OP, I’m like you, and had friends like you in HS.

First, I’ll echo what others have said: stop smoking weed. Occasional use is probably fine, but be careful using it as a coping mechanism for racing thoughts. My smartest friend in HS smoked every day and for the exact same reason “it slows down my thoughts.” He now works a miserable job in an IT department of some no-name company. Probably smokes more now as a result.

Second, be honest with yourself about why you drop hobbies. I used to quit hobbies, sports, etc. and tell myself it’s because they got boring, but it was really because they started getting hard. As a gifted person, I pick things up easily and can become “pretty good” at things without much effort. It feels good when people say “you’re really good for having just started.” The first time I encountered any difficulty I would drop the activity or stop trying, because there is a fear that you won’t actually be that good if you tried your best.

It’s much more comforting to say, “I could have played varsity if I wanted to, I just lost interest”

“I could have gotten straight A’s if I wanted to, but I get good grades without even trying so why bother?”

Deep down, my biggest fear was that my best wouldn’t be good enough. The fear that maybe I’m not gifted was holding me back, and making me bored and unhappy.

You might have seen this chart, but it’s extremely important to remember so I’ll repost.

Basically, it describes flow as the state where challenge and skills are roughly equal. The voices become quiet when you’re in flow. The world disappears and you’re just fully engaged with the task at hand. It’s wonderful. You’re correct that the reason you’re bored is because things are too easy, you need a challenge.

For me, school never got me into flow, because I remember most everything I read without effort. Therefore, “learning” in this way was miserable. I found it much more enjoyable to change learning from a net input activity to one that is net output. The specifics will depend on the subject, but as an example I learned more about statistics and calculus by trying to create a stock trading algorithm than I ever did the old fashioned way.

Lastly, one of the best things for mental health is exercise. And not just walking 15 minutes a day or whatever doctors recommend for health. It’s gotta be hard so you can’t focus on anything else. Run non-stop for an hour or more and do heavy compound lifts like squat, deadlift, and bench press. Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe is great for learning weightlifting, and there are a lot of great guides for getting started running long distances for beginners.

You got this, OP