don’t find personally interesting which isn’t good because most “work” isn’t interesting whatsoever. I envy people who are able to just go “ah time to do this boring thing” and they just fucking do it. It genuinely feels impossible to just start.
I’m medicated for ADHD but it feels like it only works like 20-30% of the time. The rest of the time my eyes just lose focus and I stare blankly at a screen waiting for hours to pass.
I don’t know how to make this work for me either. I know theoretically I could be a prototype engineer, the type of freelance generalist who gets an idea out and disappears but I don’t know how to network sufficiently enough to do that. I’ve got a good job right now, but COL is so high and full remote isn’t possible so I’ll always be living in a small apartment or be in so much debt I’ll never be able to retire.
I want to do more hardware stuff but that’s so rarely a remote type job and offices just hurt my soul with how uncomfortable I am all day long. I could probably make a living as a software engineer but I don’t know if I’d be able to keep up any kind of pace long term that would let me keep my job.
I almost want to take a stab at doing youtube videos and see if I can make a handful of neat projects that get me a sponsor. enough to score a house in a rundown rustbelt town and be able to fuck off and work at my own pace without the impending doom of rent or mortgage staring me down.
I drink plenty of water, jog when its warm, use a pomodoro timer when I remember. I learned the fundamentals of Rust in a weekend, designed and manufactured a run of PCBs in under 3 months. I just can’t keep that momentum going, even if I try to slow down.
thanks for letting me rant. Its not lost on me how privileged I am in this scenario. I’m quite lucky and comfortable but it terrifies me how even someone doing well like myself can’t see an exit off this awful ride.
“I’m medicated for ADHD but it feels like it only works like 20-30% of the time. The rest of the time my eyes just lose focus and I stare blankly at a screen waiting for hours to pass.”
Yeah, I’m doing university (I have two more semesters left) and an internship and I feel ya.
“I almost want to take a stab at doing youtube videos and see if I can make a handful of neat projects that get me a sponsor. enough to score a house in a rundown rustbelt town and be able to fuck off and work at my own pace without the impending doom of rent or mortgage staring me down.”
Feel that too. I have a YouTube and TikTok channel but it’s harder than it looks. And I don’t want to do it for the money, I just want to make videos.
But man, so many things to do and so little time, it seems.
Yeah, I don’t want to pretend like youtube or other content creation is easy. I think I do well in multi-disciplinary projects where I can bounce around my tasks when I get tired of one aspect. When I get into it, I almost can’t stop working, which is bad because then I burn out.
But man, so many things to do and so little time, it seems.
too true.
The problem is I have trouble “switching” to the next task.
I can’t just start another task. I get stuck in one task due to my OCD and Autism or for whatever reason, and I just can’t switch to the next one that easily.
I hear that, if I’m hyper focused I can’t switch but if I’m feeling distracted, picking another task for a bit is super welcome and gets some momentum going from feeling accomplished. I feel like my main task every day is just tricking my brain into painting the proverbial fence.
Same here.
What helps is me having a “dopamine menu.” Not sure if you know about it.
Also, certain routines is how I get through stuff; do three stuff you want to do with one thing you don’t want to do.
I haven’t heard of a dopamine menu but I have a weird feeling I might have accidentally discovered it myself. I’ll look into it!
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I experienced that too but it got cold and gl getting my ass to a corporate gym.
Only gym I ever enjoyed going to was this strength/powerlifting gym owned by a husband and wife and the clientele was equal part older ladies flipping tires and the largest, kindest power lifters I’ve ever met.
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Never met someone more excited to form check a stranger. There was never any judgemental feelings from that place, just good vibes and heavy weights.
Same. The most friendliest old school gym, it was my safe space for real. For me this place closed down a few years ago so I first tried to go to the rebranded, but could not.
Thankfully got some home equipment during covid so doing that still. It actually worked out great for bodyimage and audhd inertia, but the initial cost was high even though I got the stuff a lot cheaper from a friend.
I’m confused. Do you have a job in tech? Maybe you just… don’t like what you went to school for. That happens. Or your associate the work with something negative enough that you don’t like doing it.
I work in tech but I solve enough problems daily that (although minor) I get the dopamine hit to keep going. I also know how to recognize small victories. I too had the burnout problem when trying to build a 3d printer and just let it stay half assembled for an entire year. Then I picked it up again a few weeks ago. I’ll keep working on it today because I don’t want to burn cash on a preassembled printer and I know I can finish it. It’s just time consuming. How I manage burnout won’t be the same for you but you can try switching projects more often instead if grinding out the same one until it’s done. I learn that way that since projects are not worth finishing or at least require me to think about how to continue them for a while. But I usually go back to them to work them out anyway. Because leaving half done projects sucks.
I’m confused. Do you have a job in tech? Maybe you just… don’t like what you went to school for.
I have a job in tech, a fairly niche area that has limited mobility, which leaves me stuck in a geographical area I don’t enjoy living in working with certain personalities I don’t enjoy working with. This is partially me being a baby but my personality clashes a lot with the kinds of personalities the area attracts. I really enjoy the subject matter but the general psychic toll it takes to work on it isn’t worth it. I rather do something else and do this as a hobby without stakes.
I still like what I went to school for and find myself tinkering more often than playing games. I think I’m frustrated to the extent I must retrain myself to exit my current field. Basically like taking on a second job which really saps the joy out of the learning.
It’s not generally that difficult to switch engineering fields, you just have to be able to sell your experience and knowledge as relevant. I know electrical engineers working exclusively in software, robotics engineers working in semiconductor manufacturing, biomedical engineers working as electrical engineers. Now, right now it might be a little difficult to do so, because a lot of tech and engineering companies seem to be wary of actually hiring on (my boss is basically on a hiring freeze, but they’re shuffling people around to avoid having to train new people after recovering from hypothetical layoffs). I’m not sure what the next year will hold, but I’ve become more discrete in my workplace organizing because I feel like the writing is on the wall right now and I swear every other engineer is a fucking chud.
I’m not saying abandon the job that puts food on the table. What I am saying is you should start looking for other jobs or try reconciling with your coworkers. Because it’ll only get worse until you change something. And that change will not come externally. Best of luck.
This is me as well. ADHD sucks. Sorry I don’t have anything useful to add as comment here
Glad to have some comrades in the fight against our selves.
I relate to this post so much
Very relatable. I am not going go be a lot of help because I am someone who looks to be finishing her first actual studies decades after her adulthood officially started, haha. I have so many jobs and unfinished studies under my belt that being a month or so away from finishing an actual thesis feels wild.
Only thing that changed for me is I understood my neurotype, understood how I work. Mostly thanks to my kid who is just like me. So I just try my best to accomodate that, the start-stop style of work and such. The 0 to 100 with nothing in between. I try to work with it as much as I can.
I have no diagnosis, don’t think I want one as I am very much of the emansipatory view of neurodiversity and always kind of sucked (pushed back) at masking.
I always did love exercise, the harder the better. I get why now. I don’t try to change myself tbh, I try to change my surroundings a lot more. I say no a lot more, I guard my energy more and accept the ebs and flows of my mind as they are. The days when nothing happens I just think of as needed charging days for those hyperfocus days where weeks happen.
I think I also still grieve for exactly what you describe there, the “lost potential” (I hate this framing). But trying to accept that in a society that functions like this one does, I can never reach my “full potential” and that it is not on me. If anything this has radicalized me more, if not for me than for my kid who is living in the same uphill struggle. We need a world built for everyone, not just the majority.
Thanks for sharing, I think understanding one’s way of working is really important and i’m currently trying to figure out that for myself. Lots of trial and error!
Relatable. It has been an up hill battle to get through uni and sit all my exams, and still now I do what feels like what little I can muster while I’m at work. I’ll spend so much time planning to do stuff but never actually getting anywhere. I’m unmedicated, undiagnosed, and the only thing I have that remotely helps is modafinil, but that’s a point the barrel and pull the trigger situation where if I am still not 100% distraction free I will hyper focus all my energy into something else completely irrelevant.
Other people can just switch off and distract themselves with games or whatever. I am so jealous of those people. I never get a break. I’m either doing work, or thinking about what work I need to be doing, and I’m so inefficient I still get less done than an equivalent neurotypical. I do all this work just to keep up, and if I could only function properly, with this level of dedication I could become god.
Throughout all uni people would just do their work. My entire life I have complained I have homework to do and people would always respond so just do it if you care about it, like it’s that easy. At work I watch people dutifully plod along all day every day and I just… if I have a meeting and it goes on for too long I just will not work for the rest of the day.
It used to take me hours and hours to do a single homework. Most days for me started at 7am and ended at 9pm. I’d just sit there till it was done because there was no other option. It worked out in the long run but man it was miserable.
The struggle is real
What do you take currently for your ADHD, and what’s the amount?
Fairly low, 18mg Methylphenidate XR. Still enough to give me anxiety if I’m not mindful. I had a lot of experience with various not-my prescription stimulants in college. from 5mg adderall IR to 60mg vyvanse. Ritalin/concerta were by far the worst but my doctor is convinced they’re better because they’re “newer” despite JFK being on fuckin ritalin lmao. I got prescribed stimulants without the formal diagnosis that takes a day and costs almost $2k. I hear there’s a shorter cheaper test now but finding a new doctor is a whole ordeal.
Ah I see. I don’t have the anxiety side effect. Vyvanse was what ultimately worked for me. Ritalin did basically nothing in my experience but everyone is different.
ritalin made me angry and disagreeable
Huh that’s interesting. Vyvanse does the opposite for me. It mellows out my moodienness. Pulls the extremes closer together so I’m not so quick to piss off.
oh yeah it’s wonderful. my younger brother who has very similar issues and takes vyvanse said it’s the “rolls royce” of adhd medicine. here people try to get it for school and a friend asked to buy some off me for his exams.
I loved vyvanse for school work but until recently it was way too expensive. I need to figure out how to ask for it without sounding like i’m drug seeking.
I’ve never tried anything but ritalin/concerta as this is what doctors here prescribe unless that have very good reasons to prescribe something else.
It’s not working miracles but it is certainly a significant improvement compared to no ritalin. When I forget to get a new prescription or when I can’t afford the meds I’m certainly a hell of a lot worse off than usually.
I feel you. There was a shortage of vyvanse in my area and it took me about two weeks to find more and those two weeks were very unproductive.
Aww man, this speaks to my core.
I’m autistic and I’m pretty sure I have a nasty case of ADHD myself and it’s practically made me catatonic. I know I’m more “capable” than my current performance in life suggests, but it’s like I lost all passion and will to do anything. I may like the idea of doing something, but I’ll tell myself I’ll never commit. I’m going to get tested for ADHD sometime soon, and if that’s the case I will simply go on meds and as I’m working with a career coach, finally start my life.
I’m kind of in the same boat. I do rather enjoy my work as a software developer (or rather, I don’t actively hate doing it), but the impostor complex combined with my typical ADHD lack of ability to get the “boring stuff” out of the way can get pretty rough. The first couple of years or so at my current job was mostly just staring blankly at the screen for (n) hours and feeling like I was doing just barely enough (i.e. 20%-30%), all while panicking because I wanted to make a good impression and keep the job, and being afraid of someone catching on and getting me fired. Apparently I did something right though, because I’m still employed after several rounds of layoffs, and it almost seems like my colleagues are starting to consider me a “senior developer?” I can’t say I’m any more efficient these days, and the apparent “job security” makes me a lot less stressed out and worried. Therapy has helped a lot too with getting rid of the impostor thoughts. It might even be that I was always actually good at this job, just the constant thoughts that “I could do more” was fucking me up.
I struggle a lot with the same thing of wanting to do all sorts of other amazing things that I KNOW I’m capable of. I want to make a video game, I want to do more shader programming, I want to reverse engineer proprietary bullshit, but god damn jesus who has the energy for that after work? On the other hand, I also know myself well enough to know that if I quit my job to focus on the aforementioned amazing things, I’d feel the exact same things. “Man I should really be doing that thing right now, I quit my job for this, oh jeez why am I not doing it?” etc etc. That leads me to believe it’s less of a problem with my lack of ability, and has more to do with the standards I hold myself to. It’s would be quite unsustainable to always work at that 400% efficiency hyperfocus godmode (though it would be nice to be able to tap into it more often), so it’s not reasonable of me to have that as the baseline of “doing well” and “being productive”. If that makes any sense. I’m still working through this stuff.
As for meds, I take 28mg methylphenidate every morning. Honestly it often feels like it doesn’t do anything at all. Though if I don’t take it, the executive dysfunction gets turned up to 1000, so I guess it probably does something, it’s just very subtle some times. 56mg was way too god damn much and made me all jittery and anxious. Anyway, I think of it less like some magic pill I can take to magically make me neurotypical (which it kind of felt like when I initially started taking it), and more like a slight push in the right direction. Lowers the threshold for my brain machine to go “hey, weren’t we supposed to do this other, important thing rn?” rather than just ignoring it and coping with the anxiety with bullshit while the pressure builds and builds and builds. I still have to actually do the thing, but the meds make it a little bit easier to convince myself to at least think about it.
Solidarity with your struggle.
I do a weird thing with my dosage. I dunno if your doctor is chill. I take the same med but I take 36mg extended release. I also have a prescription of 10mg. Depending on the kinda day I am about I will break one in half and sometimes take an extra 5mg. I found my levels would vary through the day and thst with lunch seems to really keep my executive function okay. I work 12 hours shifts so your milage might vary about how much and when you take them.
I didn’t see if anyone else addressed it. If you adhd meds work 30% of the time that is a sign they work but the treatment protocol needs to be adjusted.
Maybe you need a higher dose. Maybe you need to cheat and drink coffee with it to smooth out curve if dose response. Maybe a diffrent kind of med would work better. Mabe you need an extended release med. Maybe you need regular release meds but you need to take them them so your doses line up with your work schedule. There are graphs about how long drugs stay in your system. As an engineer you might be interested in working with that.
Be careful about taking more stimulants with ADHD medication. It can really fuck up your heart
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It sounds like you have the skills to design synthesizers or something like that.
its funny you say that, I’ve done some playing around with some dsp for a guitar effects pedal had a prototype with a few modes, a display and controls. Just awful mixed signal wiring so the noise was unbearable. I’ve got an idea for a sturdier prototype to design and I’ve got a friend who does analog effects and knows signal stuff well so we were going to collaborate.
I’m currently just trying to eek out a couple smaller pet projects before i go back to the land of datasheets and trace matching.
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